President tells OPEC :

Unrest in South Nigeria subsided

NIGERIA: Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua on Wednesday sought to reassure OPEC officials that unrest in the country's oil-rich south has subsided after years of attacks that sharply reduced output.

"The general amnesty I extended to all militants in the Niger Delta has led to the laying down of arms and a return of peace.

Agitations are now over," he said when receiving a delegation of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Counties (OPEC).

The OPEC delegation was led by secretary general Abdulla El-Badri.

"All the stakeholders have seen the imperative of peace for development to take place.

We are now in the process of implementing a post-amnesty programme, and everybody is now on board," a statement from the president's office quoted him as saying.

The amnesty for militants ran from August 6 to October 4.

His comments came a day before the expiration of a ceasefire declared by the region's most prominent armed group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND).

MEND, which says it is fighting for a greater share of the region's oil wealth for the poor, has vowed to resume hostilities at the expiration of its ceasefire early Thursday.

The group had last Friday in Abuja boycotted a meeting Yar'Adua held with the leaders of other armed groups to discuss the future of the country's troubled oil hub.

The government amnesty committee said that more than 8,000 militants had laid down their arms as of Tuesday last week.Lagos, Thursday, AFP