Hundreds of Nigerian troops descended on Monday on the capital of the country’s biggest oil-producing region after militant youths rallied around a state governor accused of embezzling millions of dollars, the military said.
The deployment marks a dramatic increase in tension in the restive Niger Delta, the heartland of Nigeria’s massive oil and gas industry and a haven for armed pirate gangs.
”We have troops deployed in Yenagoa. They went in this morning. Their numbers are in the hundreds,” Major Said Hamed, spokesperson for a joint military task force set up to protect oil facilities, said by telephone from the region.
Yenagoa is capital of Bayelsa state and the headquarters of Governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, who last week skipped bail in Britain to escape money-laundering charges and used a forged passport to escape to Nigeria, where he enjoys immunity from prosecution.
President Olusegun Obasanjo had hoped that Alamieyeseigha would be prosecuted in London, with the London police case supported by evidence provided by Nigerian agents.
On Monday, the Nigerian press printed extracts from an angry letter reportedly sent by Obasanjo to Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair, demanding to know how Alamieyeseigha had escaped.
Stand-off
Now, the Nigerian leader is locked in an uneasy stand-off with a governor who enjoys legal protection and has surrounded himself with armed men drawn from the ethnic Ijaw militant groups, which operate in the wetlands of the delta.
”Some of the youths protect the governor and some others are against him. They are on both sides. Some are known to be dressed in military uniforms. Our own troops are now there and they will soon get the information they need about those in uniform,” Hamed said.
The leader of Bayelsa’s biggest militant movement, the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC), accused the soldiers of intimidating and harassing civilians.
”They have up to eight major checkpoints in the town. They will strip you almost naked in an attempt to search you. They are stopping all the buses and making passengers get off and put their hands in the air,” IYC president Jonjon Oyinfie said.
Oyinfie did not deny that militants had moved in to protect the governor after the federal government withdrew his police and security-service bodyguards.
”Is the governor is not supposed to have an escort? Especially after he has heard that his enemies have sent assassins to kill him,” he said from the city.
The IYC leader alleged that the arrest of Alamieyeseigha and the subsequent military crackdown were an attempt by Obasanjo’s government to humiliate the Ijaws, a 12-million-strong ethnic group that makes up the majority of the population in Bayelsa and the Niger Delta as a whole.
”What is happening to Alamieyeseigha is not because he is the most corrupt governor in Nigeria, but because he did not tow Obasanjo’s line,” he said.
Nigeria is the Africa’s biggest oil exporter and produces more than 2,5-million barrels per day.
But, despite accounting for more than a quarter of Nigerian production and receiving more oil revenue than any other state, Bayelsa and its two million citizens remain mired in poverty.
Arrest
The governor was arrested in London in September by Scotland Yard detectives working on information from Nigeria’s anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
He was charged with three counts of money laundering after £1,8-million was found in his London home and two British bank accounts.
But before he could face trial he skipped bail, disguised himself as a woman and used a false passport to flee home to Nigeria, according to the EFCC.
As an elected governor, he cannot be charged with a criminal offence in Nigeria, but members of the Bayelsa State House of Assembly have launched impeachment proceedings against him. If and when he is formally ousted, he could be extradited to Britain or face trial in a Nigerian court. — Sapa-AFP