Tension mounts in Delta over troop deployment

Tension is mounting in Nigeria’s oil region Delta state over recent deployment of troops amid allegations by residents that they were subjecting several ethnic Ijaw communities to harassment.

Residents of villages including Diebiri, Batan, Ajuju, Ewerigbene and Kumusi said scores of heavily armed naval personnel have been deployed in their riverine communities since an oil spill last month, which affected their farmlands and fishing areas.

They accused oil giant Royal/Dutch Shell, which admitted rupture on a major pipeline at its Batan facility at the time, of inviting the troops following a dispute over compensation and the procedure for cleaning up the spill.

"The soldiers have been arresting people indiscriminately and intimidating the communities to accept an unfavourable settlement for damages caused by the oil spill," Dickson Orubebe, a resident of Batan, told IRIN.

However, Captain Titus Awoyemi, the commanding officer of the Nigerian Navy base in the oil town of Warri, on Monday denied the allegations. He told reporters that the navy had launched an operation to recover weapons seized from some naval men and dislodge pirates he said were active in the delta waterways.

He said armed militants operating in speedboats had on two occasions in recent weeks disarmed naval personnel and policemen guarding oil operations, taking away their weapons. In the latest incident he said, a band of armed youths using two speedboats attacked a boat belonging to Chevron-Texaco and seized weapons from three soldiers aboard on escort duty last week.

"The navy, in collaboration with soldiers, policemen and the State Security Service launched an operation to recover the arms seized by the youths," Awoyemi said.

He said some of the weapons were recovered with a number of arrests made. The rest and those who took them were still at large, he added.

In the past decade militant youths in Nigeria’s impoverished oil region have established a record of frequently disrupting oil operations to protest perceived neglect by government and oil transnational. The government has responded in the past three years by deploying troops to oil facilities, leading to increasing cases of confrontation between them and the militants.