Nigeria oil rebels reject Niger Delta summit
LAGOS - Nigerian militants responsible for bombing oil pipelines and kidnapping foreign workers in the Niger Delta said today they would not take part in a peace summit called by the government for next month.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend), whose campaign of violent sabotage against Nigeria’s oil industry has helped push world oil prices to record highs, said the summit was “bound to fail”.
“Mend has made its position very clear that it will not be a part of the jamboree called a summit. Unlike other groups that go back and forth to be appeased with bribes, Mend has people with integrity,” the group said in an e-mail to Reuters.
President Umaru Yar’Adua said on Friday that the long-awaited summit would take place next month.
Vice President Goodluck Jonathan, from the delta, has been tasked with organising the summit.
His office said on Thursday that top UN official Ibrahim Gambari, a Nigerian who is a special adviser to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, would lead a steering committee to prepare the summit.
Gambari was Nigeria’s envoy to the United Nations (UN) in 1995 when writer Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other activists were hanged by the then-military government of General Sani Abacha after leading protests against international oil companies.
Mend rejected Gambari’s involvement in the proposed summit, saying he had defended Abacha’s actions against international condemnation at the time of Saro-Wiwa’s execution.
“Ibrahim Gambari’s utterances during the trial and after the murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa have come back to haunt him,” Mend said.
“Here is a man who defended the despot, Sani Abacha, and the judicial murder only to expect a warm embrace from the Niger Delta people. He is not welcome and we do not consider him credible,” the e-mail said.
