LAGOS (AFP) - Trouble in Nigeria's Niger Delta, hub of the country's lucrative oil industry, along with incidents of deadly religious and ethnic unrest put a damper on the west African nation's 44th independence anniversary.
"As we celebrate the 44th independence anniversary on a low key, let us pray for our country", President Olusegun Obasanjo said in his nationwide address on Friday.
Obasanjo also admitted he is holding talks in Abuja with the rebels of the oil-rich Niger Delta region where unrest since August have claimed around 500 lives, according to an Amnesty International report.
The Nigeria Delta People's Volunteer Force (NDPVF), led by Mujahid Dokubo Asari, is demanding the convening of convocation of a sovereign national congress, "self-determination" for the Ijaw ethnic group in the region and control of (oil) resources.
Lagos human rights lawyer Gani Fawehinmi told AFP that the problem of the people of the troubled region is beyond Asari and his likes.
"The problem in Niger Delta is greater than Asari. Asari is just ventilating the anger of the people in the region, just like Isaac Adaka Boro and writer Ken Saro-Wiwa did before they were killed," he said.
Boro and Saro-Wiwa, activists from the region, were killed respectively in 1966 and 1995 in their struggle for a better life for the impoverished people in the Niger Delta.
Bane, Saro-Wiwa's sandy village, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) from oil city of Port Harcourt, capital of Rivers State, has neither electricity, potable water nor good roads.
The meeting in Abuja is aimed at dousing the tension in the region, following Asari's threat on Monday to destroy oil installations and his warning to foreign oil workers to quit the region, the hub of multimillion-dollar oil operations.
"Nigeria has drifted into abject poverty and anguish. Our leaders are cornering our resources to our collective detriment. There is no hope of a brighter tomorrow," Goodluck Ellah, a 44-year-old civil servant in Port Harcourt, said.
"With all these troubles in Niger Delta and Nigeria, there is nothing to celebrate about Nigeria's independence. The poverty in Niger Delta which has given rise to armed violence needs to be urgently addressed by government," Grace Sodienye, 17, a student in the oil city said.
In November 1999, barely six months after Obasanjo came into office, he sent troops to quell an unrest in Odi, a town in region, following the killing of a dozen policemen. Hundreds of people were shot dead in the army invasion.
Zaki Biam and some other towns in central Benue State were almost completely annihilated by the army three years ago in a reprisal attack after some soldiers were abducted and killed by local militias.
Last May, Obasanjo deposed the elected civilian governor of central Plateau State and dissolved the state parliament following ethnic and religious unrest in some parts of the state which claimed hundreds of lives.
Obasanjo imposed a state of emergency, suspended the governor, Joshua Dariye, and the parliament for a renewable period of six months and appointed a former army chief, Chris Alli, as administrator of the state.
"These are signs of instability. There is nothing to celebrate. We are instead mourning because we have never had this level of poverty, hopelessness and disillusionment," Fawehinmi said.
In Lagos, Nigeria's economic capital, and other major cities, there were no visible signs of celebration of the independence anniversary.