(Reuters) – The trial of a former militia leader from Nigeria’s oil-producing delta was delayed again on Wednesday in what activists saw as a symptom of government reluctance to tackle the region’s problems.
Delta militants have waged a four-month campaign of sabotage and kidnapping against the oil industry in the world’s eighth largest exporter, cutting supplies by a quarter in a crisis that has hit global oil markets.
One of their demands is the release of Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, behind bars since September on charges of plotting to overthrow the government, which he denies.
A judge in Abuja adjourned Asari’s trial on technical grounds on Wednesday in the latest of a series of brief court sessions that have yet to examine evidence or hear witnesses.
“They are not ready to try him. They have no evidence. They just want to keep him in detention so that he’s out of circulation,” Festus Keyamo, Asari’s lawyer, told Reuters after the case was adjourned to May 5.
Activists see the stalled trial as a sign that the government is not serious about tackling the delta’s problems.
“It would be great if the government would abandon this litigious and time-wasting avenue and engage in dialogue,” said Oronto Douglas, an activist named as mediator by militants of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND).
MEND, whose attacks have kept 550,000 barrels a day shut for a month, want Asari freed. They also demand greater local control of the delta’s oil wealth.
Many Ijaw, the dominant tribe in the region, feel cheated out of the huge riches being extracted from their ancestral lands. Their bitterness against government and Western oil companies fuels insecurity in a region awash with small arms and riven by internecine conflict.
Asari fought sporadic battles against Nigerian troops in the remote creeks and swamps of the delta in 2004 and his threats to wage all-out war on the state pushed world oil prices up to a new high. He later agreed to disarm in return for amnesty.
REPRESSION
His arrest last September, followed by the impeachment and arrest for money-laundering of a state governor from the region, has convinced many Ijaw that the government’s strategy towards them is repression, not dialogue.
President Olusegun Obasanjo convened a meeting in Abuja last week with hundreds of leaders from the delta which agreed to come up with an action plan by April 18. But MEND was not represented and numerous Ijaw activists boycotted it.
“In the creeks what we hear is a lot of displeasure at the Abuja meeting,” said Douglas.
“There is a lot of scepticism as to whether the council will provide the urgently needed solution. The problems are known. What is needed is action, not a council of 50 wise men.”
Oil from the delta is Nigeria’s economic lifeline and the government is keen for the main operator, Royal Dutch Shell , to resume production from parts of the region it abandoned because of MEND’s attacks.
Shell is reluctant to return to the oilfields until violence eases, and observers say the government’s response so far is unlikely to achieve that.
The loss of high-quality Nigerian crude, most of it pumped by Shell, has helped push world oil prices towards new highs.
The company is considering a return to the 120,000 barrel a day EA field, which is relatively easy to protect because it is offshore, but it is unlikely to reopen the major Forcados fields located across the western swamps any time soon.