A campaign by a a Nigerian based in the Netherlands to bring hope to the Niger Delta is being put to the test. Just a few weeks before his peace conference is due to open in The Hague , rebels in Nigeria’s oil rich region have broken their ceasefire. “As a non-violent activist, I believe violence is not the solution to crisis”, says Sunny Ofehe.

By Hélène Michaud

Rebels in the oil rich Niger Delta are seizing the power vacuum in Nigeria to force a breakthrough in the region’s lame peace process. They want to do this through violence, but also dialogue.

Following a three-month truce, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) rebel group announced last weekend that they would renew their attacks on oil installations. Hours after the announcement, militants presumably close to MEND sabotaged a Shell pipeline.

Conference in the Netherlands

Yet MEND are not excluding their participation at a planned peace conference at the end of February. The conference organiser wants the talks to build on the gains of the ceasefire.

‘Comrade’ Sunny Ofehe, a Nigerian refugee in the Netherlands who is the instigator of the conference, says he has received confirmation that MEND will send 5 delegates to his Niger Delta Peace Consolidation Conference. A MEND spokesman told Radio Netherlands Worldwide that “for security reasons, we will not be disclosing our plans for the Conference.”

The spokesman, Jomo Gbomo, said that President Umaru Yar’Adua’s prolonged absence from power “is having a negative impact on everything in the country, including the peace process.” The president, who stood firmly behind the truce, has been hospitalised in Saudi Arabia for more than two months and has not officially transferred power to his vice-president.

Devil’s workshop

After the ceasefire, youths in the troubled Delta had started coming out of the oil creeks, expecting to be enrolled in training programmes. But Ofehe says the government has not followed through on the President’s promise to integrate them into mainstream society. “The youths have been left to fend for themselves”, Ofehe says. And they’re impatient.

“There is a saying that an idle mind is the devil’s workshop. So when MEND say they are ending their peace agreement, it is very dangerous because there are a lot of people they can recruit and take back into the creek to begin violence.”

Sunny Ofehe, the founder of the Hope for Niger Delta Campaign, has spent the past year lobbying all parties intensively, in The Netherlands and in Nigeria, to generate interest in the two-day event he is organising single-handedly it seems.

“My profound motivation to organise this conference is borne out of my determination to see that peace return to the Niger Delta where foreigners can move freely without fear, as was the case when I was growing up in the region. ”

The agenda is ambitious and Ofehe has no illusion that the conference will bring a total solution to the Niger Delta problem. The talks are to build on the gains of the ceasefire: increased oil production and greater security in the region. Ofehe also hopes they will address major gaps in the amnesty process which he feels focused too much on militants and “did not provide room for other aggrieved citizens in the Niger Delta”.

Ordinary people

This is why the organiser has also invited “ordinary people” such as market women to attend, along with traditional leaders and youths. The conference will be an ‘open’ event, where all parties interested in peace in the Niger Delta are welcome.

The power vacuum in Abuja is likely to have an impact on the gathering. Vice- president Jonathan Goodluck has pledged to send a federal government representative, says Ofehe. But just how much clout will he have without formal backing from the presidency? Governors from three important states - Delta, Rivers and Bayelsa - have also promised to attend, Ofehe says.

Dutch government noncommittal

Ofehe does not hide his disappointment with the Dutch government’s cool reaction to his invitation to take an active role. His request is being examined, a Foreign Ministry spokesman states. “It is important for us that all parties are represented at the meeting, such as, in this case, the government of Nigeria.”

It will be an impressive achievement indeed if Ofehe, who says he is supported by friends and a network of concerned people, manages to gather major players to talk peace seriously in The Hague.

The event is financed by “people in the Netherlands who prefer to be low key, because of the sensitivity of the conference,” says Ofehe. Asked whether Royal Dutch Shell is one of the backers, he responds: “not Shell, of course not.” He says the company will be invited, but as an observer only. ‘This is a pure Niger Delta affair”.