In Fight Over Oil-Rich Delta, Firepower Grows Sophisticated

Niger Delta militants displayed their weapons, including heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, to journalists last month. Both the rebels and the government are said to finance arms purchases through oil sales. (Photos By Craig Timberg -- The Washington Post)

The group is threatening more attacks unless the government embarks on extensive new development projects, releases two of the region's political leaders who are in prison on criminal charges and curbs Nigerian military presence in the delta.

Government officials blame the rising violence on well-organized criminal gangs desperate to protect their access to stolen oil at a time when the military is cracking down on theft. A Nigerian navy spokesman, Capt. Obiara C. Medani, said in an interview in Abuja, the national capital: "It's a sophisticated campaign to give them a free hand. That's what this thing is all about."

Whatever the motives of the militant leaders, their aggressive tactics against the government and foreign-owned oil companies have won broad sympathy among a population that sees little benefit from hosting one of the world's most lucrative oil industries at a time of record profits.

Recruiting militants has never been easier, community leaders here say.

"Jobless youths, they have nothing to do. They have nothing to lose," said Kimse Okoko, president of the Ijaw National Congress, a political organization representing the largest ethnic group in the delta's villages, few of which have schools, electricity or access to clean water.

Southeastern Nigeria has been agitating for independence nearly since the discovery of oil here in the 1950s, and the prospect of controlling the newfound wealth contributed to the disastrous 1967-70 Biafra war, when southeastern Nigeria attempted to secede.

In interviews, the militants repeatedly make reference to the long history of the struggle and the failure of the government or the oil companies to make meaningful improvements in the lives of delta residents. The time for peaceful political action, they say, is over.

"We will bring the Nigerian government and oil companies to their knees," a spokesman for the militants, who uses the pseudonym Jomo Gbomo, said in an e-mail. He said the group "will continue with our campaign until our demands are met or until there is no drop of oil exported from Nigeria."

He estimated that 30,000 assault rifles remain in the region as the result of political battles here in recent years and that new weaponry continues to arrive. "Certainly the number of heavy weapons in the delta has increased dramatically in the last few years," Gbomo said.

He denied that the militants were using stolen oil to pay for their struggle, but one of the Niger Delta militant leaders who is in jail, Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, acknowledged the practice in an interview with Human Rights Watch in 2004. "I take that which belongs to me," Dokubo-Asari was quoted as saying. "It is not theft. The oil belongs to our people."

Few here disagree. In the fishing village of Biriaya-ama, a 45-minute motorboat ride from Port Harcourt, young men said they were frustrated after years of surviving on meager catches as billions of dollars of oil was pumped out of the region. John Sokaribo, 24, said he knew from reports on a village radio -- powered by a rare gas-powered generator -- that oil prices were topping $60 a barrel.

The average wage in Nigeria has stagnated at barely more than $1 a day even as government revenue from oil, the largest single source, has more than doubled in recent years. Abuja, already filled with massive, modern buildings on wide, well-paved streets, is bustling with new construction. Even in Port Harcourt, elegant mansions are being built not far from shantytowns.

"We don't see any benefit. We don't see anything because of the bad government that we have," said Sokaribo. He said he longed for a life beyond fishing in rivers where oil spills have killed off most of the fish.

Last year, Sokaribo said, he applied for a job with Shell oil in the nearby city of Bonny but never even received a response. If militants came on a recruiting trip to Biriaya-ama, Sokaribo said, he might join.

"Those boys," he said of the militants, "they fight for our benefit."