But the celebration of the late Isaac Boro by fellow members of his Ijaw people and their renewed calls for greater control of Ijawland's huge oil and gas resources could not mask the battle raging for the right to represent his legacy and lead the region's struggle for autonomy. For, while some choose to remember Boro as a man who died in 1968 in the service of the Nigerian federal army fighting against Biafran separatists, others prefer to look back to his earlier role as the leader of a doomed 12-day-long rebellion under the banner of an independent Niger Delta Republic. Anger is once more rising in the delta, the heartland of Africa's biggest oil industry, and the fight between rival ideals celebrated on Isaac Boro Day may decide whether the authorities can keep a lid on a mounting tide of armed militancy, crime and political unrest. With the world's energy needs steadily increasing, this local drama could also have profound economic consequences elsewhere, especially if Ijaw nationalists make good on their threat to emulate their hero Boro's attacks on oil wells and pumping stations. "Isaac Boro was the first person in the history of Nigeria to try to break away. Every nationality has the right to self-determination. We will take our resources whether the Nigerian state likes it or not, by whatever means necessary," declared militant leader Dokubo Asari ahead of the ceremonies. On 23 February, 1966, Isaac Boro and a 68-strong force of volunteers declared the Niger Delta independent of Nigeria. According to one of his former comrades, Chief Pikoli Finikumo, the first days of the revolt were marked by some local successes despite the group's limited means. Now grey-haired, quivering with palsy and looking far older than his 65 years, Finikumo explained how Boro had only one rifle with which to train his guerrillas until they stormed the police station in Yenagoa, seized more arms and split their force into three patrols. Finikumo's unit headed to Oloibiri, site of Nigeria's Oil Well Number One which the British energy giant Shell had opened in 1956. "We told the Shell workers to leave and they watched as we blew up Oloibiri with dynamite," the veteran said in Kaiama, Boro's final resting place. After 12 days of skirmishing with federal forces, Boro and his men gave themselves up. By the account of Finikumo and other witnesses they were savagely beaten and tortured before being jailed. After that, to outsiders at least, the story becomes more complicated. When the Nigerian civil war erupted in 1967, pitching Nigeria against the breakaway "Republic of Biafra" Boro was released from jail by his federal captors and immediately got to work helping his former foes to create the Third Commando Brigade to fight Biafra for control of the delta creeks. As a Nigerian army major, Boro and his former rebel comrades helped loyalist forces recapture Port Harcourt before falling to a sniper's bullet on the outskirts of the city on April 20, 1968. Many Ijaws believe he was betrayed and murdered by his new government allies. Finikumo and others explain Boro's switch in allegiance as a practical decision; he felt Ijaws would be better able to protect their interests in a diverse federation than in an independent Biafra which would have been led by the much larger Igbo ethnic group. But the fact that Boro died in a Nigerian army uniform has allowed those with the most to gain from Nigeria's current political set-up to co-opt his continuing popularity into their own campaigns. On Monday, Kaiama hosted Bayelsa State's Governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha at a wreath-laying ceremony at Boro's grave. "Major Isaac Boro was freedom fighter and a soldier who fought the good fight.He continues to be a yardstick by which to measure patriotism and selfless service," he said, unveiling the site of planned cenotaph and promising to fund a Boro memorial library. Alamieyeseigha whose state government receives more than 60 million dollars in oil profits every month from the federation was welcomed in Kaiama by 200 young Ijaws daubed in warpaint and wielding cutlasses. "Isaac Boro is our hero. We want total liberation, emancipation and freedom of the entire Ijaw nation," cried drunken militant Eberisikumo Jason Gbassa, who wore Juju charms and introduced himself to reporters as "The Great Messenger, Renowned Freedom Fighter and Senior Accountant". The governor promised to press Abuja to give the delta greater control over its resources. Meanwhile however more radical elements were staging their own show of force. Asari mobilised several thousand supporters mainly young men wearing the T-shirts of his Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force in a fleet of 100 buses and attempted to gatecrash the Kaiama ceremony. Scores of federal troops were deployed on the road between Port Harcourt and Bayelsa to stop him. The hardliner was eventually forced to stage his rally in his home village of Obuama, where activists were greeted by a huge banner showing Boro toting his Civil War-era Sten gun next to a grinning Asari in body armour and Rambo-style headscarf wielding a Kalashnikov assault rifle. "We're ripe for independence. Liberty is ours to take and we'll take it. We love the good life, we love liberty, we love your investments, but we want our freedom," Eze Emenike, a Port Harcourt dental surgeon, told foreign reporters at the rally. In August last year a threat from Asari to attack oil flow stations helped push world prices to an all time high. Since then he has signed a ceasefire with the government, and handed in more than 1,000 guns, but he has repeatedly warned that the struggle for Ijaw independence is not over. Back in Kaiama, the aging freedom fighter Finikumo winced when he remembered his previous suffering, but said that he admired Asari's stand. "Boro told us that it's only when we take arms against the federal government that we are also part of this country and that we can own the resources that they now use to better themselves," he explained. PIN//AFP