Oil rebels announce conditional ceasefire

A Nigerian rebel group has announced a
conditional ceasefire and agreed to hold talks
with the government following months of
attacks on key oil and gas facilities that have
hammered the economy.
In a message posted on the Niger Delta
Avengers' (NDA) website late on Saturday, the
group said it would "observe a cessation of
hostilities," so long as the country's ruling
party stops what it called harassment of
innocent civilians.
It said it would support efforts to negotiate
with "the federal government of Nigeria,
representatives from the home countries of all
multinational oil corporations and neutral
international mediators."
There have been unconfirmed reports for
several weeks of talks underway with Abuja,
and the government of President Muhammadu
Buhari has invited rebels to discussions
several times.
But the NDA never publicly acknowledged that
it was engaged in negotiations, or that it
would support efforts by community figures
from the area.
The NDA said it would honour its ceasefire
pledge "unless the ruling political APC (All
Progressives Congress party) continues ... to
arrest, intimidate, invade and harass innocent
citizens and invade especially Ijaw
communities."
Otherwise it warned: "We promise to fight
more for the Niger Delta, if this opportunity
fails."
The Ijaw ethnic people of Delta, Rivers and
Bayelsa states have long dominated oil rebel
groups operating in the area, although experts
say militants from other communities have
also set up new branches.
- Devastating attacks -
When he took office last year President Buhari
announced he wanted to progressively wind
down a scheme which had offered amnesty to
former members of armed groups in the Delta,
notably the Movement for the Emancipation of
the Niger Delta (MEND).
The scheme was inherited from the previous
government of Buhari's predecessor Goodluck
Jonathan.
Since 2009 large sums of money have been
paid in allowances to some 30,000 former
fighters, while training programmes were
offered to those who pledged to lay down their
arms.
MEND, which is in talks with the government,
distanced itself from the NDA in a statement
Sunday.
"MEND reiterates its full support for the
ongoing military presence in the Niger Delta
region," said the statement by its spokesman
Jomo Gbomo, accusing the NDA of being
supported by former president Jonathan to
destabilise the country.
The NDA has carried out a string of
devastating attacks on Nigeria's oil pipelines
and facilities since the start of the year.
Two state-owned pipelines were blown up in
the delta region on Friday, in attacks blamed
on the NDA.
Also on Friday, a newly emerged group calling
itself the Niger Delta Greenland Justice
Mandate (NDGJM) claimed responsibility for
an attack on the same day.
Earlier this month, the NDA threatened to pull
the oil region out of Nigeria, accusing the
president of fuelling divisions in the country.
- Dire poverty -
Oil majors including Shell, Exxon, Chevron, Eni
and the state-run oil group NNPC have all
been targeted by attacks this year.
The assaults have reduced Nigeria's output by
21.5 percent since January, according to the
Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries
(OPEC), hammering government revenue at a
time of low global oil prices.
Before the attacks, the oil sector accounted
for 90 percent of the nation's foreign
exchange earnings and 70 percent of
government revenue.
Nigeria's economy has been hit badly by the
global fall in oil prices since mid-2014, which
has hit government revenues hard and forced
up inflation to an 11-year high.
But despite the billions of dollars generated
since the discovery of crude in Nigeria in the
1950s, most people live in dire poverty around
the creeks and rivers of the oil-producing
southern delta region.