Musa Yar'Adua

Britain and Nigeria have finally signed agreement aimed at setting up a security training force to help Nigeria tackle rising lawlessness in the Niger Delta Region.

British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, had pledged last week that his country would help Nigeria to end violence in the Niger Delta, a plan visiting President Umaru Yar'Adua agreed to at a meeting with him in London on Wednesday.

"The security training force that we are talking about will be support for Nigerians to be able to have trainers and others who can build up this capacity locally to deal with the problems of lawlessness that exist in the area," Brown said.

Other British officials explained that this means "military experts providing military advice" to Nigeria's security forces.

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The two countries also agreed to identify people behind the trade in stolen "blood oil" used to buy weapons and use international law to bring them to book.

Yar'Adua welcomed Britain's training offers and called on Brown's support for a campaign at the United Nations to outlaw the trade in stolen oil.

"As done with blood diamonds, the proceeds of stolen oil are used to buy sophisticated weapons which are taken back to the Niger Delta to shed the blood of innocent people.

"These decisions that we have reached today will ensure that Nigeria's oil production and peace in the Niger Delta and development efforts in the (region) are sorted out and solved within the shortest possible time," he told reporters.

However, Nigerians in the United Kingdom will today besiege Chatham House in London to press Yar'Adua to reject Downing Street's military offer to help quell the rebellion.

Brown is "clueless" on the issues at stake and his offer deserves no serious attention, they would tell Yar'Adua, who is billed to give a lecture this morning.

The warning came on the day Yar'Adua met with Brown, both of whom brainstormed on the insurgency in Yar'Adua's back yard, with Brown offering Naval assistance amid criticisms within and outside the UK.

Brown voiced a strong concern about the daily loss of tonnes of oil in the Niger Delta, hours after a gun duel between militants and Naval officers led to the death of five people in Port Harcourt, to send a warning to Number 10 Downing Street which seeks the rout of militants for upsetting global oil price.

Yar'Adua had touched down in London on Tuesday for a three-day visit, with a schedule that would also see him have tea with Queen Elizabeth II.

On Wednesday, The Liberty Forum, UK, an umbrella body for British-Nigerians, provided a road map to the Royal Institute of International Affairs (also dubbed Chatham House) to facilitate its members' protest against a military option to settle a conflict that has slashed Nigeria's oil exports.

Kayode Ogundamisi, Convener of the Forum, reiterated in a statement that the insurgency in Nigeria's Deep South is driven by human yearnings.

"As British-Nigerians, we strongly protest against Brown's attempts to reduce the Niger Delta crisis to a law-and-order issue instead of seeing it for what it is: the struggle by the people for social justice, environmental rights and resource control," he said.

"While the corrupt Nigerian Government, the oil companies, and the British government are looking for profit, the people of the Delta are facing a lifelong sentence to poverty and environmental degradation.

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"We call on Yar'Adua to reject any offer of arms, from the British or any other foreign powers, for use in Nigeria. Nigeria must not be turned into another Iraq by Western governments and a UK Prime Minister who is clueless about the situation in the Niger Delta and the struggle of its people for environmental, social and political justice.

"The only role of the British Government in Nigeria is to call on (Aso Rock) to enter into genuine dialogue with the people of the Delta, to put into place concrete measures to ease their frustration, and to be accountable to the Nigerian people rather than to the oil companies and the multinationals."

Downing Street confirmed in a briefing posted on its website on Tuesday night that Brown would meet with Yar'Adua. But it did not state when he would do so during the visit, based on Brown's pledge to help Nigeria deal a blow to the growing rebellion.

Brown's Spokesman, Michael Ellam, said he has not backed off his stand to "give help to Nigerians to deal with lawlessness that exists in this area and to achieve the levels of (oil) production that Nigeria is capable of but, because of the law and order problems, has not been able to achieve."

Brown first disclosed at the Group of Eight (G8) meeting in Japan last week that Britain, Nigeria former colonial master, would offer assistance to help deal with the "lawlessness" that has disrupted oil supplies.

Nigeria had long been publicly opposed to the idea of foreign involvement in resolving the Niger Delta question, which it says is a purely domestic issue; but may have caved in under pressure from the West which seeks to muzzle the insurgency that has helped drive world oil price to record highs.

In Port Harcourt on Wednesday, a band of suspected militants attacked a Naval houseboat, sparking a gun battle that left five people dead, military officials said.

Just before 2 a.m., about 30 attacked a boat housing Naval personnel protecting strategic oil facilities, according to Army Spokesman, Sagir Musa, who recounted that an ensuing two-hour gun exchange left three attackers, a Naval officer and a civilian dead.

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