http://www.wiserearth.org./content/newsfeed/masterid/acris_soafricanet/type/group 2009-11-23T00:56:12Z Crisis Group - Africa  http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=6080 The Niger Delta risks sliding deeper into conflict and criminality and spreading instability across the Gulf of Guinea, unless Nigeria’s President Umaru Yar’Adua responds constructively to recommendations of a key committee. The Technical Committee recommended a demobilisation, disarmament, and reintegration program for militants, accompanied by increased allocation of oil revenues to the Delta. The government needs to respond urgently and positively, by accepting a third-party mediator, preferably the UN or the Coventry Cathedral centre, to facilitate negotiations with militants and implement amnesty. With the regional leaders and the militants, it should work to arrest the public’s growing distrust, end armed violence and set the stage for sustained development.

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