Saturday's announcement also warned oil producing firms to vacate the region immediately, warning that they should be ready to accept responsibility for whatever happened to their staff who remain at their bases.
Ailing president Umaru Musa Yar'Adua brokered the amnesty and in the course of his long absence from home, leading businessmen had expressed worry that the amnesty will be one of the first victims of the power vacuum that has followed Yar'Adua's failure to formally hand over power to vice president Goodluck Jonathan.
The decision by MEND is likely to return the Niger Delta to a theatre of war, lead to a sharp drop in crude export, collapsing government revenues and further plunge the nation into darkness given that gas supply to power plants across the country will be curtailed.