Third day of talks between Nigerian government, oil rebel chief

LAGOS (AFP) - Talks between Nigerian government officials and Niger Delta rebel leader Mujahid Dokubo Asari entered a third day under the shadow of a rebel deadline for foreign oil workers to quit the area where the industry is based.
President Olusegun Obasanjo said Friday in a speech that he was discussing with rebels in Niger delta and that a "rapprochement is taking place" and he assured that "peace, stability and harmony will return" to the region.
A member of Asari's entourage told AFP Friday by telephone that he has gone to the presidency to continue the talks and that some state governors from the region and other stakeholders were participating in the meeting.
Receptionists in Asari's Abuja hotel said at 4.15 pm (1515 GMT) that the rebel leader was not in his room but confirmed that he has not checked out yet.
On Monday, Asari, leader of the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force (NDPVF), issued a statement saying that the group wants more rights and greater autonomy for the region's native Ijaw people and ordered multinationals and foreigners out of the delta, hub of Nigeria's lucrative oil industry.
He said his rebel group would declare all-out war on the government on October 1 if the rebels' demands were not met.
In an interview with AFP Thursday in Abuja, Asari said his key demand was for a sovereign national conference to be convened to discuss the country's problems, and warned he would resume hostilities in the delta if Obasanjo failed to meet that demand.
The member of his entourage told AFP earlier Friday that the group would "definitely" leave Abuja on Friday, repeating a similar promise he made the previous day.
Obasanjo said in a nationwide radio-television speech Friday to mark Nigeria's 44th independence anniversary that his government will not tolerate any "undue militancy" in the delta region.
"Government is taking appropriate steps to stem the tide of undue militancy and we are confident that reason and the law will prevail," he said.
"Government will not tolerate in any way or form any act that would mortgage or compromise the interest of the majority."
The region accounts for the bulk of Nigeria's crude output of 2.3 million barrels per day. Nigeria, Africa's largest oil exporter, derives more than 95 percent of its foreign exchange earnings from oil.
The unrest and war rumblings in the delta region have sent oil prices on an upward spiral which saw them burst through the 50-dollar-a-barrel barrier on Tuesday, but drop back below the crucial mark when the peace talks began.
Troops deployed to to the region intensified their search for arms illegally acquired by rebels and militia groups, the captain of the military operation, Yakubu Agwom, told AFP.
Obasano, a former military head of state, has vowed to be firm against the rebels who threatened oil production and export, Nigeria's economic jugular.
Nigeria, Africa's largest producer and OPEC sixth exporter, produces 2.5 billion barrels daily.
Obasanjo, in his broadcast, recognised, for the first time, that the government had little impact in the impoverished region and accused state authorities of shirking their responsibilities to the people.
"The obvious assessment so far is that not much impact has been made on the lives and living standards of most ordinary people of the Niger Delta," he said.
Some officials told AFP that Obasanjo was particularly irked by the action of certain state governors in the region who mismanage, according to him, resources allocated by the central federal government to the states.