Key Nigerian militants taking part in amnesty deal, government official says

Key Nigerian militants taking part in amnesty deal

ABUJA, Nigeria — Key Nigerian militants have agreed to disarm and a government spokeswoman said that is improving the country’s oil production. Analysts, though, warned Wednesday that militant attacks could resume after a cease-fire expires next week.

Amnesty committee spokeswoman Timiebi Koripamo-Agari said militant leader Government Tompolo is among those now taking part in the government’s program, which began in August and requires the militants to disarm.

Another leader, Farah Dagogo, surrendered over the weekend and Ebikabowei Victor Ben had previously surrendered with 1,000 fighters.

Attacks from the country’s main militant group, The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, and unrest in the Delta region had cut Nigeria’s oil production by about a million barrels a day, allowing Angola to overtake it as Africa’s top oil producer.

“Oil production has already improved with the surrender of arms by the militants and the unilateral declaration of cease-fire by MEND; oil production went up long before the end of amnesty,” Koripamo-Agari told The Associated Press. “I can only see things improving further.”

Nigeria’s oil minister, Odein Ajumogobia, also said that any calm in the Delta region will improve oil production.

The militants announced in mid-September that they would extend their cease-fire by one month, holding off on attacks on oil installations and kidnapping foreigners.

“MEND seems to have lost a number of key commanders to the peace talks with the government and this could reduce the effect MEND has in the immediate future,” Thomas Pearmain, an Africa energy analyst with IHS Global Insight, said Wednesday.

ECOWAS, a regional bloc of African states, also commended the amnesty program in a statement released Wednesday.

However, MEND has said that it has replaced commanders who have surrendered and that it will not accept an amnesty deal.

And Pearmain warned that the militant organization is likely to resume attacks on Nigeria’s oil industry once the cease-fire ends. He also said the group will grow with younger members from the Delta region.

The militants say they are fighting to force the federal government to send more oil-industry funds to the southern region that remains poor despite five decades of oil production.

The government has acknowledged the grievances of many in the Niger Delta, but denounces the militants as criminals who steal crude oil from Nigeria’s wells and pipelines and profit by selling it overseas.

Sebastian Spio-Garbrah, an Africa analyst in New York for Eurasia Group, said that those fundamental issues such as the division of oil revenues have not been addressed yet. The Niger Delta region only gets 13 percent of the country’s revenue, and militants have demanded 18 to 20 percent, he said.

“We may see resumptions in attacks,” when the cease-fire ends, he said.

Nigeria now produces between 1.5 million and 1.8 million barrels a day, Spio-Garbrah said.

Associated Press writers Carley Petesch and Nkemeleng Nkosi in Johannesburg contributed to this report.