The young Nigerian rebels smoked marijuana, drank gin and shot into the night sky as they escorted two Italian hostages and this Reuters correspondent on speed boats back towards freedom.
They steered defiantly past a brightly lit oil production plant on the banks of the Cawthorne Channel, one of a maze of creeks in the Niger Delta, oblivious to the troops stationed there to protect Africa's biggest oil industry from attack.
"You see these pipelines and gas plants?" asked Kelvin, holding an AK-47 rifle. "We want to control those resources. They are close to us and we want to control them. We are not eating fine. If we control these things, we can fly places. We don't want whites."
Kelvin is one of hundreds, maybe thousands, who belong to a new militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), that says it is fighting for more autonomy in the vast southern wetlands that are home to Nigeria's oil.
Over the past year, MEND's kidnappings and attacks on oilfields like the one in Cawthorne Channel have prompted Western companies to evacuate thousands of workers and cut Nigerian oil exports by a fifth. Supply disruptions in Nigeria, the world's eighth largest oil exporter, have helped keep global prices near record highs.
MEND is the latest incarnation of a decades-long insurrection in the delta, where resentment runs high in mud-hut fishing villages hosting a multi-billion dollar oil industry.
The group has brought a new ferocity and focus to the struggle as Nigeria approaches critical elections next month. In the absence of any visible sign of government in many parts of the delta, remote communities began demanding roads, electricity, schools and jobs from oil companies.
Some now have power, tarred roads or menial jobs in the oil firms, but many still do not. Oil spills have polluted the creeks, gas flares have poisoned the air and millions of poorly educated youths are jobless. Many of the delta's 30 million inhabitants, sitting on Africa's largest oil reserves, had hoped for much more.
Some groups resorted to extorting money from companies by attacking their workers or seizing equipment. Others armed themselves to fight for access to benefits and even broke open pipelines to "tax" oil that passed through their land.
"People here have got used to doing things rough because an educated man who does things in a civilised manner gets nowhere," said Bubaraye Dakolo, a community leader from Gbarantoru on the nearby Nun River.
"Having been pushed to this level of madness, giving a community power will not end kidnapping overnight," he added. Militancy is most intense among the Ijaw, the largest ethnic group in the delta, but still a minority in Africa's most populous nation. The imprisonment of two prominent Ijaws in 2005 led to the emergence of MEND. Its abductions and attacks have triggered a surge in kidnapping of foreigners for ransom across the region.
Even though MEND said it did not want money for its latest hostages, the militant group said Italian oil company Agip sent about $2 million through a government intermediary who stole most of it. It "confiscated" the rest - $545,000.
"The emphasis on money is creating new problems because a new elite is getting used to free money and they only get it if they describe themselves as militants," said Oronto Douglas, an Ijaw human rights lawyer nominated by MEND as a mediator.
MEND has lost hope in a negotiated peace. Its leader, who sends e-mails under the pseudonym Jomo Gbomo, expects a long guerrilla war before the Nigerian government agrees to part with control over its $40 billion in annual oil revenue.
But many Ijaw activists are trying to open avenues for a peaceful resolution. With elections weeks away, Douglas is drafting a policy he hopes will help the next government address the problem. The April vote should mark the first transition from one elected government to another in Nigeria's 47 years of independence.
Part of the solution may be for a greater share of the oil revenue to remain in the delta. But Niger Delta states already receive up to six times more than states in other regions, and many think the real issue is bad government.
As most of the candidates to govern these states were nominated by the incumbents, many expect the looting and neglect to continue. Meanwhile, companies will continue to throw money at hostage-takers in the hope that they will go away.
"There is no light at the end of the tunnel yet," said Chris Alagoa, a community development worker and Ijaw activist. "Nobody is talking about the Ijaw playing a proper role in decision making. The federal government keeps on with palliatives that never take things anywhere."
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