Senior security officials in Nigeria are laying down strategies to limit the impact of militant attacks in theoil-producing delta, driven by the absence of a clearly defined political solution.
Military officials who gathered recently near PortHarcourt, one of Nigeria’soil hubs, privately conceded that they would be reluctant to engage in a wide-scale operation to hold downmilitant activity, saying the best they could do was totry to protect oil facilities.
“Protecting national assets is the role of the national military, not waging war on its own people,” said one Nigerian security source.
The meeting was called after militants claimed to have killed 30 members of the armed forces in gun battles with government gunboats and attack helicopters in the creeks of the eastern Niger Delta last week. Several expatriate workers were also taken hostage in a separate armed attack on a residential compound.
The attacks followed weeks of relative calm in the delta after a rash of hostage-takings of oil workers and a subsequent order by President Olusegun Obasanjo to meet militant activity “force for force”.
Mr Obasanjo called a separate top-level security meeting last week that included two civilian governors from the delta, one of whom said he had argued against military action.
Senior military officials say a military solution for the delta would only aggravate tensions, but many officials acknowledge that serious political dialogue may be coming too late.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend), the group claiming responsibility for attacks on oil facilities this year that have shut a fifth of production capacity in the world’s eighth largest oil exporter, said it had not planned last week’s attacks.
Mend said the latest fighting was sparked by a robbery attempt on a fuel barge and that it had been compelled to intervene, ahead of a planned strike on the oil industry, to reinforce parts of the eastern delta and prevent military reprisals that could affect civilians.
The military has razed civilian communities in previous reprisals that have been condemned by international rights groups.
The many armed groups at work in the delta, which Mend has tried to bring under its umbrella, often have divergent and localised agendas. They range from political demands to criminal activities such as kidnap for ransom and participation in the illegal theft of crude oil.
Even if Mend is unable to control most armed groups and to co-ordinate a long- promised single blow against the oil industry, the danger is that such groups could eventually start posing a serious multi-pronged security threat.
Security analysts say a full-blown confrontation between the militants and the Nigerian military is unlikely given the difficulties of waging an effective campaign against guerrillas in the 70,000 sq km of the Niger Delta while simultaneously trying to defend oil facilities with limited manpower and equipment.
Security has been beefed up around key export terminals but analysts say hundreds of pumping stations, pipelines and tank facilities remain vulnerable to attack from pre-dawn attacks using high-speed boats and rocket launchers.
Last week US officials in Nigeria warned of a possible attack on Bonny Island, which is one of the world’s largest gas export plants.
Analysts say the best that Nigerian security agencies can hope for is to use intelligence networks to round up militant collaborators in an effort to intercept possible attacks.
While Mend’s emancipatory rhetoric may be popular in the delta’s impoverished creeks, armed groups are subject to the rules of Nig-eria’s dark political world, where militants often cut deals with state and federal politicians and grow rich on extorting service and security contracts from multinationals.
Many groups in the delta were armed by politicians to act as strong men in the run- up to elections in 2003 and are set to take a keen interest in elections next year. Niger Delta governors are allocated the highest revenues in Nigeria – about $1bn (�798m, �539m) a year in some cases – because of constitutional clauses governing resource control.
Tensions are high, with Mr Obasanjo constitutionally required to step down next year and senior delta politicians divided over who should succeed him.