Nigerian oil admits to paying militants

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria, July 23 (UPI) -- The state-run National Nigerian Petroleum Co. admits to paying armed militant groups $12 million in protection money, company officials said.

The militants, according to NNPC head Abubakar Yar'Adua, had originally asked for $100 million in protection money, though energy officials were able to talk the armed group to accept a payment of $6 million per month.

The payments were reportedly made after projects in the petroleum-rich Niger Delta incurred an estimated $81 million in losses over the last couple of months due to ongoing violence by the militants, who regularly attack on- and offshore oil platforms, oil and gas pipelines and kidnap foreign workers in the region, Nigeria's Guardian newspaper reported Wednesday.

In an effort to prove they are not on the take from the NNPC, Nigeria's leading militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, or MEND, released a statement Wednesday denying they accepted any such payment and promised to blow up a strategic pipeline in the next 30 days.

"To prove we were not part of the deal, the Chanomic Creek pipeline (in Delta State) and other major pipelines will be destroyed within the next 30 days," a MEND spokesman told local media via an e-mail statement.