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The main militant group in Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta said on Thursday it was abandoning a ceasefire in protest at a British offer to help tackle lawlessness in the region.
ABUJA, July 10 (Reuters) - The main militant group in Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta said on Thursday it was abandoning a ceasefire in protest at a British offer to help tackle lawlessness in the region.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Wednesday that Britain was ready to help the world's eighth biggest oil exporter deal with unrest in the delta, which has cut Nigeria's output by a fifth and contributed to a rise in global oil prices.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), which first launched attacks on the oil industry in early 2006, said Britain was backing an "illegal government" and that it would end a ceasefire at midnight (2300 GMT) on Saturday.
"MEND wishes to sound a stern warning to the British Prime Minister over his recent statement offering to provide military support to the illegal government of (President) Umaru Yar'Adua," the group said in an e-mailed statement.
"Should Gordon Brown make good his threat to support this criminality for the sake of oil, UK citizens and interests in Nigeria will suffer the consequences," it said.
MEND had declared a unilateral ceasefire on June 24.
In a further blow to government efforts to pacify the region, a top U.N. official chosen by Nigeria to organise peace talks resigned after militant groups questioned his neutrality.
Ibrahim Gambari, a special adviser to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, was Nigeria's envoy to the United Nations in 1995 when writer Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other oil activists were hanged by the then-military government of General Sani Abacha.
Gambari had said he would seek a 90-day truce with militants to pave the way for formal talks but MEND and other groups had rejected his involvement, saying he had defended Abacha's actions against international condemnation.
"My name has become the issue in place of the attempt at finding a just and lasting solution to the crisis in the Niger Delta," Gambari said in a letter to Yar'Adua seen by Reuters.
"In light of this, I wish to be excused as the chairman of the steering committee of the summit," the letter said.
INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE
Brown, along with other world leaders, is under immense public pressure to be seen to help curb global oil prices, which surged to a record high above $145 a barrel last week, placing further strain on the fragile world economy.
Bombings of oil pipelines and attacks on installations by MEND have sparked fears of more supply disruptions, increasing nervousness in an already volatile oil market.
Brown said at a Group of Eight summit meeting in Japan that Britain, Nigeria's colonial ruler until 1960, stood ready to give help "to deal with the lawlessness" in the Niger Delta and that he would be meeting Yar'Adua in London next week.
A spokesman for Brown's office on Thursday said the prime minister had not committed to specifically offering military aid and would discuss what form any British help might take when he met the Nigerian leader.
Britain is one of the largest investors in Nigeria. About 4,000 Britons live in the West African country, many working for large companies including oil and gas firms Royal Dutch Shell, British Gas and Centrica.
The British High Commission in the capital Abuja said it took all threats to British interests seriously but it said Britain's policy on the Niger Delta had not changed.
Yar'Adua has said his administration will take a two-pronged approach to the unrest, pledging development for communities whose land and water has been polluted by oil extraction but also saying he will not tolerate the presence of armed groups. (Additional reporting by Felix Onuah in Abuja and Peter Graff in London) (Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Stephen Weeks) (For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http://africa.reuters.com/ )