Delta bill bans militant groups

Governor James Ibori of Nigeria’s Delta State signed into law on Friday a new bill that prohibits the activities of militant groups blamed for communal violence and disruption of oil industry activities in the state.

The bill, passed by the state legislature in July, gives teeth to the governor’s avowed resolve to smash armed militants responsible for communal violence, sabotage of oil installations and hostage-taking in Nigeria’s leading oil producing state.

“The state government can no longer afford to watch innocent citizens terrorised and its economy jeopardised by irresponsible youths that like to take laws into their hands,” a senior Ibori aide told IRIN on Monday.

Those who continue to maintain armed militant groups would also be prosecuted with a battery of other existing laws covering crimes such as the illegal possession of firearms and unlawful assembly.

The new law marks a significant move by the governor away from his initial policy of containing the myriad of militant groups in the restive region through dialogue, to one of imposing his authority. Ibori had been elected in 1999, at a time the southern state, particularly the oil industry hub of Warri, was wracked by bitter ethnic violence involving the Ijaws, Itsekhiris and Urhobos over claims of ownership of the oil town.

He started talks between the groups and made acclaimed political moves credited with bringing the violence under control. But in recent times there have been sporadic clashes, suggesting a resurgence of widespread violence.

Early in July the Nigerian units of transnationals Chevron, Shell, and Westminster Dredging petitioned the government to end the activities of an armed group operating on the Escravos River, said to be of the nearby Ugborodo community.

A local newspaper citing Shell’s petition said the militants were angered by the decision of the oil companies to deal only with the Ugborodo Community Trust, a group of elected community representatives, in all relations with the locality. The trust appeared to confirm this when it alleged the existence of “mercenaries put together and financed by people with vested interests and targeted at destabilising the oil community”.

The new law is believed to be aimed at such armed gangs which have sprung up all over Nigeria’s impoverished but oil-rich Niger Delta, and which continue to disrupt oil industry activities in a bid to extract ransoms.