Rival Nigerian politicians are arming militias in advance of April elections, in hopes of rigging the outcome and gaining control of millions in oil revenue at stake.
Violence already has risen dramatically since the beginning of the year in this southern oil city. Dozens of foreign workers have been kidnapped, and a Lebanese worker was shot and killed. Last month, scores of heavily armed militants shot their way into the heart of Port Harcourt to free a jailed commander.
April’s elections are meant to cement civilian rule in Nigeria with the country’s first transfer of power between elected presidents. The nation lurched between a series of military dictatorships and short-lived, corrupt civilian governments for four decades before President Olusegun Obasanjo was elected in 1999.
But too many Nigerians see the elections as a straightforward fight to control booming oil revenues.
“It’s making our job difficult,” said Brig. Gen. Samuel Salihu, a top government security officer for the region, who spoke while his telephone buzzed with reports of a bank robbery nearby. “Among the political elites, we still have people who are criminalizing, who are colluding and conniving,” he said.
In 2003, election-related violence claimed hundreds of lives. Output from the country’s oil fields � the largest in Africa, centered in this delta region � was cut 40 percent. While production was ultimately restored, attacks leading up to this year’s elections have again stilled pumps and reduced production by nearly a quarter, helping send crude prices near historical highs.
An ominous development is the spread of the militias into urban areas.
This wetlands region, the size of Scotland, has countless villages along the creeks and swamps where mangrove trees grow together in a tangled thicket, hiding fighters’ bases. Until last year, the cities were insulated from the majority of militant activity.
But now the largest militant group in the region � the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta � said it’s recruiting fighters in cities like Port Harcourt.
The evidence is on the streets. In one unusually sophisticated attack, scores of heavily armed militants fired automatic weapons and set cars ablaze in a raid to free a commander from jail. The man, Soboma George, had been detained hours earlier for a traffic violation.
Among over 60 foreigners kidnapped for ransom this year have been a mother of two and the entire Filipino crew of a cargo ship. The militants directly linked their captives’ fate with the upcoming vote.
“As the 2007 election approaches, we are keenly watching and commit the government of Nigeria to conduct a free and fair election, for the people to be able to vote in candidates of their choice,” a faction of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said in an e-mail.
Most hostages been released unharmed, as the Filipinos were, but the number of hostages taken since Jan. 1 nearly equals the 2006 total.
Patrick Naagbanton � a researcher, analyst and activist in the Niger Delta � said the culture of corruption is pervasive.
For many people, the oil industry makes life worse and more desperate. Oil spills and acid rain caused by the flaring of natural gas have ruined many local farming and fishing grounds.
Meanwhile, the lure of fast cash and flashy cars brings youths under the influence of armed groups, which, in addition to their criminal activities, get funding from corruption politicians, he said.
“They are going to be hired by desperate politicians who want to win elections at all costs … so they have access to loot more state funds,” said Naagbanton, who specializes in tracking both gangs and militants.
George, the freed militant commander, says the fighters aren’t just hired guns. He warned that fighters feel abandoned by politicians who used them to get into power but didn’t produce promised jobs or development.
“If you don’t feed a lion, he will be angry,” said the wanted militant, gesturing at a patchwork of tumbledown shacks behind him during a clandestine meeting with reporters in a Niger Delta slum.
Election posters were pasted over cracks in the dirty walls, including one that read: “This is the face of the new Nigeria.”