Nigerian general removed from post amid hostage crisis


By Joel Olatunde Agoi
AFP
LAGOS
Petroleumworld.com 03 09 06

Nigeria removed the commander of a military force sent to protect its oil industry from separatist guerrillas Wednesday as three Western hostages marked their 18th day in the Niger Delta swamps.

In recent weeks, rebels have attacked oil export facilities and pipelines, killed more than 20 government soldiers and kidnapped 13 foreign oil workers.

Two Americans and a Briton are still being held by the militants as what the Delta State government describes as "human shields".

Brigadier General Elias Zamani -- the head of a joint navy, police and army task force based in the oil port of Warri -- has been transferred, said defence headquarters spokesman Group Captain Eniola Akinduro.

"It is not as if he committed any offence. It is a routine military exercise. The general has been on that post for more than two years. It is normal that he be moved to another area," he told AFP.

Ethnic Ijaw militants -- who last month accused Zamani of escalating the crisis by ordering helicopter gunship strikes on oil smuggling barges in the delta creeks -- welcomed the decision but said it did not go far enough.

Oboko Bello, the head of the radical Federated Niger Delta Ijaw Communities (FNDIC), said talks to secure the hostages' release would progress faster if the general's transfer was followed by the removal of his task force.

"We're a civilian community. We don't want this level of garrison," he told AFP by telephone from Warri, where he is a member of a committee set up by Delta State Governor James Ibori to arrange the release of the hostages.

And a spokesman for the hostage takers themselves was dismissive.

"For the communities in the area, I'm sure it will be good riddance to (bad) rubbish," he said of Zamani's move, in a message from an email address used by the kidnappers.

"To us it makes no difference, as this will not solve the problems of the Niger Delta. The hostages are well but will not be released until the fulfilment of our stated conditions," the militant added.

The rebels have demanded the demilitarisation of the delta, 1.5 billion dollars (1.3 billion euros) in compensation from Shell for polluted fishing communities and the release of two jailed leaders of the Ijaw's struggle to control oil resources.

On February 18, ethnic Ijaw militants armed with rocket propelled grenades and light machine guns stormed a pipeline laying barge operated by the US firm Willbros on behalf of the energy giant Shell and seized nine foreign workers.

Six of the men were later released. But three -- US oil workers Cody Oswald and Russel Spell and British security expert John Hudspith -- are still being held hostage at a rebel base near the village of Okerenkoko.

An AFP reporter who visited the area met scores of heavily-armed guerrillas equipped with radios, body armour, speed boats and infantry weapons.

Meanwhile Oronto Douglas, a former state government official and before that a regional rights activist, told AFP that he had been invited to act as a mediator between government and the hostage-takers.

The rebel spokesman confirmed that Douglas had been contacted by "the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) to act on its behalf in discusions with parties interested in seeking a mediated resolution."

Since the kidnapping, attacks have continued against oil facilities.

Shell has suspended loading at the Forcados export terminal and has evacuated the EA offshore field and all of its swamp wells in the western delta, cutting output by 455,000 barrels per day.

The US major, Chevron, has closed its Makaraba oil flow station following a suspected attack on one of its pipelines, shutting off 13,000 barrels per day.

The unrest in Nigeria, combined with fears over fellow OPEC member Iran's nuclear programme, pushed world oil prices higher last week, but on Wednesday they fell again after the oil cartel agreed not to cut export quotas.

Nigeria is Africa's biggest oil exporter, producing around 2.6 million barrels per day, but three quarters of the population still live in poverty and many in the delta's 14-million-strong Ijaw tribe dream of independence.

Zamani's task force -- which took its slogan "Operation Restore Hope" from the ill-fated 1993 US mission to Somalia -- was deployed in 2003 after fierce fighting erupted between Ijaw militants and their Itsekiri neighbours.

AFP 03 08 06

Copyright © 2006 AFP. All rights reserved

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