Nigerians from the Niger Delta living in France want to strengthen the Diaspora and are planning to organise demonstrations in Paris to draw the attention of the international community to the situation in the oil-rich Delta.

“Here we have the right to defend our rights, in the Delta they kill us,” says one of the participants at the Niger Delta Peace Consolidation Conference, held in The Hague this week.

Organised almost single-handedly by Sunny Ofehe, a Nigerian refugee in the Netherlands, the two-day conference kicked off on Thursday in The Hague, without delegates from the Nigerian government and the main armed rebel group.

Speakers at the conference attended by approximately 60 persons included representatives of non- governmental organisations and activists. Local and federal Nigerian government representatives that had been invited did not show up, partly because of the political crisis in the capital Abuja, where ailing President Umaru Yar'Adua returned this week after a long leave of absence in Saudi Arabia.  

The main rebel group in the region, Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) is not participating at the conference. Conference organisers say they were denied visas to enter the Netherlands.