Atlanta, Georgia, USA — I predict that a denouement of the riddle of the Niger delta will soon come. The agenda is being set at this trial. Whether the peaceful ways favoured will prevail depends on what the oppressor decides, what signals it sends out to the waiting public" - Ken Saro Wiwa, October 31, 1995 ( on the floor of the Ibrahim Auta Military Tribunal)

The Guardian of January 27 , 2006, referring to his interview with Reuters Television in Davos, Switzerland, reported that "Obasanjo declined to comment when asked if he believed the crisis ( hostage -taking in the Niger delta ) would be resolved by negotiation or by force". However we have now seen Obasanjo's choice- military option. And Chief Olu Falae again offered a clue into the inner workings of Obasanjo's mind when he said of him : "The man is just wearing his civilian agbada on his military self". The situation in the Niger delta is getting uglier as the Nigerian government continues to see military solution as the best option in handling the crisis and the people who have evidently been driven into acts of desperation, continues to get hardened. We continue to witness massive re-enforcement of troops in the Niger Delta, in desperate attempts to overpower the " militants". And so in a vicious circle of the Niger delta death game violence is being replicated in are a.

Hostage -taking is becoming more recurrent as one set of hostages is taken as the other is being released and as promises of redressing the crisis are being broken. Talking of hostage -taking, another dimension was added to the messy situation recently when the acting President of PENGASSAN, Mr. Peter Isele accused government authorities of complicity in the matter. According to Mr.Isele " Hostage taking has become a lucrative business providing a means of spending money without proper accountability. It is sad , when we recall that government told a bewildered nation that it did not pay money for the release of the workers held previously but a lot had been spent on logistics, whose beneficiaries were not disclosed" .( The Punch February 22, 2006). This is one of the many instances of confusion trailing the Niger delta crisis. What this revelation shows is that the government may be lying and telling the truth at the same time. The hostage-takers have been saying that th eir problem is not money and that they did not take any in releasing the first batch of hostages of four. But somehow money got spent in course of "negotiating" the release of the hostages. This is how what is known in Nigerian government parlance as "security vote" money gets spent.

The other day, someone suggested that the Niger delta is becoming Nigeria's Iraq. Helicopter gun ships have started to bombard the "militants" strongholds, with attendant casualties . And most, if not all, the casualties happened to be innocent locals, not the " militants" or those carrying on illegal bunkering activities, like the Nigerian government is claiming. In response, the "militants"( in the Niger delta they are called militants while in Iraq they are called insurgents) have threatened to bring down any "enemy" aircraft coming in their direction. But you can't dismiss this threat from the seemingly determined guerrilla fighters when you recall that they have the capability to carry out their threat. They reportedly have rocket propel grenades-the same type of weapons which the insurgents in Iraq are using to down coalition forces' helicopters. The federal government is only reaping the whirlwind which he has sown in the Niger delta.

The bombing of Ijaw communities and murdering of innocent women and children under the guise of hunting for "militants" and illegal oil bunkerers would naturally infuriate the people. It smacks of blackmail on the part of the central government to accuse Niger delta peasants of crude oil bunkering and raining bombs on them while the act is being remote-controlled from Abuja by privileged government officials and their cronies. The systematic decimation of the Niger delta population to silence resistance to the reckless and racist operational methods of transnational oil corporations is a continuing pattern of the Nigerian ruling cabal. Yesterday it was the Ogoni, today it is the turn of the Ijaws, and the world is watching (helplessly?).

Amidst the escalation of the bloodbath it initiated in the Niger Delta Shell, is insisting that they will not pull out of the area. What other way to describe them than that given by Ken Saro Wiwa? "A satanic octopus which demands men's souls in exchange for cash and profit". If the Shell management had human souls the honorable thing to do would be to pull out of the entire Niger delta until the problem in the area is resolved and peace returns. No, Shell will stubbornly hang around on Ijaw land and goad on the Nigerian military to continue to kill more and more innocent Ijaw women and babies,then go on to murder their leaders like they did in Ogoni.

However, it would be a costly mistake on the part of anyone to resort to violence in confronting the enemy and in demanding justice in the Niger delta. You do not adopt the methods of the enemy- methods in which they have absolute advantage over you. Like Ken Saro had noted " The men we are dealing with are mindless, Stone Age dictators , addicted to blood". Of course, the government believes in the potency of superior violence. The resort to violence would again diminish our cause and alienate our sympathizers , especially our international supporters. Perhaps it is in realization of this fact that those who took four foreign oil workers hostage later released them unharmed. We can confirm that the release of the four hostages has nothing to do with the diplomatic finesse of the Obasanjo government and they should take no credit for it. The Nigerian government has rather sought to secure the release of the hostages by use of military force before the hostage-takers outsmarte d them by voluntarily releasing their captives. It would appear that the MEND decided to set free their captives not out of fear of the military might of the Nigerian government but in deference to international diplomacy or on "humanitarian grounds". They could have dared the federal might and resorted to a shoot-out with the government forces which could have risked placing the hostages in a crossfire . So the hostage-takers could be commended not necessarily for how they started but for how they ended the siege. And we hope the same wisdom will prevail in releasing the present batch of nine hostages, unharmed.

It is unfortunate that American citizens or any foreign nationals for that matter, should be held hostage in Nigeria. Nigeria does not have a political problem with any foreign country not the least with very influential allies like the United States and Great Britain. I think those hostages are only caught in Nigeria's internal political crossfire. It is entirely the failure of the Nigerian government to regulate the operations and indeed behavior of the transnational oil corporations in the country and the government's criminal neglect of the oil producing areas that led to this sad episode. A gain, at the root cause of this crisis is the fact that those who wield political power in Nigeria do not have oil on their land. They then make it a fundamental policy of government to enact laws that make it possible for them to seize the oil wealth of the hapless minority tribes of the Niger delta. And this has been going on for decades and it got to a point where the hitherto docile Niger delta people had to do something and sometimes beyond the realm of rational calculation , to help their situation. So what is happening in Nigeria today is simply an implosion of the angst of the dispossessed Niger delta people.

However, it would be a costly mistake for anyone to use military force in attempting to rescue the hostages. This could jeopardize their safety as they could be caught in a crossfire between those trying to rescue them and their captors. So far, there is no reason to suggest that the hostages are going to be harmed by their captors. The hostage takers have on previous occasions demonstrated diplomatic sensitivity in the treatment of their captives and one hopes they understand the diplomatic implications of harming foreign nationals. While one is calling for the immediate release of the hostages, I am equally appealing to the authorities to exercise restraint and avoid any acts that could jeopardize their safety.

You may disagree with some of the methods adopted in the Niger delta struggle but no one can fault our cause. Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola of Osun State is one Nigerian of goodwill who understands that the Niger delta people have a good cause. Listen to him "It is a pity when you look at what people in this area are facing. Government should be able to provide for the masses. The situation in this area is pathetic. There is environmental degradation, there is no land for farming , there is no water for fishing". ( The Guardian February 7, 2006). Sadly, to this day the biggest of the culprits responsible for the nightmare of the Niger delta people, Shell do not believe they have done anything wrong in the area. They continue to argue that there is no environmental degradation in the Niger delta. They continue to ambush any attempt to make them pay for their despoliation of the land. They are resisting (under the guise of appealing the judgment) the court ruling ordering them t o pay the Ijaws of Bayelsa State $1.5 billion for the devastation of their environment. And this is a pittance considering the huge revenue they are getting from the area. This callous insensitivity and intransigence of Shell would no doubt inflame an already tense situation in the area.

Like the New York Times of Monday February 26, 2006 rightly remarked: "A big part of the problem is that the people of the country's oil-rich Niger Delta remain deeply impoverished, largely because of endemic corruption in distributing oil wealth and the historical indifference of oil companies to those economic inequities and to environmental devastation in the Delta."

To be continued tomorrow.

Leburah Ganago lives in Atlanta, GA, USA.