(Reuters) – The Nigerian army on Tuesday accused local politicians of backing gunmen who killed a group of soldiers and civilians last week in the Niger Delta, where crime and violence have seriously hit oil output.
The three soldiers were attacked last Thursday as they travelled in civilian clothes by boat through the creeks between Obioku and Yenagoa, capital of Bayelsa state. The civilian driver of the boat and a passenger were also on board.
Their bullet-riddled bodies were found floating in the creeks on Monday.
“The militants took them deep into the creeks and slaughtered the five,” Lieutenant Colonel Chris Musa, commander of the military taskforce in Bayelsa, told Reuters.
The army had identified the militant group who carried out this attack, Musa said.
“We believe that they are being sponsored by some persons in government and we will go after them soon. They will hear from us,” he said, without giving further details.
Insecurity in the Niger Delta, the heartland of Nigeria’s 2 million barrels per day (bpd) oil industry, has cut output from Africa’s top producer by a fifth in recent years, helping push world oil prices to record highs.
President Umaru Yar’Adua is under pressure to quell the unrest, not least from countries hit by record fuel costs who have been watching the global oil price tick up whenever Nigerian supplies are disrupted by the violence.
Any peace moves are complicated by a web of vested interests, from corrupt local politicians and gang leaders getting rich from a multi-million dollar trade in stolen crude to members of the security forces accused of gun-running.
The gangs behind kidnappings, oil theft and violent crime in the delta were first hired by local politicians to intimidate opponents or rig elections. Rights groups say their political links mean they often go unpunished.
The line between militancy and common criminality has become so blurred that the main militant group — the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) — has publicly denounced some recent criminal acts in a bid to maintain legitimacy.
MEND said over the weekend it had identified the kidnappers of two German construction workers from local firm Julius Berger, seized earlier this month apparently for ransom, and would help negotiate their release.
The insecurity has led Julius Berger, Nigeria’s biggest construction company and a unit of German firm Bilfinger Berger, to pull out of the delta, where it was working on key infrastructure projects including the main east-west road.