MESSAGE BOARD: Nigeria's new democracy

June 9, 1999
Web posted at: 4:01 p.m. EDT (2001 GMT)

In this story: Market still smolders as troops maintain calm Government favors, oil revenue at stake Obasanjo moves to shake up military RELATED STORIES, SITES

ABUJA, Nigeria (CNN) -- President Olusegun Obasanjo met Wednesday with the leaders of competing factions from the Niger Delta, hoping to end fighting that has killed at least 200 people and threatens Nigeria's vital oil exports.

Nigerian troops, called in to quell violence between the Itsekiri and ethnic Ijaws and Urhobos, kept a firm grip Wednesday on Warri, a base for many of the oil companies deployed throughout the delta.. Fighting erupted six days ago in areas surrounding Warri and then spilled into the town itself last Friday.

Presidential spokesman Doyin Okupe said Obasanjo has scheduled a larger meeting with community leaders on Friday in Port Harcourt.

"All representatives of the groups involved in the Niger Delta crisis will be involved in the meeting," said Okupe.

Local people ventured cautiously onto the devastated streets of Warri Wednesday after authorities decided to allow movement in the central area after 10 a.m.

"The night was fairly quiet, not like the nights before. Then it was horrible, firing all over the place," said Joseph Owolo, administrator of the central hospital where the bodies of three victims lie in the morgue.

In Warri's Okere market area, set ablaze two days ago on the front line of the clashes, fire-blackened buildings and rubble were still smoldering on Wednesday.

The fighting and the curfew have made life increasingly difficult for the citizens of Warri. The price of bread has tripled since the fighting began, and the price of beans and rice has also shot up, the Lagos-based Guardian newspaper reported Wednesday.

Hundreds of troop were sent into Warri on Monday after conciliation failed to quell the disturbances. The clashes contrast with the optimism with which Africa's most populous nation has emerged from 15 years of crippling military rule.

Fighting has erupted sporadically between the Itsekiri tribe and the much larger Ijaw tribe over government favors and oil revenues since 1997, when the military moved the tribal boundary, granting more land to the Itsekiri.

The immediate cause of these clashes was a demand for local government by ethnic Ijaws who say they have been marginalized in favor of the smaller Itsekiri tribe.

Over the past two years, multinational oil firms like Shell and Chevron have suffered repeated closures of installations due to ethnic violence, sabotage and demands for money.

The latest clashes have had no immediate effect on oil output but maintenance and other routine operations are at a standstill and oil workers have been keeping within their heavily guarded compounds. Oil accounts for over 90 percent of Nigeria's international income.

The outbreak of violence presents Obasanjo with another challenge just as he is asserting his authority over the military, which has ruled Africa's most populous country for all but 10 years since independence from Britain in 1960.

Eleven top officers, including commanders prominent in previous military governments, were retired Tuesday, joining the heads of the army, navy and air force replaced by Obasanjo on his first day in office on May 29.

The officers included Lt. Gen. Rufus Kupolati and Maj. Gen. Timothy Shelpidi, both former commanders of the West African ECOMOG peacekeeping force in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

While they have not yet been replaced, the military is poised for more purges.

"There's going to be a major reshuffle in the armed forces. It may be tomorrow but certainly before next week," a senior Defense Ministry official told Reuters in Lagos.

Obasanjo is widely expected to clean out officers who held political appointments either as state governors or ministers in previous governments and who may be tempted to seize power again.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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