Two killed in attack on Nigerian candidate's home

GUNMEN in Nigeria's troubled southern delta killed two people and injured six others when they opened fire on a ceremony organised to welcome home a former presidential adviser to the region.

Timi Alaibe was not hurt in the attack at his home in Bayelsa state. The violence comes as he prepares to run for governor of the oil-rich state in the Niger Delta.

While police yesterday declined to offer a motive for the attack, a government-sponsored amnesty programme that Alaibe helped run has begun to unravel.

Alaibe oversaw the implementation of the amnesty, under which more than 20,000 oil militants surrendered their arms in exchange for development of their region and a retraining programme. The initiative included sending armed militants back into the winding creeks where foreign oil companies operate.

Bayelsa state police spokesman Eguavoen Emokpae said the gunmen shot at Alaibe's home as it swelled with wellwishers welcoming him back from Abuja, Nigeria's capital. Emokpae said several people were arrested.

Alaibe served as adviser on the Niger Delta to late president Umaru Yar'Adua and current president Goodluck Jonathan. Under Yar'Adua's guidance, Alaibe helped start a government-sponsored amnesty programme in 2009, which offered cash payouts to militants to lay down their weapons as well as the promise of job training.

Many high-level commanders and fighters agreed to the programme, cutting drastically the number of attacks on foreign oil firms in the region.

Militants in the delta, a region of winding creeks and mangroves, have waged a low-level insurgency since 2006. The militants want more oil money to come to an area still gripped by abject poverty and pollution after more than 50 years of oil production. However, nebulous ties exist between militants, criminal gangs operating in the area and wealthy politicians who benefit from oil revenue in the region.

Violence in the delta has affected global oil prices in the past, as Nigeria remains an important source of easily refined crude oil for the United States.

But the amnesty deal began to fall apart last year as the region's main militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, began a new wave of kidnappings and attacks. Other militants upset by being cut out of the amnesty programme have formed new militia groups. Local newspapers reported that Alaibe himself was attacked by disgruntled ex-militants at a government re-education camp in July.

Alaibe recently resigned as an adviser to run in April's gubernatorial election in Bayelsa state, which often sees violence during elections. The president has a special interest in seeing a calm election in the state - he was born there and served as deputy governor and governor there before reaching national office.