NIGER Delta militants have pledged to support a young candidate of northern extraction come the 2019 presidential elections

NIGER Delta militants have pledged to support a young candidate of northern extraction come the 2019 presidential elections in exchange for northerners allowing President Goodluck Jonathan to complete his second term in office.
On February 14, President Goodluck of the People's Democratic Party will face up to General Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress in Nigeria's presidential elections. President Goodluck is an ethnic Ijaw from the Niger Delta, while General Buhari is an ethnic Fulani from northern Nigeria.

Over recent weeks, the elections have taken an ethnic slant with some northerners insisting that it is their turn to produce the president under Nigeria's rotational policy. In contrast, leaders of some of the Niger Delta militant groups have threatened all out war and to stop oil supplies if President Jonathan is not returned to office.

In what appears to be a conciliatory move, former militants from western Niger Delta comprising Ondo, Edo and parts of Delta States, have declared that they would support a youth from northern Nigeria after the incumbent president has completed his second term. They arrived at the decision after a meeting convened by one of their leaders, Chief Bibopiri Ajube, alias Shoot At Sight, which held at Agadagba in Ese–Odo Local Government Area of Ondo State.

This meeting was attended by hundreds of ex-militants and generals, including Chief Mafimisebi Otelo, Chief OmoTonwerigha, General Nso Siemens and the member of the Ondo State House of Assembly representing Ese Odo Constituency, Hon Lubi Akpoebi. Various speakers said they took the amnesty offer because they believed in one Nigeria but lamented that some bad old elements, who had been controlling the wealth of the nation to the detriment of the youths, had been misleading them.

Chief Ajube declared that if General Buhari, who had been controlling the north for over 30 years, is still allowed to rule again, it will spell doom for the youths in northern Nigeria. He added that the attitude of the old people in the area is not in the interest of the youths, pointing out that Niger Delta youths, who engaged in the struggle to ensure better living condition for the people of the region, would not have confronted the authority if the old generation had done well for them.