Nigeria sets up team to resolve oil hostages crisis

By Ola Awoniyi
AFP
ABUJA
Petroleumworld.com 01 18 06

Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo Tuesday ordered security forces to win the release of four foreign hostages after a week of chaos in the oil industry, the world's sixth biggest source of crude.

In emergency meetings with senior political and military leaders, Obasanjo set up a team to coordinate moves to free four oil workers -- an American, a Briton, a Bulgarian and a Honduran -- kidnapped six days ago.

The men were seized from an offshore supply vessel on January 11 by armed separatists and are thought to be hidden in the creeks of the Niger Delta by a group that has demanded the release of two ethnic Ijaw leaders.

One of the two, Mujahid Dokubo Asari, appeared in court here on treason charges and bellowed a warning: "We, the Ijaw people, have resolved that we will go any length to get our freedom and bring Obasanjo to justice."

"Tell the imperialists, Shell or the other oil conglomerates, they should leave. If they do not leave, the Ijaw people will make them leave whether Asari is in prison or not," he told journalists shortly before his trial resumed at the Federal High Court in Abuja.

"My position is very clear: if the the decision of the Ijaw people is to go on armed struggle, it is binding on me and I am in total support of it. Oil has brought a lot of misery to the Ijaw and the Niger-Delta people. It has brought environmental degradation and communal strife," Asari said.

Judge Olayiwola Peters, who rejected an application by the defence to hands off the case, adjourned further trial till March 14.

After the kidnappings, Ijaw militants blew up a major pipeline and, on Sunday, raided an oil pumping plant operated by the Anglo-Dutch giant Shell, killing several soldiers and at least one contract worker.

The crisis has seen Shell cut its production by 211,000 barrels of oil per day, more than eight percent of Nigeria's total output, and contributed to the upward pressure on oil prices which has seen them touch three-month highs.

The previously unknown Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), has demanded Asari be released along with a second Ijaw champion, the disgraced governor of Bayelsa State, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha.

Alamieyeseigha was arrested last month after he absconded from Britain to escape a money-laundering charge in a London court. He was subsequently impeached by the Bayelsa State assembly.

Obasanjo accused Alamieyeseigha of large-scale embezzlement and used his arrest as an example of the relative success of a recent anti-corruption drive, but some Ijaw hardliners see his arrest as a slight.

Asari used his court appearance to call out to his supporters, declaring: "Obasanjo is a dictator, and he will pay for the crimes he is committing against the people of this country and against humanity."

Experts and security sources in the delta told AFP that MEND appeared to be an alliance of hardline Asari and Alamieyeseigha supporters who attacked Shell facilities in order to influence the outcome of the trials.

But while the group itself may have limited aims, many fear the violence could reignite broader conflict in the Delta, an impoverished region with a deep-seated resentment of the government and oil giants.

In Warri, the nearest city to the Benisede flow station, residents said they were worried a military counter-attack would be bloody and the city could fall back into the chaos of 2003.

Fighting then left hundreds dead and forced Shell, American Chevron and other oil majors temporarily to close down the equivalent of half the daily output from Africa's biggest oil producer.

"I hope the military don't over-react and start burning villages again. They should sort out this problem and free the hostages through dialogue," Ijaw boatman Henry Imhanlenjay told AFP in the city.

Rights activist Joseph Evah, who runs the Ijaw Monitoring Group, said: "The Niger Delta youth are uncontrollable because the brains and hands are idle. They should bring industry and employment."

Nigeria pumps some 2.6 million barrels per day, but most of its 130 million people live under the World Bank's "poverty line" on less than one dollar per day.
ola-bur/dc/eg/nb

AFP 01/17/06

Copyright © 2006 AFP. All rights reserved

 

 

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