Amnesty starts for Nigeria oil region but militants split

LAGOS (Reuters) - A 60-day amnesty period for gunmen in Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta began Thursday but key militant factions were divided over whether to take part and critics said it might only bring a lull in the violence.

President Umaru Yar'Adua offered an unconditional pardon in June to all militant fighters who take part in the amnesty, a bid to stem unrest which has prevented Nigeria from pumping much above two-thirds of its oil capacity in recent years.

Attacks on pipelines and industry facilities along with the kidnapping of oil workers has cost the world's eighth-biggest oil exporter billions of dollars a year in lost revenues and added to volatility in energy prices around the globe.

Central Bank governor Lamido Sanusi told Reuters on Wednesday that growth this year in sub-Saharan Africa's second- biggest economy hinges largely on a solution being found to the unrest.

"It is the will of everybody to see that the program succeeds," said Jonjon Oyeinfe, former leader of ethnic rights group the Ijaw Youth Council who has been involved in negotiations between militants and the government.

But he pointed out that the idea of an amnesty originated with negotiators from the Niger Delta rather than the government and that it had taken two years to implement.

"They definitely have good intentions ... but the system is very slow, so slow that people sometimes doubt its sincerity," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Henry Okah, the suspected leader of the main Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) militant group, accepted the amnesty terms after gun-running and treason charges against him were dropped and he was released from detention.

MEND has said its leader in Bayelsa state, Ebikabowei Victor Ben, known locally as Boyloaf, had also "expressed a desire to return to civilian life" and was in the capital Abuja to negotiate.

But the turn-out at weapons collection points and holding camps around the Niger Delta was limited.

Timiebi Koripamo-Agary, spokeswoman for the presidential panel on amnesty, said five militants had handed over guns at the only centre to have reported so far in the oil hub of Port Harcourt.

"I wasn't expecting a deluge today, I expected they would come out in trickles. The big boys will send out the small boys to go out and test the waters first," she told Reuters.

SHORT-TERM SOLUTION?

MEND said a replacement to take over Boyloaf's command had already been put in place, somewhat undermining the point of his departure, and other key commanders in the creeks of the delta have shown no such willingness to lay down their guns.

The group denied Farah Dagogo, its commander in the east, was in Abuja and no mention has been made of other hardliners like Ateke Tom or Government Tompolo, against whom the military launched its biggest campaign for years just months ago.

Gunmen attacked a Lithuanian cargo ship off the Niger Delta Monday and took five crew members hostage. Some security sources attributed the strike to militants seeking to remind those in Abuja that not everyone subscribes to the idea of amnesty.

"It was to show that whereas some people are talking in Abuja there are still things going on down to south," said on security contractor, asking not to be named. "They'll go so far to show willing but there's no way they will all give up all of their weapons."

Widespread unemployment in the delta means even those that do are likely to find themselves at a loose end and easily tempted back into criminality once they have spent the money they receive for handing over their guns, critics say.

A previous at attempt at disarmament under Yar'Adua's predecessor Olusegun Obasanjo in 2004 broke down as factions argued over the money paid for their weapons. Thousands of guns were handed over but the subsequent five years were among the most violent in the history of the Niger Delta.

(Additional reporting by Tume Ahemba in Lagos and Duncan Miriri in Nairobi)

(Editing by Richard Balmforth)