Nigeria's Boko Haram is threat to US

Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram have threatened the US embassy in the wake of their Christmas Day attack on a church in Madalla, Niger State which killed over 40 people. Nigerian newspaper The Moment said today the White House had intelligence reports indicating that the next target is the Lagos US diplomatic mission. The Moment said security analysts have advised US ambassador to Nigeria, Terence McCulley to get local police to fortify security around all US diplomatic missions and investments in the country. (Photo: AFP)

Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan has declared a state of emergency in four states (Borno, Yobe, Niger and plateau states) in the wake of the Christmas Day attack. Jonathan said what began as a sectarian crisis in the North East has gradually evolved into terrorist activities across the country. “The crisis has assumed a terrorist dimension with vital institutions of government including the UN Building and places of worship becoming targets of attacks,” he said. Jonathan also closed the borders adjacent to the four affected states.

Jonathan made the announcement on a visit to the Catholic Church in Madalla near the capital Abuja where 44 people were killed by a bomb as they were leaving a Christmas Day mass. During his address in the church, many worshippers cried uncontrollably, including two women who lost their husbands and four children in the attack. Parish priest, Reverend Father Isaac Achi, said the church had forgiven the attackers.“On behalf of the whole Christians in this country and Christ lovers… we have forgiven them from the bottom of our hearts,” he said. “We pray that such thing will not occur again in any place in this country.”

But others remain unhappy with the president. Nigerian newspaper The Nation said the governors of the affected states were annoyed they were not consulted in the president’s state of emergency. Some of the governors told the Nation the magnitude of the Boko Haram problem required collective effort. An unnamed governor said most of his colleagues were not happy being sidelined. “[Jonathan] has forgotten that whatever affects the nation is a collective burden we need to bear,” the Governor said. “"If governors are supposedly Chief Security Officers in their states, it presupposes that they must be part of solution to the spate of violence in the country.” The governors want a say in the choice of a new inspector general of police. Hafiz Ringim is due to retire within the next three months and the restructuring of police is central to Jonathan’s security overhaul to combat Boko Haram.

ND Danjobo from the Peace and Conflict Studies Program at the University of Ibadan said the rise of Boko Haram was related to the long-term failure of governance in Nigeria. Mohammed Yusuf, the movement’s founder was a Nigerian who was radicalised on Qur’an study visits to Chad and Niger. In Hausa language, the word “boko” can mean either “Western” or foreign; while the word “haram” is an Arabic derivative meaning “forbidden”. Yusuf wanted to forbid all Western influences and replace the modern state formation with the traditional Islamic state. His followers were school drop-outs and underemployed university graduates who believed that their hopelessness was caused by a government that imposed western education and failed to manage the resources of the country to the benefit of all.

Islamic Northern Nigeria has always been suspicious of western ways and there were major riots in 1980 against Christian interests that claimed 4,000 lives. The rise of Islamism elsewhere in the globe has strengthened hardliners and they were involved in a major outbreak of violence in 2009 with riots across six provinces and 1500 dead. Security forces killed 500 extremists in Borno alone. Despite, or perhaps because of the riots, Boko Haram enjoyed a wide spread of support within a short period of time. Yusuf was captured in 2009 and was "shot dead trying to escape". His followers treated his death as martyrdom and the group enjoyed renewed strength. In August 2011, Boko Haram attacked the UN headquarters in Abuja with a suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive device, killing 23 people and injuring more than 80 others.

A US Committee on Homeland Security report of November 2011 said Boko Haram was a direct threat to the US developing alliances with Algerian-based Al Qaeda in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb and Somali al Shabaab. The report said the US Intelligence community largely underestimated the potential for al Qaeda affiliate groups to target the Homeland, wrongly assessing they had only regional ambitions and threats against the US were merely “aspirational.” They urged increase its intelligence collection on Boko Haram, outreach with the Nigerian Diaspora in the US and better liaison with Nigerian security and counter-intelligence services.

British banks complicit in Nigerian corruption

A new report from a British non-government corporate watchdog has exposed how British banks have accepted millions of dollars in bribes from corrupt Nigerian politicians. The report called “International Thief Thief: How British Banks are complicit in Nigerian corruption”(PDF) has exposed rotten practices in the banking industry. Global Witness named five major banks Barclays, NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC and Switzerland's UBS in the 40-page report it said have failed to adequately investigate the source of tens of millions of dollars taken from two Nigerian governors accused of corruption.

Robert Palmer, a campaigner at Global Witness said banks were are quick to penalise ordinary customers for minor infractions but seem to be less concerned about dirty money passing through their accounts. "Large scale corruption is simply not possible without a bank willing to process payments from dodgy sources, or hold accounts for corrupt politicians,” he said.

Global Witness admitted the five banks might not have broken the law but said British banking regulator the Financial Services Authority must do more to close loopholes to prevent money laundering through British banks. "The FSA needs to do much more to prevent banks from facilitating corruption,” the report said. “As yet, no British bank has been publicly fined or even named by the regulators for taking corrupt funds, whether willingly or through negligence... in stark contrast to the United States, where banks have been fined hundreds of millions of dollars for handling dirty money." While HSBC claimed it had "rigorous and robust" measures in place to stop such abuses, a spokesman refused to talk about individual customers hiding behind the bank's confidentiality policies.

Global Witness’s findings were based on court documents from successful cases the Nigerian government brought in London against two former state governors Diepreye Alamieyeseigha of Bayelsa state and Joshua Dariye of Plateau state. Alamieyeseigha was jailed in Nigeria after pleading guilty to embezzlement and money laundering charges after being caught with $1.6m in cash at his London home. Dariye was arrested in 2004 in London after buying properties worth millions of dollars though he was on $63,500 a year salary.

Global Witness found that Barclays, HSBC, RBS, NatWest and UBS held accounts for both men. They said they “funnelled dirty money into the UK, spending their ill-gotten gains on sustaining a luxury lifestyle, in stark contrast to the poverty of ordinary Nigerians.” Global Witness said banks which were propped up by taxpayer’s money were getting away with practices that undermine aid programs. “This is not just illogical, it is immoral,” they said. “Our financial system is morally complicit in Nigerian corruption.” The banks have form: nearly all of them had previously fallen foul of the FSA in 2001 by reportedly helping the former Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha funnel nearly a billion pounds through the UK.

Nigeria ranks 130 out of 180 nations in Transparency International's list of countries perceived as most transparent in 2009. It has a population of 150 million people many of whom survive on $2 a day yet the country is one of the world's top champagne importers and its wealthiest residents are among the continent's richest. Al Jazeera quoted Nuhu Ribadu, the former head of Nigeria's anti-corruption agency who estimated that corruption and mismanagement swallows up about 40 per cent of the country's annual oil income. "Without access to the international financial system, it would be much harder for corrupt politicians from the developing world to loot their treasuries or accept bribes," Global Witness said in its report.

Cameroon struggles to cope with cholera outbreak

A raft of international aid agencies is rushing urgent supplies to Cameroon as the country deals with its worst outbreak of cholera in six years. The outbreak started in May in the country’s Far North region and subsequently spread to the neighbouring North region causing over 2,199 confirmed cases of cholera resulting in 163 deaths. UNICEF and other agencies are rapidly distributing supplies for medical workers and water treatment kits for families, along with medication. The waterborne infection is highly contagious yet is easily preventable with clean water and sanitation.

Over five million people live in the Far North and North regions of Cameroon and the regions share borders with Nigeria, Chad and the Central African Republic. Parts of the Far North region have suffered extensive flooding over the past month, leaving many communities increasingly vulnerable to disease. UNICEF said it was concerned that any further spread of the outbreak could have serious consequences for women and children across the sub-region. Al Jazeera has reported outbreaks in Chad and Nigeria with 400 deaths in these two countries in the past few months.

The latest outbreak was triggered by unusually heavy rains which caused severe flooding and landslides. The landslides submerged houses and made traditional pit toilets unusable. Safe drinking water is rare in the Far North region due to drought and the poor are turning to untreated water from hand-dug wells, increasing the region's vulnerability to cholera and other water-linked diseases. Authorities have begun disinfecting wells and other water points and are urging communities to practice proper hygiene. “We are urging people to be careful with the food and water they consume, and with how they handle the remains of people who died of cholera,” one official said.

All 13 regional hospitals in the Far North are full with little or no room to treat any more cases. Cameroon minister of public health Andre Mama Fouda said the risk of cholera spreading further south was very high with Cameroon still in the middle of its rainy season. "We are calling on the population to adopt strict personal hygiene and follow food and water consumption guidelines,” he said. “They should avoid drinking unchlorinated water and eating at makeshift street markets where food is not well preserved.”

Superstition is hampering relief efforts. Some communities have stopped attributing the increasing number of deaths to cholera. A volunteer leading said the hardest thing was stopping people from being sceptical. “For example, they believe that if you're not a sorcerer, cholera can't get you, and so it only affects sorcerers,” he said. Another volunteer said local religious leaders told everyone to stay away from the fields because of the risk of getting cholera. The volunteers’ message to people is simple: stop defecating in the open, use latrines, wash hands with soap and boil all water before use.

According to the World Health Organisation, cholera is an acute diarrhoeal disease that can kill within hours if left untreated. The infection is caused by ingestion of food or water contaminated with the bacterium vibrio cholerae. The short incubation period of between two hours to five days can make an outbreak explosive in its impact. There are up to five million cases every year with 120,000 fatalities. Control measures rely on prevention, preparedness and response.

80 percent of cases can be successfully treated with oral rehydration salts. But oral rehydration treatments remain scarce in the world's poorest countries. Some have blamed Big Pharma for making drug treatments too expensive but writing in The Wall Street Journal Alec Van Gelder of the International Policy Network does not agree. He puts the blame on lack of investment in domestic health care infrastructure. He said that in July's AU summit, leaders were confronted with WHO figures showing that only six member countries have met their 2001 pledge to invest 15 percent of their national output on health care. “The real global public health problem is that for every aid dollar African governments receive for health care they divert up to $1.14 of their own resources to other areas,” Van Gelder said.

Massacre in Central Nigeria

Human rights groups have called on Nigeria’s interim president to launch an immediate investigation into the tit-for-tat murder of over 400 villagers in the centre of the country two days ago. The killings of men, women and children in Nigeria's Plateau State took place on Sunday morning, when an armed group arrived in the mainly Christian villages of Dogo Nahawa, Zot, and Ratsat, 10 kilometers south of provincial capital Jos. The group shot into the air to draw people out of their homes before cutting them down with machetes. (photo by Reuters)

The strong stench of decomposing human bodies filled the air before they were removed to three mass burial sites. A state official who headed the Rescue and Recovery Committee said about 380 were buried at Dogon Na Hauwa while about 36 corpses would be buried in the two other graves. A small number of the bereaved families made their own burial arrangements. Plateau State Police Command said 96 people were arrested with four of the fleeing killers shot dead by security forces.

Witnesses interviewed by US-based Human Rights Watch said the attacks were committed by Muslim men speaking Hausa and Fulani against Christians, mostly of the Berom ethnicity."This kind of terrible violence has left thousands dead in Plateau State in the past decade, but no one has been held accountable," said Corinne Dufka, senior West Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. "It's time to draw a line in the sand. The authorities need to protect these communities, bring the perpetrators to book, and address the root causes of violence."

Civil society leaders in Jos said that the attacks were retaliation for previous attacks against Muslim communities in the area and the theft of cattle from Fulani herdsmen. On January 19, more than 150 Muslim residents were killed in an attack on the nearby town of Kuru Karama. In that attack scores of the residents were hacked to death and their bodies stuffed into wells. State agencies went missing in that attack and also in the revenge attacked that followed this week.

Religious and land-related clashes in the state have claimed more than 2,000 lives since 2001. The ruling state and national party the People's Democratic Party is supported by Christians while Muslim mainly back the opposition All Nigeria People's Party. And because the Hausa-speaking Muslims are often referred to as settlers, they are barred from taking official positions, gibing further rise to hatred.

Nigeria’s racial problems have been exacerbated by a constitutional crisis triggered by a long illness to President Umaru Yar’Adua. Yar’Adua spent three months in Saudi Arabia clinic before returning to Nigeria last month. However he has yet to resume any duties and four Saudi heart specialists arrived in Nigeria on the weekend as his health deteriorated. His exact health status is shrouded in secrecy as Acting President Goodluck Jonathan and other ruling party members have still not been granted access to see him in his Intensive Care Unit within the state house.

The Acting President is a Christian unlike the Muslim Yar’Adua as part of an unwritten agreement to take turns sharing the presidency between north and south. Jonathan comes from the oil-rich Delta region, an area with a sense of resentment that northerners stolen its wealth. The stand-off between the northern and southern factions has paralysed the administration of the country since Yar’Adua fell ill. Everyone is now waiting to see how the armed forces respond to the crisis. As Jonathan Clayton said in The Times “few people would like to see a return to military rule, but an unstable Nigeria is a nightmare prospect for both African and Western leaders.”

Nigeria executes Islamist leader

Nigerian police have shot dead the leader of the Islamist sect responsible for the spate of deadly violence across the north of the country for the last week. According to police Mohammed Yusuf was killed on Thursday as he attempted to escape from a compound in the city of Maiduguri which had been attacked for the previous 48 hours. However Reuters and local journalists say he had been captured alive and unhurt which suggest it was probably an execution style killing.

These claims are backed up by Colonel Ben Ahanotu, commander of the military operation against the compound who said he personally captured Yusuf who was unarmed and had given himself up willingly. "All I know is that in the attack, I was able to pick him up from his hideout and hand him over to police," he told the BBC. "I asked him why he did what he has done and his response was that he would explain to me later. But he was OK. As I got him alive, I handed him over to the authorities."

While the Nigerian government has promised to investigate the killing, there is little doubt that they are happy to see Yusuf removed from the picture. What is less clear is whether his death will end the violence that has beset the north all week. At least 300 people have died so far and another 4,000 have been forced to flee the area. The violence started in Bauchi before spreading to the neighbouring states of Yobe and Borno. It began on Sunday when Boko Haram, a group often called the Nigerian Taliban, launched a series of attacks on police stations across the north of the country. In retaliation, the army shelled Yusuf’s compound in the town of Maiduguri, Borno state, on Tuesday. Yusuf managed to escape with about 300 followers, some of them armed. His deputy, Bukar Shekau, was killed in the attack,

Mohammed Yusuf was 39 years old with four wives and 12 children. He had considerable private wealth with Western-style schooling. However, he completed his education in Iran. Yusuf, a self-proclaimed Islamic scholar, formed the group in 2002 with the intention of imposing Shari’a law across the rest of the country and removing Western influences. Based in Maiduguri, capital of Borno, his followers are a mix of former university lecturers and students and illiterate, jobless youths. The name Boko Haram means "western education is a sin” in the Hausa language common across the north.

Roughly half of Nigeria’s 140 million are Muslim. 19 states in the north are predominately Muslim with the remaining 15 states in the south Christian. In 2000 and 2001, 12 of the Northern states re-Islamised their legal system which added new Koranic offences related to theft, sex, robbery, defamation and alcohol. The Shari’a law also brought in the concept of retaliation or monetary compensation. The move alienated Christian minorities in the north and helped spark sectarian clashes that killed thousands. Meanwhile groups such as Boko Haram wanted to spread Shari’a to the other 24 states.

There is no evidence to infer from the fighting that Boko Haram or the other fundamentalist Islamist groups owe allegiance to al-Qaeda. And Nigeria’s Muslim president Umaru Yar'Adua has been trying to play down the violence. But he is only too aware that Yusuf tapped into widespread disaffection and the perception that liberal economic policies have benefited the south while entrenching poverty in the north. Unemployment, official corruption and injustice have also alienated many in the north. American Africa expert and author Douglas Farah says there is now a large and radical Muslim population in the north. "The radicalisation is mixed with a deep sense of grievance against the south and the central government, as well as antagonism towards the sizeable Christian minority," said Farah. "Not all Muslims in the north are…seeking a violent change. But those in the lead of the new Taliban want to push Shari'a law to a more extreme form."

Nigeria's oil issues causing worldwide ripples

An oil workers’ strike in Nigeria could push record oil prices up another five dollars a barrel by the end of the week. President of Massachusetts-based Strategic Energy & Economic Research Michael Lynch made the prediction to Bloomberg after crude oil rose to a record $119.93 a barrel overnight. A strike at Exxon Mobil’s Nigerian workers and a series of pipeline bombings has seen that country’s output by 50 percent in recent days. “As long as there are disruptions of high-quality crude supplies, prices are going to move higher," said Lynch. “If the Nigerian strike isn't settled, we could easily see oil rise to $125 by the end of the week.”

However, AllAfrica.com reported today that there were “strong indications” the strike could be called off today. Acting Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Alhaji Abubakar Lawal Yar'Adua has stepped into the dispute. Yar’Adua called to the workers’ patriotism in the world’s eighth largest oil producing country. He told the strikers that the industrial action was not in the interest of the nation and asked them to resolve the issues through dialogue.

That dialogue is continuing with the oil company, Exxon Mobil. Company spokesman Adeyemi Fakayejo said representatives met workers yesterday. He said negotiations were aimed at ending the walkout by white-collar workers seeking better pay and benefits. Fakayejo would not speculate on how much oil production Exxon Mobil (Nigeria’s second largest operator) had lost in the strike however analysts have estimated they have shut nearly all of its Nigerian oil production, totalling around 770,000 barrels per day.

Even if the strike is resolved, Nigeria may not easily get back to its full capacity of pumping crude. The country is significantly down on its 2006 capacity of 2.5 million barrels a day due to a series of pipeline bombings that show no signs of easing up. Niger delta rebels said their 24 April attack had shut down 350,000 barrels per day of production by Royal Dutch Shell while a previous bombing raid had hit 169,000 bpd of Shell's Nigerian output.

The rebels’ activity has turned the Niger Delta into a high risk area for Western oil companies and their staff. Kidnapping is common and workers are ferried from their electric-fenced compounds in convoys of minibuses protected by armed paramilitary escorts. Expatriates are living as virtual wealthy prisoners too afraid to leave their compounds with restaurants and bars off-limits. A western contractor in the Delta’s main city Port Harcourt said things were going from very bad to very much worse. “When we're not at work, we're on lockdown,” he said.

The harassing of contractors and the string of pipeline attacks are the work of MEND - the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta. MEND are the largest of several local opposition groups that have protested since the 1960s against the deliberate exploitation of the delta region by corrupt central governments with no concern for sustainable environmental management. Their ultimate goal is to expel foreign oil companies and non-indigenous people from the region and they have operated with seeming impunity from the Nigerian army since 2006 when they declared “total war” on all foreign oil interests.

Their latest campaign has forced Nigeria’s largest operator Shell to shut down a total of half a million barrels of oil a day. In a statement they released to the Nigerian press yesterday, MEND claimed Shell was concealing the true extent of the problem on the orders of the government “to avoid panic and embarrassment.” Analysts believe MEND’s campaign is aimed at stepping up pressure on the government to end the secret treason trial of the movement’s leader, Henry Okah.

Okah was arrested last year for trying to illegally buy weapons in Angola. He was also accused of trying to engineer a coup in Equatorial Guinea. Despite an Angolan court throwing out his charges after five months imprisonment, it is believed Okah was secretly extradited to Nigeria in February this year. MEND then called on the Nigerian Bar Association and the International Community to intervene and compel the government to release him. When this call was ignored, MEND stepped up the pressure with its ominously titled Operation Cyclone aimed at crippling Nigerian oil exports. While Nigeria is in the eye of this cyclone, the outlook remains stormy for oil prices in the rest of the world.

Nigeria and Cameroon: haunted by colonial borders

The border dispute between Nigeria and Cameroon is likely to drag on after the border commission said it needs more than $24 billion to complete its final demarcation exercise on the 1,600 km land and maritime boundaries between the countries. The Nigerian commission representative said that the original budget of $12 billion (donated by the UK, Germany, France, the EU, the Nigerian and Cameroonian governments) is insufficient and they need “more than double that amount of money” to finish the job. The areas of dispute between the countries are the Bakassi Peninsula, the Lake Chad area and the maritime boundary.

The Cameroon - Nigeria Mixed Commission was the creation of the UN to resolve the dispute after a 2002 ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the land and maritime boundary between the two countries. At the centre of the dispute lies the Bakassi Peninsula. The peninsula is a tiny landstrip of mangrove swamp and consisting of a series of fluvial islands covering approximately 50 square kilometres. It is inhabited by some dozens of villages. Both sides claim ownership over its rich fishing waters in the Gulf of Guinea and its possible oil reserves.

The origins (pdf) of the dispute date back to colonial times. In 1884 Britain justified its takeover of the region by signing a Treaty of Protection with the Obong of Calabar. Britain promised the Obong and his people the protection of the British armed forces in return for fealty to the crown. Over the course of the 30 years Britain and Germany formalised the borders of their African possessions. By 1913 the countries had precisely marked the demarcation of the Anglo-German Boundary between Nigeria and Kamerun from Yola to the Cross River. Britain ceded the Bakassi peninsula to Germany in return for port access via the offshore border.

When World War I broke out, Britain invaded German Kamerun and the country became spoils of war in the Versailles Treaty. The country was split up into British and French mandates. Britain gained Southern Cameroon and Bakassi which it administered contiguously with Nigeria though it never formally merged the entities. After World War II, the UN ratified the 1913 borders once more. French Cameroons became independent in 1960 as did British Nigeria. The people of the Bakassi were left in legal limbo by the two new countries either side of it. While some residents wanted complete independence, the UN held a plebiscite that offered only union with Nigeria or Cameroon.

And so in 1961 anglophone Southern British Cameroon was merged with francophone Cameroon. Nigeria confirmed the result and installed a consul in Buea, former capital of British Cameroon. The situation changed after Biafra, the Eastern-most province of Nigeria, declared its independence. Nigeria regained control in 1970 after a bitter three year civil war. While Nigeria was busy fighting, Cameroon began exploring in the oil rich waters off Bakassi. The two countries established a boundary commission to establish which waters belonged to Cameroon and which belonged to Nigeria. Negotiations dragged on through the 1970s.

But despite an agreement in 1975 the border remained fluid. It was in effect a double jurisdiction for decades. Both states used force to collect taxes and relocate inhabitants to zones controlled by them. Border skirmishes were common. Reports of abductions, looting and torture were rife carried out by both Cameroonian gendarmes and the Nigerian army. After Nigerian strongman Sani Abacha sent troops to Bakassi in 1994, Cameroon took its sovereignty claim to the ICJ. The case took eight years to resolve.

In 2002 the ICJ ruled on the matter. It ruled in favour of Cameroon based on the 1913 colonial border between Britain and Germany. The two heads of state agreed to abide by the decision. Then Nigerian President Obasanjo hailed the agreement as “a great achievement in conflict prevention, which practically reflects its cost effectiveness when compared to the alternative of conflict resolution”.

But Obasanjo went home to find outrage over the decision and Nigeria has since dragged its heels. At the time UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan noted the “stunning” cost-effectiveness of the Mixed Commission. With the project only one third complete and a possible end cost of $36 billion, Annan’s successor Ban-Ki Moon is unlikely to share the joy.

Nigeria on the MEND?

A top southern militant in Nigeria has declared this week they will halt attacks on the country’s oil installations to give the new government a chance to deal with the region's problems. Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, leader of the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force (NDPVF) was freed last week after 18 months in prison on treason-related charges after telling a reporter he would work for the break up of Nigeria. The NDPVF are the second largest rebel group in the area but they are in coalition with the largest, MEND (Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta) so Dokubo-Asari’s words are likely to have force.

MEND and NDPVF operate in the oil rich Niger Delta. Nigeria has relied on oil exports since independence in 1960. Since then, the Delta terrain has been destroyed by deliberate over-exploitation with no concern for sustainable environmental management. Corrupt governments have allowed oil companies drill 4,000 oil wells so far in the Delta and offshore since 1957. These are complete with drilling wastes, drill cuttings, oil sludge and various toxic hazardous chemicals.

Local opposition was led by activists such as Ken Saro-Wiwa. Saro-Wiwa led a non-violent movement for social and ecological justice in the Ogoni region against the government and oil companies. He and eight other activists were executed by the brutal Sani Abacha regime in 1995 after a rigged show trial. Since civilian government was restored in the late 1990s, MEND and the other groups have increased their activities to end the pollution and return some of the oil wealth to the delta.

While little is known about MEND, they have shown an ability to destabilise Nigeria’s oil industry. They are well supported in the local area. In 2006 they managed to reduce Nigeria’s oil output by 25 per cent through a wave of attacks on oil installations and kidnapping of foreign oil workers as well as car bombs in the regional capital Port Harcourt. That bomb represented a change of strategy as most previous operations occurred in the rivers and creeks of the Niger Delta.

The ultimate goal of MEND is to expel foreign oil and non-indigenous people from the region. They support the rights of the local ethnic Ijaw people. While Nigeria and foreign companies has reaped great profits from the oil industry, most people in the region live in poverty, neglected by the government. There are few major roads in the area and fewer hospitals. As a result over 120 different groups, of which MEND are the largest, have risen up claiming to represent the people. MEND has joined forces with Dokubo-Asari’s NDPVF, the Coalition for Militant Action in the Niger Delta, and the Martyrs Brigade to form the strongest anti-foreign oil alliance in the region.

MEND have evolved from their original crude tactics of kidnappings to targeted attacks allied with a carefully co-ordinated public relations campaign. They have invited foreign media into their operations to tell their side of the story. Their military leader Major-General Godswill Tamuno told the BBC in 2006 his group had declared "total war" on all foreign oil interests. They launched a campaign called “"dark February" which involved blowing up two oil pipelines, holding foreign oil workers hostage and sabotaging two major oilfields.

MEND’s apparent invulnerability severely embarrassed Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and the groups also rejected his "Marshall Plan" aid proposal in 2006. But things may be changing in the wake of Obasanjo’s departure from office. Obasanjo’s handpicked successor Umaru Yar'Adua was controversially elected President in April 2007 and took office on 29 May.

Three days later MEND announced a ceasefire for the month of the June and released six foreign oil workers held captive for four weeks. MEND said the move signified its "preparedness to dialogue with a willing government." Yar'adua has also been praised for the release of Dokubo-Asari which was one of the pre-conditions for dialogue. MEND said it hoped the new administration would "ruminate on positive and realistic measures towards a just peace in the Delta”.

Nigeria on knife-edge

As Nigeria goes to the polls today, the country remains on a knife-edge. After a week of violence which claimed 49 lives, polling day began with a failed attempt to blow up the electoral commission headquarters in the capital Abuja. A truck bomb loaded with fuel and gas cylinders missed its target and failed to detonate after crashing into a nearby barrier. The bombers escaped the scene. Police Inspector General Sunday Ehindero pleaded for calm and an orderly vote "I'm calling on all Nigerians to go about their civil duties ... peacefully” he said.

Nigeria goes to the polls today to elect a new president. The country has in a state of chaos since last weekend’s state elections to choose governors and state assemblies in Nigeria’s 36 states. The political opposition has rejected results from those elections that showed current President Olusegun Obasanjo's ruling party clearly winning. The world is watching how the presidential election unfolds in the hope that Nigeria will successfully transfer power between civilian presidents for the first time since gaining independence in 1960. Outgoing president Obasanjo urged aggrieved candidates and their supporters to "explore all avenues for seeking redress" rather than resorting to "jungle justice" in the aftermath of the vote.

On Tuesday, a group of 18 opposition parties threatened to boycott the national election unless the government could guarantee "transparency and fairness". But after three days of meetings they backed down and the two major opposition parties All Nigeria People's Party (ANPP) and the Action Congress (AC) both announced they would contest the poll against the Government People's Democratic Party (PDP). The ANPP’s candidate is Muhammadu Buhari a former military ruler of Nigeria in the 1980s. The AC is running vice president Atiku Abubakar who obtained a Supreme Court ruling on Monday to allow him to contest.

The PMP candidate and favourite to win the election is Umaru Yar'Adua. The 55 year old Yar’Adua has been the governor of the northern state of Katsina since 1999. He was mostly unknown prior to getting the party nomination in December last year. Most observers count his success down to the support of President Obasanjo. While critics call him a puppet of Obasanjo selected to prevent investigations into the misuse of billions of dollars of oil revenues, his supporters point to his spotless record on the important matter of corruption. Unlike Obasanjo who was a Christian, Yar’Adua is a Muslim. Currently relations are good between the two major religious groups in Nigeria

Whoever wins the election will have a massive task ahead of him. Nigeria is a country of 140,000 million people belonging to 250 ethnic groups with over 500 languages. Despite Nigeria’s vast oil reserves, which accounts for 95 percent of government revenues, the country is desperately poor due to endemic corruption. Most oil is found in the Niger Delta which is the site of an environmental catastrophe and a long running independence movement. But Nigeria remains a powerful player in West African and pan-African politics with the largest population and one of the largest armed forces.

Nigeria has long has an important history with the country home to a number of sophisticated and influential societies such as Borno, Katsina, Ife and the Kingdom of Benin. Its rich coastal region attracted the European explorers and the coastal enclave of Lagos became a British colony in 1861. By the end of the 19th century Britain began an aggressive military expansion and declared a protectorate over northern Nigeria in 1900. It merged northern and southern Nigeria in 1914 and created a legislative council with limited powers. Eventually the council gained more and more powers, becoming self-governing in 1954 and fully independent in 1960.

Britain gave Nigeria the legacy of a federal government due to conflicting demands from the country’s many tribal regions. The Tiv people launched a rebellion in 1964 but were quickly quelled. In 1967 civil war erupted in the eastern province of Biafra which proclaimed its independence from Nigeria. The central government launched a blockade of Biafra and eventually won the war. But the cost was high; there were a million military casualties and countless more who died in Biafra from famine.

Civilian government didn’t last long in Nigeria. The army first launched a coup in 1966. They kept their rule for most of the next 30 years. There was a brief hiatus in 1976 when Murtala Ramat Muhammed was assassinated. His death ushered in a short-lived elected government of the Second Republic. But the euphoria and optimism of a civilian government was short-lived. Because of religious extremism, corruption and economic difficulties (low world petroleum prices), it was deposed by another military coup in 1983.

During the 1990s Nigeria attracted a lot of criticism from the West due to its corruption, lack of democracy and poor human rights record. The chance for change finally came when military ruler General Sani Abacha unexpectedly died in 1998. His regime had enforced its rule through the arrest, imprisonment and execution of dissenters, press censorship and the development of a police state. Abacha was not mourned. A transitional government paved the way for free elections which were held the following year.

Former military leader Olusegun Obasanjo, who was jailed by Abacha for plotting a coup, won that election with 63% of the vote. Nigeria has seen renewed optimism under his leadership. He suspended all contracts made under the old administration and sacked many of Abacha’s lackeys in the armed forces and government departments. His term was helped by the rise in world oil prices. Obasanjo comfortably retained office in a 2003 election.

But Obasanjo was not without his critics. Despite his Christianity, he owed his political support to the Muslim north. Obasanjo showed his gratitude by allowing the northern states to introduce Sharia Law. Obasanjo stated that "sharia is not a new thing and it's not a thing to be afraid of". Nevertheless Nigeria received international condemnation in 2002 after an Islamic court upheld a sentence of death by stoning for a woman accused of adultery.

Umaru Yar’Adua will have to defend many more headlines like that if he becomes Nigeria’s first civilian Muslim president.