The presumed head of the Niger Delta militant body, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, who goes under the name of Jomo Gbomo, has been arrested in Angola, sources said yesterday. Security sources who asked not to be identified said Gbomo was arrested by the Angolan authorities whilst negotiating an arms deal.
The time of the arrest is not known but rumours of it were already in circulation one week ago. The same sources said the news had not been announced or officially confirmed in order to allow Nigeria to arrange for the MEND leader to be repatriated to Nigeria.
The security sources suggested the Nigerian government engineered the arrest in Angola as Gbomo’s MEND faction — the most high-profile of the armed groups operating in the oil-rich Niger Delta — had so far resisted all attempts to find a peaceful solution to the violence in the region.
Other sources who monitor closely the movement of armed militant groups in the Delta said that Gbomo, who, according to them, entered Angola from South Africa, had been sent back to South Africa by the Angolans earlier Friday.
Diplomatic sources have in the past established a link between Jomo Gbomo and a man travelling on a Benin Republic passport in the name of Henry Okah. There has been no comment from the Nigerian, Angolan or South African authorities.
Sources said that in the days or weeks prior to his presumed arrest, Jomo Gbomo met with two other Niger Delta personalities in South Africa: Mujahid Asari Dokubo and Diepreye Alamieyeseigha.
Dokubo, the former head of the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force, an outlawed militia group, was recently freed from jail after serving two-and-a-half years in prison. Alamieyeseigha, the former governor of the southern state of Bayelsa, also recently freed after being jailed on corruption charges, brokered the meeting, where Dokubo and Gbomo fought over what Gbomo said was an arms delivery to Dokubo that was never paid for, the sources said.
Part of the deal that Alamieyeseigha struck to get out of jail was that he would use his influence to restore peace to the Niger Delta. MEND, which became known early last year, has claimed responsibility for several kidnapping incidents — some of them very daring and invloving attacks on deepwater installations — as well as for attacks on oil company property.
The group has always been at pains to take the high moral ground and to say that, contrary to the mere criminal gangs operating alongside it, MEND is working to improve the lot of the people of the Delta. Often, however, MEND seems to have turned a blind eye to criminal acts it claimed to disapprove of as long as they served its interests in one way or another.
In a region where most armed groups issue lengthy, pompous, ranting statements, Jomo Gbomo was known for his laconic, sometimes amusing emails that skimped on upper case letters. The recipients of his emails were never sure whether Jomo Gbomo was even based in Nigeria.
Since his presumed arrest, the person sending emails from nigdelunrest@yahoo.com, the address he used to use, has failed to copy his style whilst indignantly protesting he is “the real Jomo”.
By Ola Ajayi
Vanguard
Saturday, September 22, 2007
