The government of the southern Nigerian Rivers State yesterday welcomed peace talks between the Abuja authorities and the leader of a separatist movement fighting for the control of the country's oil wealth.
"It is a positive development. It will go a long way to further reduce tensions in the Niger Delta," government spokesman Emmanuel Okah told reporters.
PHOTO: EPA
Asked if he was optimistic a settlement could be reached to avert a new rebel offensive planned for today, rebel leader Mujahid Dokubo-Asari said: "The president has set no preconditions for the talks."
"We are due to meet today at 10am. We told them we are leaving today after the talks."
Mujahid Abubakar Dokubo Asari, leader of Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force (NDPVF) which has issued threats against foreign oil installations and workers, began a meeting with the Nigerian government in Abuja on Wednesday.
Asari claimed he met President Olusegun Obasanjo for two hours on Wednesday and another round of talks was scheduled for late in the evening.
Nigeria's Information Minister confirmed that talks were going on, but did not say if the rebel leader met Obasanjo personally.
Rivers government spokesman Okah told reporters Asari had "tested the will of Nigerian federal government by attempting to acquire part of its territory for illegal bunkering," a term used for the stealing of crude oil from pipelines and selling it off to buy arms and ammunition.
"We, in Rivers State, have no problems with the development. If Nigeria has chosen to talk with him, so be it," he said.
Asari leads a rebel group which says it is fighting for the rights of the impoverished ethnic Ijaw in the Niger Delta region, the center of the west African country's substantial oil industry.
The gang has been operating in Port Harcourt and its surrounding creeks, carrying out illegal bunkering to finance its armed struggle.
Some 500 people have died in gang violence in the past month in Port Harcourt, the hub of Nigeria's oil-rich Niger delta region, according to Amnesty International, but the government said only 13 were killed.
The government deployed troops to the region two weeks ago following fighting between two armed gangs for control of the area's illegal crude oil trafficking and stealing.
Asari on Monday asked multinational oil firms to leave their bases in the Niger Delta, but the military have declared a round-the-clock offensive to dislodge the gang from the region.
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS