Oil facilities open again as militiamen withdraw threat of attacks

Two oil facilities in Nigeria, shut by militiamen protesting their leader's arrest, have reopened, oil company officials said on Tuesday, after the groups withdrew their threats to dynamite installations and kidnap foreign workers. Oil giant Chevron said production had resumed at its two plants that were forced to close down last week as insecurity mounted in the wake of the arrest of Moujahid Dokubo-Asari, the leader of the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force (NDPVF). “We have reopened Idama and Robertkiri due to an improved security situation,” said Chevron spokesman Deji Haastrup. The NDPVF said in an official statement on Tuesday that it was suspending its threat to attack oil installations and foreign oil workers. “Following developments which we have carefully been surveying and other reasons which we can not fully define right now and in this medium, the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force hereby declares that we have ceased all hostilities with the government of the Nigerian state,” the group said in a message sent to news organisations. The new stance came on the heels of a statement by Dokubo-Asari's lawyer over the weekend, urging his client's supporters to remain calm. "Asari gave me the instruction to tell them that nobody should harm any foreigner or do anything criminal. They shouldn't do anything that could put his case in jeopardy. It's not in the interest of the movement," lawyer Uche Okwukwu was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency. Dokubo-Asari, a self-styled revolutionary whom authorities dismiss as a gangster, was arrested a week ago in the oil industry hub of Port Harcourt. Police said he was wanted in connection with comments made in a recent newspaper interview about fighting for the disintegration of Nigeria. The militia leader appeared in court briefly two days later, where a judge ordered he be kept in custody for two weeks pending formal charges for treason -- a charge that carries the death penalty. Dokubo-Asari's supporters threatened to unleash "grave mayhem" in the ever-restive Niger Delta, which accounts for nearly all of Nigeria's 2.5 million barrels of oil a day, unless their leader was released. But government troops moved in and violence appears to have been averted in Africa's biggest oil producer, at least for now. “Soldiers are now guarding Idama and Robertkiri,” Wilson Ebiware, a nearby resident, told IRIN. Royal Dutch Shell, the biggest oil operator in Nigeria, which had begun evacuating some of its facilities and asked its workers in Port Harcourt to stay at home as tension rose last week, also said it was business as usual. “We have asked our workers to return to work and resumed normal operations,” a company official told IRIN. Last year threats by Dokubo-Asari to target the oil industry helped send world oil prices to record levels at the time. His followers fought gun battles with troops and major violence was avoided after the militia leader met with Obasanjo and agreed to a disarmament deal, handing in hundreds of weapons in exchange for cash and amnesty. That amnesty apparently came to an end with his arrest last week. It is unclear how much manpower or firepower the NDPVF now has. During the latest flare-up some senior members talked about 3,000 militants ready for action. The local government dismisses this as simple posturing. The Ijaws, the dominant ethnic group in the Niger Delta region, view Dokubo-Asari as a hero. Most of the delta's inhabitants live in extreme poverty, resentful of the billions of dollars generated on their doorstep which go to the Nigerian government and international oil companies. Dokubo-Asari wants residents to have a greater control over the oil profits and get a bigger share of the wealth so that basic services like water and power can be improved.