Talks bid: for a Mend faction
- Mend leader extradited to Nigeria
- Nigeria rebels extend olive branch
- Mend masterminded Tora hub raid
- Shell boss talks tough over Delta restart
- A very violent sort of ceasefire
- Mend threatens Delta offensive
- Delta's militants in crude threats
- Mend blast destroys oil tanker
- Yar'Adua in push for Delta peace
- Delta rebels call on 'peacemaker' Clooney
Mend asks Bush to broker peace deal
A faction of Movement for the Emacipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) has written to US President George W. Bush, who is currently visiting Africa, asking him to mediate talks with the Nigerian government.
Bush is not due to stop in Nigeria during his tour of five African nations and there have been no international mediators involved in the Nigerian government's attempts to negotiate with splintered rebel forces in the Niger Delta.
US diplomats were not available for comment.
Niger Delta militants often make appeals to the international community but Nigeria has treated the unrest in the delta as an internal matter and no foreign power has publicly questioned that.
The open letter to Bush came from a faction of mend which is angry over the fate of its leader, Henry Okah, who was deported on Thursday from Angola where he was facing gun-running charges, a Reuters report said.
On Friday Mend said Okah had been extradited to Nigeria and the state-run Angolan news agency said he had been handed over to Nigerian authorities, but the Nigerian government has yet to comment on his whereabouts or what will happen to him. There has been no official confirmation that he is in Nigeria.
Okah's faction of Mend is one of many armed groups who say they are fighting to redress injustice in the impoverished Niger Delta, where five decades of oil extraction have polluted the land and water, and enriched corrupt politicians.
Okah was one of the main rebel leaders who organised a wave of attacks on oil production facilities and kidnappings of oil workers in early 2006 that shut in about a fifth of Nigerian output, contributing to the rise in global oil prices.
Since president Umaru Yar'Adua took power in May last year, his government has promised a 15-year development strategy to address the root causes of the violence in the delta and has tried to negotiate a peace deal with various groups.
Okah's faction was receptive at first and declared a temporary cease-fire, but since he was arrested in Angola in September his loyalists resumed attacks, blowing up pipelines and ships and making frequent threats.
Other militant leaders, however, recently announced they were returning to the talks after a hiatus lasting a few weeks. Mend has repeatedly splintered and shifting alliances among rival leaders have complicated the government's peace overtures, the Reuters report added.