Nigerian state governors from the Niger Delta have called for the release of a detained militant leader in an effort to appease insurgents who have crippled oil production in the anarchic region.
Several armed groups responsible for attacks on oil facilities and kidnappings of oil workers over the past 18 months demand the release of Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, who has been on trial for treason since September 2005.
The new governors of the three main oil-producing states, Rivers, Bayelsa and Delta, said after a meeting with President Umaru Yar’Adua that they had urged him to release Asari. Yar’Adua and the governors took office a week ago.
“We supported the demand for his release at the meeting on health grounds and the government said the demand is being considered,” Timipre Sylva, governor of Bayelsa, told reporters after the meeting in Abuja late on Monday.
Yar’Adua used his inaugural speech last week to call for a ceasefire in the delta and promise he would tackle the crisis.
Among armed groups who demand Asari’s release is the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), which was behind most of the attacks that have reduced Nigeria’s oil output by over a quarter.
The MEND also demands local control over oil revenues which it says have been stolen or squandered for five decades, as well as compensation for oil spills. These demands reflect broad grassroots sentiment in the impoverished delta, where many residents complain of neglect by successive governments.
The MEND declared a one-month halt in attacks on oil installations on Saturday and said it was prepared to negotiate with the new government through its chosen intermediaries and in the presence of a neutral arbiter.
ABDUCTIONS
The group has already said it would stop abducting oil workers if Asari were released. It also wants the release of Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, a former governor of Bayelsa on trial for corruption, who is receiving medical treatment in Dubai.
“If they (Asari and Alamieyeseigha) are released, we will stop taking hostages but will not interfere with criminal gangs who continue with this until we have sufficient proof the Nigerian government is willing to negotiate on our demands,” said the MEND spokesman, who uses the pseudonym Jomo Gbomo.
He was referring to numerous “freelance” ransom-seekers who frequently seize expatriate workers in the lawless delta. There are currently 30 foreigners being held by different gangs.
“Until we get this proof, we will continue with pipeline sabotage which we have found out is more distressful to oil companies than the death of their staff,” Gbomo said in an email to Reuters this week.
From detention, Asari has called for an end to abductions, which he said were mostly motivated by greed and had “discredited and debased our struggle”.
Asari was the leader of the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force, a militia that fought battles against Nigerian security forces in the second half of 2004, disrupting oil supplies.
But at the end of 2004 he made a deal with then President Olusegun Obasanjo in which he agreed to lay down arms in return for amnesty. The deal held for most of 2005, until he was arrested on treason charges for saying in a press interview that he wanted Nigeria to break up.
Asari’s trial has dragged on from one adjournment to the next and the court has yet to hear a witness or tackle a substantive issue.