The leadership crisis in Nigeria has overshadowed the Niger Delta Peace Consolidation Conference in the Hague for the troubled region.
There has been relative peace in the oil-rich region in recent months and oil production has increased since the government offered amnesty to armed rebels who had vowed to destroy the industry.
“Boys ready to strike”
The two-day event in the Netherlands was to find ways to consolidate this still fragile peace, since, “the boys are ready to strike again soon” if nothing is done, as one of the participants put it.
However, major players in the conflict did not show up. Nigerian government representatives chose to stay at home, amid uncertainty surrounding the health of ailing President Umaru Yar’Adua. The latter returned to Nigeria this week after a three month stay in a hospital in Saudi Arabia.
MEND denies it applied for visas
Also absent were representatives of the main armed movement, MEND (Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta), who according to the organisers were denied visas for the Netherlands. MEND has since denied this in a message to Radio Netherlands Worldwide. " No member of MEND applied for visa at the Dutch embassy", spokesman Jomo Gbomo wrote. The group says it has "disssociated" itself from the organizers of the conference, "because of this deliberate false impression."
Rebranding
The principal organiser, Sunny Ofehe, a Nigerian political refugee in the Netherlands, had to settle with a call by NGOs present at the conference for the international community and the Dutch government to put pressure on the Nigerian authorities to take urgent measures to consolidate peace in the Delta. Nigeria has launched a “rebranding” campaign and is said to be sensitive to bad publicity abroad.
Participants hoped that such a gathering, held in the backyard of Royal Dutch Shell, the largest oil multinational in Nigeria, would attract greater attention to environmental problems and injustice in the Niger Delta.
But with the ongoing uncertainty as to who's in charge in the federal capital Abuja, no progress is expected on the Niger Delta issue in the short term.
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The conference was typically well intentioned but relied
on complaints rather than solutions. The comment from Jobo Gbomo was
correct... no MEND leaders were even aware of the conference. I know
because i have spent the last 8 weeks meeting with: Tompolo, Ateke Tom, Young
Shall Grow, Farah Dagogo, McIver, Soboma George etc... and their various
Generals and Commanders.
It is time that the real issues were given some publicity... rather than the
usual blame game we have concentrated on providing rather than preaching.
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