Nigeria's oil-rich delta: 'There is no rule of law' Poverty-stricken region in a state of bloody chaos By KATHARINE HOURELD Associated Press
PORT HARCOURT, NIGERIA - "Helicopters battled speedboats full of armed fighters for control of key oil installations. Seven foreigners were abducted from a residential compound, and militants claimed dozens of soldiers were killed. Even by the standards of Nigeria's oil-rich southern delta region, it has been a bloody week.
"There is no rule of law here. The AK47 rules," says Anyakwee Nsirimovu, a human rights lawyer in Rivers state, which has been worst hit by the violence.
Few believe that this week's attacks, which come after a month of relative calm, are coordinated or the work of just one group.
Instead, Nsirimovu said, they are the result of general lawlessness, bred by a government that buys off potential threats but has done almost nothing to develop a poverty-stricken region filled with simmering resentment.
"The government is doing nothing to develop the country, so the principle of self-help has set in. And people are helping themselves with guns," he said.
One private security contractor to a major oil company, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said the bewildering array of demands that accompany the kidnappings — cash, development projects, freedom for imprisoned leaders — feeds the growing sense of chaos.
"The scary thing is, that there is no one person in charge ... . You have political guys, you have criminals, and every shade in between," he said.
Not even the region's most sophisticated and best armed group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta [M.E.N.D.], wields much control.
The group crippled the oil industry with a series of kidnappings and bombings earlier this year, cutting production in Africa's largest oil exporter by around a quarter. But it denied responsibility for what it calls "botched robberies" on oil convoys this week, saying it only dispatches fighters to protect civilians from military reprisals.
The government has previously announced several crackdowns on the violence and pledged to address the economic grievances believed to be fueling the violence. But the people of the delta have seen many promises of development go largely unfulfilled.
The number of active fighters is relatively small compared to Nigeria's population of 130 million. But the militants have an easy target in the oil industry's network of pipes spread out over wetlands the size of Connecticut.
The Nigerian military struggles to avoid ambushes in the mangrove swamps, where the populist rhetoric of the militants have won sympathy".
