Nigerians give peace demands
2006-04-16 19:10
Lagos - The largest ethnic group in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta region on Sunday laid down conditions for peace and demanded that the impoverished area produce the next president in 2007.
"The Ijaws can no longer be mere spectators but would want to be effective participants in the Nigerian national project, including the issue of producing the next president of Nigeria," said a statement from the Ijaw National Congress, representing Nigeria's fourth largest ethnic group.
The INC said that denial of their rights has forced their youths to engage in armed struggle, including the kidnapping of oil workers and vandalisation of oil installations.
Not stop at anything
"Without constructive dialogue to address the decades of neglect and deprivation, our youth would not stop at anything but radical and violent expression of our collective grievances and plight," the statement said.
The INC demanded more political and economic participation, creation of two new states for the ethnic Ijaw, employment for its youths, and repair of its damaged environment and control of oil resources.
They also demanded the release of two Ijaw leaders being tried for felony and corruption, as well as the immediate demilitarisation of the region.
The delta is a 70 000km sq swathe of swamp and forest on Nigeria's southern coast, where the Niger river reaches the Atlantic, and is home to several restive minority groups and to Africa's biggest oil industry.
Live in poverty
Nigeria earns almost $30bn per year from the network of oil wells dotting the mangrove swamps, but most of the area's 22m inhabitants live mired in poverty in polluted fishing communities and overcrowded cities.
President Olusegun Obasanjo is due to chair a committee, meeting April 18, to mull development projects designed to improve the lives of the delta's residents.
Since January this year, separatist guerrillas who claim to represent the interests of the region's 14-million-strong Ijaw ethnic group have stepped up their attacks on the Niger Delta's oil industry.
Militants have killed at least 24 members of the security forces, kidnapped and released 13 western hostages and blown up several pipelines, forcing firms to cut Nigeria's 2.6m barrel-per-day exports by more than a fifth.
- SAPA