With unrest in the Niger Delta cutting into oil output, the Nigerian government has made peace efforts a priority, but has little to show for its first year — and little chance of a quick breakthrough.
Its efforts suffered a major setback in recent days as the government’s choice of mediator was roundly rejected.
Ever since Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua came to power last year, his government has been promoting the idea of a grand peace summit bringing together federal officials, ethnic leaders and oil companies.
The challenge is huge: a veritable cocktail of hard-line militants, armed and political opportunists and a population mired in poverty despite the black gold flowing out of its land and its waters.
Oil companies and their personnel are being targeted by armed groups, angered at the uneven distribution of oil wealth, and the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) has emerged as a key player with its two-year campaign of kidnappings and sabotage.
Mend announced a unilateral halt to attacks beginning on June 24, but not before causing a drop in production that has seen Nigeria lose its title of top African oil producer to Angola.
Yar’Adua may have thought he found just the man to preside over the summit: Ibrahim Gambari, a Delta native who was United Nations undersecretary general for political affairs when Kofi Annan was UN secretary general.
But Gambari, more recently the UN envoy for Burma, engendered unity in a way the president did not hope for — local leaders rejected his role as mediator.
Despite an official statement on Monday saying that governors and ethnic leaders had agreed to talks and a summit, the chances of the event delivering a successful outcome seem remote.
The summit was expected to be held in July, but no date has yet been set.
The appointment of Gambari drew criticism from those angry at some of his past utterances on issues related to the region.
Gambari was specifically accused of defending the killing of Ken Saro-Wiwa, an environmental activist from the Delta who was hanged by the dictatorial regime of General Sani Abacha in 1995.
He also drew flak for painting the summit as a national phenomenon rather than something more directly related to the people of the Niger Delta.
And while they agreed to the summit, leaders of the Delta’s ethnic communities are not enthusiastic.
”We need a process and not and event,” said Ledum Mitee of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People, which Saro-Wiwa once led.
The leader of the dominant Ijaw ethnic group dismissed the federal government’s initiative as a ”facade”.
”We have seen so many conferences, so many summits and reports on Niger Delta. We have become very cynical about such summits and conferences,” said Kimse Okoko, president of the Ijaw National Congress. — Sapa-AFP