Militia leader in oil region agrees to hold fire as long as not attacked

A militia leader who has declared war on oil companies operating in southeastern Nigeria flew to the capital, Abuja, on Wednesday for surprise talks with President Olusegun Obasanjo on ways to defuse rising tension in the oil-rich Niger Delta. Moujahid Dokubo-Asari, the leader of the self-styled Niger Delta People's Volunteer Defence Force (NDPVF), said that his men would hold fire so long as they were not attacked and his talks with Obasanjo continued. "The president has given an understanding that troops will not attack our positions and we also will not attack as long as we are not attacked," he told IRIN by telephone after a first round of talks with the president. "Nothing formal as regards a ceasefire has been agreed," Dokubo-Asari added. "We will go back for further talks this evening and hope that something more concrete will be agreed." On Monday, the NDPVF vowed to begin a new offensive on 1 October, dubbed "Operation Locust Feast." It said this would target oil workers unless multinational companies pumping oil in the Niger Delta shut down production. However, the group said it would not try to damage the oil installations themselves. Dokubo-Asari said on Wednesday that his armed rebellion would be called off if agreement were reached with the government on his group's key demands. These are greater autonomy for the Niger Delta and more control over the region's oil wealth for the people who live there. But he was quick to warn that he would fight on if the talks failed. "Operation Locust Feast is not off. If we don't reach agreement we will go back to where we stopped," he said. Nigeria is Africa's leading oil producer and the world's seventh largest exporter. Nearly all its 2.5 million barrels-a-day production comes from the Niger Delta and nearby offshore oilfields. After the militants' declaration of war, international oil prices on Tuesday shot up to more than US $50 a barrel for the first time ever as traders worried about supplies from Nigeria. The military had dismissed the NDPVF's ultimatum as "an empty threat" on Tuesday, but Dokubo-Asari said he had been flown to Abuja on a government plane from the oil industry hub, Port Harcourt. "The President invited me to come and I decided to come," he told IRIN. "I'm giving him the benefit of doubt." Nigeria's Minister of Information Chukwuemeka Chikelu confirmed the militia leader's presence in the capital. "Dokubo-Asari and some other leaders of the Niger Delta have been in Abuja discussing with our security officers and other officers of the state," Chikelu told reporters Oil prices began easing on Wednesday as news filtered through to the markets that the government was talking to the Delta rebel movement. The NDPVF says it is seeking a better deal for the Ijaw people, the largest ethnic group in the Niger Delta, which accounts for most of Nigeria's oil production. But the government says it is nothing more than a criminal gang which finances itself by stealing oil from pipelines and selling it clandestinely to tankers offshore. The Nigerian security forces launched their latest offensive against the NDPVF in late August after the group claimed responsibility for a series of raids on Port Harcourt, the main operating centre of Nigeria's oil industry. They have kept up the pressure since then. On Tuesday, troops raided two villages suspected to be strongholds of the militia force with ground troops and helicopter gunships. "We were at Gbile and Kee where we arrested several people associated with the gangs," military spokesman Captain Onyema Kanu told IRIN.