NIGERIA: Militants in Nigeria's Delta region say they are ready to talk peace once issues are resolved

Nigeria's militant leader Mujahid Asari-Dokubo says that his side is ready for peace but urged the government and oil companies to step up measures to solve the problems facing the communities living in the oil-rich Niger Delta. "We can bring this crisis to an end, we can sit on the table, we can say no more death, no more blood shed. Let the oil companies do the right thing, let them train our people...they are instead inflicting our people with HIV, our people are going into prostitution," he said. Asari-Dokubo was recently released from jail by Nigeria's new president Umaru Yar'Adua. "What we are saying is this, let the government do the right thing, Umaru Yar'Adua said he would do the right thing, we are watching him and the world also is watching him," said Asari-Dokubo. A Muslim convert and trained guerrilla fighter, Asari-Dokubo has demanded more autonomy for the Delta's predominant ljaw who live in abject poverty despite the huge oil wealth being pumped from their lands. His rebel Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force has attracted thousands of armed Ijaw youths fighting sporadic gun battles with government forces. "The period that we wait for Jonathan (Nigeria's Vice-President) or the present government depends on when our people decide to raise a negotiation team to meet with the government to talk. We met with the government three weeks ago and the government wanted us to kick-start discussion. We said we wanted to go back home to meet with all the groups and then come back with a united front. And we are doing that," Asari-Dokubo added. The militants say they took up arms because they had little confidence in the tactics of ethnic rights campaigner Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was hanged in 1995 after years of non-violent protest. "We are so degenerated pauperised and reduced to the level of animals by a state. It is black on black discrimination, this is worst than apartheid," the militant leader continued. Asari-Dokubo was speaking at a press briefing also attended by senior police officers. Militant attacks on oil installations and the kidnapping of foreign oil workers has cut Nigerian crude production by 25 per cent and contributed to soaring global oil prices. "People have hijacked the struggle for Niger Delta into criminality. Hostage taking is not in the agenda of Niger Delta. Government has awarded contract for roads and bridges within the area if workers are kidnapped the companies fold and go away," said Mike Okiro, the country's acting police chief. The militant leader has won many supporters - even outside the Delta. "Asari Dokugbo has a good cause because going by what he is fighting for, he's fighting for the liberation of his people; the people in the Niger Delta area are suffering from abject poverty, all that is happening today is born out of the neglect of the federal government. If you take a look of a typical Niger Delta community you would see they don't have source of drinking water, no health care, no medical, no electricity, oil companies will come there and pollute the water. The source of livelihood is so difficult," says Esse Anigboro who lives in Lagos. "In recent times youths in that area have misled the whole struggle, they are trying to turn it to a personal way of enriching themselves, even Asari himself is against that," he continued. A direct descendent of the founding monarch of the Kalabari clan, a sub-set of the Ijaw tribe based around the oil city Port Harcourt, Asari-Dokubo followed his high court judge father's footsteps in studying a law degree at Calabar University, only to leave early and get involved in ethnic activism.

ITN Source | August 11, 2007

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