Nigeria’s security forces have been carrying out their biggest co-ordinated operation for more than a decade – and possibly since the Biafran war – in the Niger Delta this month, using helicopters, aircraft and gunboats as well as three battalions of ground troops to try to flush militants and criminal gangs out of the creeks around Warri.

The military says it has destroyed camps belonging to Government Tompolo in Delta state which were seen as a key training ground for rebel fighters and a hub of oil bunkering – the theft of industrial quantities of crude oil worth millions of dollars a day – in the western delta.

Major-General Sarkin-Yaki Bello, who commanded the operation, has said he ordered a pinpoint helicopter attack on Tompolo’s home in the village of Oporoza on May 15. Local residents said a traditional festival was being held at the time and that hundreds fled into neighbouring communities. They say innocent civilians were killed.

Some Ijaw community leaders have accused the military of a targeted ethnic campaign as soldiers entered remote communities in the delta’s mangrove creeks to try to hunt down suspected gang members believed to have gone into hiding.

But many Nigerians say the military operation was long overdue. Residents in parts of the Niger Delta say their lives have been blighted by the rising criminality of armed gangs masquerading as political militants in recent years, and see the gunmen are plain criminals who are no longer fighting for their cause.

The lower house of parliament has urged the military to extend its campaign to destroy militant camps in other parts of the Niger Delta.

Tompolo, who has amassed a personal fortune from bunkering, appears to have been abandoned by other militant factions in neighbouring Rivers and Bayelsa states, with the main retaliatory attacks on the oil industry so far confined to the area around Warri in Delta state and apparently carried out by his own gunmen.

Was the military right to strike Tompolo’s camps? Does the apparent destruction of “Camp 5” make the western delta a safer place for the oil industry and local residents, or will it radicalise angry youths and win them over to the militants’ cause?

Should the military extend its offensive to known militant camps in Bayelsa and Rivers states, or would that stir the hornets’ nest and trigger an upsurge in violence and sabotage of industry installations across the Niger Delta?

Much of the news that comes out of the Niger Delta, the vast network of creeks home to Africa’s biggest oil and gas industry, is generated either by militant leaders claiming spectacular attacks on oil industry installations or by the military, keen to publicise its victories flushing out crude oil thieves from camps nestled deep in the mangroves.

Rarely heard are the voices of the “boys” who have taken up arms and make up the rank and file of the militant gangs. Oil theft on an industrial scale or kidnappings for ransom make some of their bosses rich. Peace negotiations see others rewarded with the veneer of political legitimacy and a comfortable new government-funded lifestyle. But the grunts tend to share little of the spoils.

So an initiative to take them out of the militant camps and send them abroad to be immersed in the teachings of non-violent activists from Gandhi to Martin Luther King Jr and Nelson Mandela raised - after the initial scepticism - a strong dose of curiosity. After the attempt to “reorientate their psyches”, the candidates would be schooled in skills meant to make them employable once they returned back home.

Would they be convinced that they could renounce violence and still fight for their rights? Did they really believe that theirs was a political struggle or were they simply interested in emulating some of their leaders and growing rich from stolen crude, ransom money and government pay-offs?

There are precedents in West Africa. Former child soldiers in Liberia and Sierra Leone who spent their formative years living by the gun have been reschooled and retrained, some integrated into the national army, others starting lives with newly-learned skills as carpenters or welders.

Negotiators trying to build peace in divided countries such as Ivory Coast or Democratic Republic of Congo have brought former rebels into the fold by making them stakeholders in the future of their countries, with varying degrees of success.

Could the same philosophy of constructive engagement work with the armed youths of the Niger Delta?

Some of the young men waiting in Lagos airport to begin the overseas part of their “reorientation training” reminded me of former child soldiers I had met in Liberia and Sierra Leone, or young Tuareg rebels in northern Mali and Niger. They had similar aspirations as young adults anywhere — to earn a decent living, be able to look after themselves and win respect from their peers.

“Anybody in violence wants out of violence, it’s just a question of finding a way,” one of them, Patrick, commented.

So could the programme work? If, with new skills, these former militants can return home and earn a living, could they persuade others in the community to lay down their weapons? Or is it an expensive waste of money, rewarding former criminals with the sort of opportunities that many in Nigeria can only dream of?

Rebels fighting for greater control of Nigeria’s oil wealth have raised the stakes in their campaing of bombings and kidnappings by threatening to extend attacks to offshore oil installations. Nigeria’s most prominent militant group earlier announced the launch of an “oil war” against oil companies and security forces in the restive Niger Delta. The four-days of fighting since the announcement have been the heaviest since the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta began its campaign of violence against the oil sector in early 2006. International oil markets, depressed in recent days by the impact of the credit crisis on the global economy, finally began taking notice of the escalating violence in Nigeria’s oil-producing region on Wednesday.

Security sources say more than 100 people may have been killed by the fighting, which has spread to at least seven villages in Rivers state.

Security sources and militants say this is a military offensive long planned by the government. The military disagrees saying the fighting was provoked by militant attacks.

The fighting comes just weeks after Nigeria’s president Umaru Yar’Adua handpicked new military chiefs and announced the establishment of a new ministry dedicated to the Niger Delta problem.

Do you think the recent clashes represent a new “get-tough” plan by the Nigerian government against militants in the delta? If so what is the likelihood of this tactic succeeding? What does Nigeria need to do to bring peace to the Niger Delta region?

Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua moved quickly after taking office a year ago to try to  address the causes of unrest in the Niger Delta, where a violent campaign of sabotage against the oil industry has cut production and contributed to an unprecedented rise in world oil prices.

Yar’Adua announced plans for formal talks and freed two jailed militant leaders when he took office, but the peace process has made little real progress since then, with the rebel Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) continuing to blow up oil pipelines and kidnap foreign workers.
The government has called a summit for July meant to involve all stakeholders, but MEND and another group — the Ijaw Youth Council — have said they will not take part. Yar’Adua has said the summit aims to address the frustrations of the Niger Delta communities, who have seen their land and water polluted by oil production, but he has also said his government will not tolerate the presence of armed militants in the region.

What are the options for the government — at federal and state level — in tackling the problems of the Niger Delta? Should the government negotiate with armed militants? Are the militants anything more than common criminals, profiting from an illicit trade in stolen crude? What role should the foreign oil companies play in bringing peace to the region?