In a demonstration of support for prominent Niger Delta militant Henry Okah, whom the government put on trial in early April, militant leaders said that they will escalate armed conflict.
“We have pulled out of any peace talks. We have not disarmed so there really is no progress since Okah’s arrest,” the spokesperson for the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend), Jomo Gbomo, wrote in an email to Irin on April 13.
Mend is an alliance of militant groups claiming to fight for an increase in the percentage of wealth that the people of the Niger Delta get from the oil that is being exploited in their region. Gbomo said militants would target oil installations even if the oil companies repair pipe lines. “It only takes a few minutes to destroy what took years to build.”
Prior to Okah’s arrest leaders of the militants agreed to a temporary ceasefire. In August 2007 the newly elected government of Umaru Yar’Adua initiated peace talks in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja. But in September Okah was arrested in Angola and by December the militants called back the people negotiating on their behalf. The negotiators pledged to return by January but the talks remain on hold.
Okah was extradited to Nigeria in February to face charges of arms dealing, oil bunkering and treason. Mend then issued a statement saying that it would not participate in future negotiations until Okah’s release or take part in a proposed Niger Delta Peace Summit that has been repeatedly delayed.
The militants in Mend have become fragmented in recent years, but Okah’s arrest may now be unifying them, said a professor of political science in Port Harcourt, Elias Courson. “Okah has enemies and friends in the Niger Delta. But [by arresting him] the government is rallying support for him,” Courson said.
One of the more violent and well-organised militias led by Ateke Tom, whom Mend says is not in the alliance, said he too would boycott further talks. “The government cannot arrest people while continuing to make peace talks,” an anonymous representative of Tom said. “[Ateke believes that Okah] should be released in order not to aggravate tensions in the region.”
“The people of this country should have the benefit of knowing what happened and if indeed he has committed those crimes including treason,” said Isaac Osuoka, director of Social Action in Port Harcourt.
Okah’s defence team will challenge the decision of a closed hearing on April 22. The government’s prosecutor argues that a public trial would be a threat to security.
The accusations against him focus on arms dealing. In October 2007 a former militia leader, Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, who was also arrested for treason, published an open letter detailing his relationship with Okah, recounting numerous weapons purchases starting in 2003. “We … coined him at the time ‘Master of Arms’, from where many now call him Master,” Dokubo-Asari said in the letter.
Okah is also accused of having arms-dealing connections with the Nigerian military. One of the charges he faces is that he bought arms from the Nigerian army ordinance depot in Kaduna and took them to the Niger Delta.
Mend said the real reason the government is keeping the trial secret is to protect its own. “There are many top people in the past and present government that would prefer Okah dead because of their complicity in oil bunkering, political assassinations and other hard facts that we know about and which Okah will have no qualms speaking out about in an open court of law,” said Gbomo.