Nigeria violence underscores lawlessness

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria --Attack helicopters battled speedboats full of armed fighters for control of key oil installations. Seven foreigners were abducted from a residential compound, and militants claimed dozens of soldiers were killed. Even by the standards of Nigeria's oil-rich southern delta region, it has been a bloody week.

"There is no rule of law here. The AK47 rules," says Anyakwee Nsirimovu, a human rights lawyer based in Rivers state, which has been worst hit by the violence.

Few believe that this week's attacks, which come after a month of relative calm, are coordinated or the work of just one group. Instead, Nsirimovu said, they are the result of general lawlessness, bred by a government that buys off potential threats but has done almost nothing to develop a poverty-stricken region filled with simmering resentment.

"The government is doing nothing to develop the country, so the principle of self-help has set in. And people are helping themselves with guns," he said.

One private security contractor to a major oil company, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said the bewildering array of demands that accompany the kidnappings -- cash, development projects, freedom for imprisoned leaders -- feeds the growing sense of chaos.

"The scary thing is, that there is no one person in charge of these (fighters). You have political guys, you have criminals, and every shade in between," he said.

Not even the region's most sophisticated and best armed group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, wields much control.

The group crippled the oil industry with a series of kidnappings and bombings earlier this year, cutting production in Africa's largest oil exporter by around a quarter. But it denied responsibility for what it calls "botched robberies" on several oil convoys this week, saying it only dispatches fighters to protect civilians from military reprisals.

"We are being forced to act ahead of our planned major strike on the Nigerian oil industry," the group said in an e-mail statement.

Maj. Sagir Musa, a spokesman for the Nigerian army, said the military does not know who was responsible for the latest attacks, which began Monday when dozens of militants sank two military patrol boats, killing four soldiers and a civilian.

Seven foreign oil workers, including four Britons, were abducted from a residential compound near the main town of Port Harcourt a day later. The hostage-takers, who have not been identified, have demanded $10 million each for the captive foreigners, a Western diplomat has said.

On Wednesday, the main MEND militant group claimed to have killed nine soldiers and captured two government gunboats escorting an oil supply convoy. The attack prompted President Olusegun Obasanjo to call an emergency meeting with security chiefs to plan a military response.

The government has previously announced several crackdowns on the violence and pledged to address the economic grievances believed to be fueling the violence. But the people of the delta have seen many promises of development go largely unfulfilled.

The number of active fighters is relatively small compared to Nigeria's population of 130 million. But the militants have an easy target in the oil industry's network of pipes spread out over wetlands the size of Connecticut.

The Nigerian military, lacking local knowledge and equipment, struggles to avoid ambushes in the mangrove swamps, where the populist rhetoric of the militants have won sympathy.

Most of the delta's people have no access to clean drinking water or regular sources of electricity. In the absence of government aid, they turn to oil companies as surrogate providers. But company-sponsored development projects also often fail, due to corrupt contractors or broken promises, leaving communities bitter.

Meanwhile, some of the militants making passionate demands for social change find themselves working for the very corrupt politicians they denounce.

Many militant leaders have received semiofficial posts in government or been rewarded with "security contracts" by major oil companies, Nsirimovu said. Some fighters say they were initially armed by politicians to intimidate opponents, a charge backed up by human rights groups but denied by the politicians.

General elections are scheduled for April and the field is open for new leaders to take control of the country's oil wealth. Obasanjo and the majority of his 36 governors are barred by term limits from running again.

If the polls go ahead, it will be the first time an elected civilian government will hand over power to another since the country became independent from Britain in 1960. But despite Obasanjo's promise to hold a peaceful election, few in the delta are expecting it.

"A governor in the delta is sitting on roughly $1.5 billion a year with precious little oversight," said Antony Goldman, a London-based oil analyst. "Politics is so expensive in Nigeria and the stakes are so high, people will do anything to make themselves relevant to the process."