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Insurgents in nigeria threaten full scale struggle Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3555277http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3555277
10:22am (UK)
All Out War Threatened in Nigeria's Oil Rich Region
Insurgents in Nigeria’s southern Niger Delta will begin “a full-scale armed struggle” to wrest control of the region’s oil riches from the government on Friday, a rebel spokesman said today.
Fears of disruption in Nigerian oil supplies has already sent world prices spiralling beyond 50 US dollars a gallon.
Moujahid Dokubo-Asari, leader of the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force, also warned that all oil company employees would be legitimate targets and advised foreign embassies to pull their nationals out of the oil region.
“We will target government infrastructure and oil company personnel,” Dokubo-Asari said. “Oil facilities will not be targeted since it will endanger the environment.”
Oil multinationals operating in Nigeria, especially local subsidiaries Royal Dutch/Shell and Italy’s Agip, have provided government troops helicopters and “topographical maps” that aided the bombardment of rebel camps hidden among creeks and mangrove swamps of the delta, the rebel leader said.
A Shell spokesman in Lagos declined to comment on the allegations, saying an official response will be issued later.
Shell, which accounts for roughly half of Nigeria’s daily exports of 2.5 million barrels, said its production and exports have so far not been affected by the oil region violence.
Nigeria’s military launched its latest offensive against Dokubo-Asari’s fighters early this month in response to deadly raids by his militia into Nigeria’s main oil industry centre, Port Harcourt, in August.
President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government accuses Dokubo-Asari’s group and other armed groups in the region of gangsterism, including illegally tapping and selling crude oil from pipelines to buy arms and fund their criminal activities.
Dokubo-Asari claims to be fighting for self-determination for more than eight million Ijaws, the dominant tribe in the southern delta region that accounts for nearly all of Nigeria’s daily oil exports.
The insurgents will only lay down their arms if the government convened a “sovereign national conference” to discuss self determination and greater control of oil wealth by the inhabitants of the oil region, he said.
The 44th anniversary of Nigeria’s independence from Britain is on Friday.
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