Nigeria said Tuesday it has asked Angola to extradite the suspected leader of a Nigerian armed group, arrested last month for alleged arms dealing.
Henry Okah, better known under the pseudonym Jomo Gbomo, is suspected of being the leader of a faction of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND).
MEND is the most high-profile of the armed groups operating in the oil-rich Niger Delta.
Nigerian presidential spokesman Olusegun Adeniyi told reporters that the government had asked for his extradition to Nigeria.
The absence of any extradition treaty between the two countries was making Okah’s transfer difficult, he added.
Adeniyi’s statement was the first public confirmation of Okah’s arrest by any government official. He denied that Nigeria had played any part in Okah’s arrest.
Several Nigerian security sources, speaking off the record, suggested that the Nigerian government had engineered Okah’s arrest.
The faction of MEND with which he is associated has so far resisted all attempts to find a peaceful solution to the violence in the region where kidnappings and attacks on oil facilities have become commonplace.