The Nigerian Oil / Hostage Crisis

1-2006

Reuters 

Tuesday, January 17, 2006 

By Tom Ashby

 Nigerian militants who have sabotaged oil facilities and kidnapped workers in the southern Niger Delta will stage a series of attacks over the next few days to show oil companies their power, they said on Tuesday. In an email statement, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta who are holding four foreign hostages also threatened to use more aggressive tactics against oil workers and their families in the vast wetlands region from February 1. "In the next few days we will carry out a series of attacks to prove to all companies that we alone, your hosts, can guarantee your security," the statement said. The militants called on oil workers to leave the vast region of mangrove swamps and tidal creeks where almost all of Nigeria's 2.4 million barrels a day is produced. The four oil workers held hostage by the group spoke to Reuters by telephone on their sixth day in captivity on Monday, listing their captors' demands and warning the military against any attempted intervention or rescue. 

The four -- an American, a Briton, a Bulgarian and a Honduran -- said they were being treated well, but that their living conditions were not comfortable. On behalf of the captors, the Briton delivered a 48-hour ultimatum to the Nigerian government to accede to five demands and called for negotiations. OIL WORKERS EVACUATED Royal Dutch Shell evacuated about 330 workers from four oil flow stations after the latest attack on Sunday, and is considering more withdrawals amid uncertainty over where the militants will strike next, a senior oil industry official said. 

Two attacks last Wednesday hit Nigeria's oil output by 226,000 barrels a day, or 10 percent, and this production is still shut almost a week later. The militants demand local control of the Niger Delta's oil wealth, that Shell pay the local government $1.5 billion to compensate for pollution, and the release of three men including two ethnic Ijaw leaders, the British hostage told Reuters. Analysts say the violence is also part of growing regional rivalry in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, ahead of presidential elections in 2007. Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, one of the Ijaw leaders whose release was included in the kidnappers' demands, appeared on Tuesday in an Abuja court, where he faces treason charges. "I don't know most of the groups that are taking action in the Niger Delta, but I know they are Ijaw," said Asari, who himself led Ijaw militia attacks on the oil industry and federal government in 2004. "If (President Olusegun) Obasanjo has pushed my people into armed struggle again then I am fully behind their actions and demands," he told Reuters. 

Shouting on his way into the courtroom, he launched a blistering attack on Obasanjo. "Obasanjo is a dictator and will pay for the crime he is committing against the people of this country," he said. "Obasanjo is a murderer, a thief, a man who is stealing the resources of this country." The possibility of more evacuations by Shell, Nigeria's top producer, raises the prospect of deeper output cuts and will increase pressure on Obasanjo to crack down on the militants. He held a security meeting with delta governors and the military top brass on Tuesday and appealed to the kidnappers not to do anything that might result in the loss of lives. 

Violence against oil workers is frequent in the Niger Delta, where an estimated 20 million people live in poverty alongside a multibillion-dollar industry. Ruled by military dictators for most of its history since independence from Britain in 1960, Nigeria returned to civilian government in 1999, but ethnic militia and organized thuggery remain a feature of political life. Much of the rhetoric of militant Niger Delta groups is echoed by regional politicians, who have demanded a greater share of the oil wealth and the right to pick the ruling party candidate for elections in 2007. 

The militants' threat to broaden their attacks helped drive up oil prices for a second day running, combining with worries about Iran's nuclear program to push London Brent crude prices up by 86 cents to $64.04 a barrel by 1525 GMT. (Additional reporting by Camillus Eboh in Abuja)

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