Lagos (Platts)--31Jul2009

Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua has started talks with governors of six
Niger Delta states in a bid to avert the threat of a boycott of the federal
government's amnesty plan for the region, a presidential spokesman said
Friday.

The governors of southern Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Edo, Delta, Cross River and
Rivers states last week said they would pull back their involvement in the
amnesty deal for Delta militants in protest of the federal government's plan
to relocate the petroleum training college in Delta state to northern city of
Kaduna.

"There is a serious misunderstanding about some of the issues raised, but
the president is very concerned and has been talking with the Niger- Delta
governors individually," Presidential spokesman Olusegun Adeniyi in a
statement. "The president has respect for the Niger Delta region. He did not
approach the crisis in the area as a Northerner."

The governors also had grouse against a provision in the oil sector
reform bill, which they said takes away royalties due Delta communities.

Yar'Adua on June 25 proclaimed amnesty and unconditional pardon for
militants who renounced violence and laid down arms in the bid to end the
unrest in Nigeria's vast oil industry region. But the government has been
struggling to convince the militants to embrace the amnesty plan. Key militant
groups have demanded the government withdraw federal troops from the region.

The presidential spokesman, however, stated that when the 60-day amnesty
program starts August 6, Nigerians will begin to see the evidence of
cooperation by the militant leaders, many of whom have bought into Yar' Adua's
agenda for peace and development in the Delta.