With Nigeria’s main militant group threatening to resume hostilities, Nobel Laureate and peace negotiator Wole Soyinka has expressed concern over the absence of leadership due to President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s ailment.
Soyinka who is a member of a negotiation team appointed by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) to dialogue with the Nigerian leaders said the talks were proceeding well before the president fell sick.
President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua is on treatment for a heart ailment in a Saudi Arabia hospital for more than a month now.
“When some people try to say that nothing was affected by the president’s absence, I try to point out that I will not be surprised if the militants resume attacks again,” he told PTI.
Mr. Soyinka said he may not be able to say more about the warning by MEND until he talks to the leaders of the group.
Elsewhere, a religious leader has urged the group to wait for the return of the country’s ailing president and avoid further hostilities.
Bishop Emmah Isong, president of Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), Cross River State said that Yar’Adua was sincere in his handling of the Niger Delta crisis and called on MEND not to return to arms again.
MEND is part of some Niger Delta rebels fighting for resource control in the oil producing region of Nigeria.
They were granted amnesty last year with most of them handing in their weapons but MEND ignored the amnesty appointing its own negotiating team with the government.
“There is a gap in leadership. The man who initiated the amnesty is sick and there is no continuity. Nobody is there to talk with them and the boys are angry. They should know that their friend is sick. They should wait for him to wake up instead of carrying arms again,” Bishop Isong said.
“He is the first President that negotiated with them. There is no other President in this country that called those boys and discussed with them and looked for a way forward,” he told the media.
The armed groups had announced a unilateral ceasefire last October but called it off later warning oil companies and their affiliates in the region to prepare for an all-out onslaught against their installations.
Since 2006, militants in the Niger Delta region have attacked oil installations, kidnapped oil workers and fought government troops requesting for the control of the resources in the area.
Their attack has reduced oil production considerably making the country which is the highest oil supplier to trail behind Angola in recent times.
The Nigerian government had granted amnesty to the fighters last year hoping that it would douse the tension.
The talk which was stalled by the president’s absence was greeted with warning attacks by MEND.
