Ijaw youths kill police hostages

Militant Ijaw youths in Nigeria’s volatile oil-rich Niger Delta have killed seven policemen they kidnapped on Thursday, news reports said, quoting the police commissioner for Bayelsa State.

The youths seized the seven, who included two senior officers, in the village of Odi, ostensibly in retaliation for last week’s police action during clashes between Ijaws and Yorubas in a predominantly Yoruba neighbourhood in Lagos.

“The Ijaws claim the police were partial in settling the fight,” Joy Ngwakwe, programme officer for the Social and Economic Rights Action Centre in Lagos, told IRIN on Tuesday.

Initial reports were that the police hostages were Yoruba.

However, Bayelsa State Police Commissioner D. Bwala told reporters on Monday that there was only one Yoruba among the hostages, ‘The Guardian’ newspaper reported. His disclosure, the newspaper said, “debunked allegations that the act was in retaliation” for the Lagos clashes.

Reuters said feuds between the two ethnic groups originated in the western part of the Delta where “clans from both tribes each lay claim to the same land, which they believe contains significant oil reserves”.

This is only part of the problem,” Ngwakwe said. “The two communities are fighting one and other but both are victims of oil exploration. They should be fighting the oil companies.”

Oil firms initially bore the brunt of violent attacks by militant youths in the Delta who have accused the multinationals of destroying their environment by failing to clean oil spills.