SBS Dateline | Delta Blues

Aaron Lewis travels to the oil-rich creeks of the Niger Delta where militants have been responsible for more than a decade of violence, sabotage, and hostage-taking.

Despite the hugely profitable oil industry nearby, 90% of the Niger Deltans are unemployed, and live on a few dollars a day. Their frustration and anger has led many young men to take up arms, reducing Nigeria’s oil production – once the 5th largest in the world - to a fraction of what it once was.

But now there are promising signs of peace. Having failed to defeat the rebels with military force, the government has changed tack and is now offering an amnesty from prosecution to any militant willing to disarm.

Aaron attends the disarmament ceremony of the first group of militants to take up the government’s offer. They are led by General Victor Ben, alias ‘Boyloaf’, who was once one of the rebels’ most respected battlefield tacticians, and a living nightmare for the oil companies.

“There is time for political struggle, there is time for armed struggle. And what we believe now, the time of armed struggle is over. I think we have to go into dialogue because we have to give peace a chance,” he says.

But for peace to last the government will have to address the massive under-development, environmental pollution and severe health problems in the Delta region.

On air: 25th October 2009