MEND Promises Fresh Attacks on Nigerian Oil Industry as Leading Militant Arrested in Angola

New Attacks Promised

Renewed attacks on oil facilities and the abduction of foreign workers are likely to occur once more in the oil-producing Niger Delta region, according to Nigeria's most notorious militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND). After a prolonged silence, MEND has announced in an email communication with the international media that "With effect from 12 midnight today, Sunday 23, 2007, we will commence attacks on installations and abduction of expatriates. There will be no forewarning of these attacks".

This email was sent by MEND's spokesman, Jomo Gbomo, who has been behind all previous communications. However, it seems that a leading militant responsible for the continuing crisis in the Niger Delta has been arrested in Angola, and numerous media reports are suggesting the man detained is Gbomo, prompting the MEND spokesman to send another communication stating that he has not been arrested. For a couple of weeks Global Insight has known that Henry Okah, a gun-runner and major militant, had been detained in Angola while supposedly trying to buy a boat, though this has only just been reported in the press. Many journalists have held for some months that Henry Okah is the same person as Jomo Gbomo, but we remain assured that they are two different individuals. Gbomo's insistence that Okah, who he refers to as a "silent player in the Niger Delta struggle" was the one that was arrested in Angola on 3 September would certainly suggest this; besides, it is unlikely that an individual held under lock and key by Angolan authorities would be able to email international media.

MEND has been quiet in recent months and played little part in disrupting the presidential elections earlier this year in Nigeria. The militant group has seen local criminals move into the lucrative business of kidnapping expatriate workers, which has added to the deteriorating security situation in the region. However, it appears that MEND now feels that it must resume its earlier actions of pipeline sabotage and abduction of expatriate workers, warning that: "The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta wishes to serve as a warning to those behind this plot; that a repeat of the Ken Saro Wiwa type set-up will fail this time around. For the sake of the on-going peace process the Nigerian security agencies, the multinational oil and construction companies, and their local and foreign collaborators should not take actions that will jeopardise the peace process and take us back to an era everyone is moving away from".

Outlook and Implications

Nigeria's President Umaru Yar'Adua has been trying to implement a new policy in the Niger Delta, while at the same time overhauling the entire energy sector, which includes a massive unbundling and restructuring of the national oil company, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). However, violence still mars the Delta and Port Harcourt, the region's major commercial hub, which has witnessed gun battles between the government's Joint Task Force and militants and young Delta indigenes. The violence in the Delta is now focused on rival "cults" who are sponsored by leading local politicians, which emerged into the national consciousness during the 2003 presidential elections, despite having had low-key operations for years before. It is alleged that current Rivers State governor Celestine Omehia and his predecessor Peter Odili have links to and finance such cults.

It is unclear how the arrest of Henry Okah will affect the security situation in the Niger Delta, but it is believed that Okah is the real power behind MEND and that Jomo Gbomo is its spokesman rather than leader. In recent weeks known militant figures such as Ateke Tom and George Soboma appear to have been sidelined and had their influence dramatically reduced. Meanwhile Alhaji Mujaheed Asari-Dokubo, the leader of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force, has become marginalised since his release from gaol and is likely to become less important in the Delta as he seems to have the ear of the federal government—his release was ordered by President Yar'Adua.