LAGOS: Nigeria's major militant group in the oil-rich Niger Delta region, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), said on Monday that it was ready to surrender their arms to demonstrate its acceptance of the amnesty on the table, the Daily Independent newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Joseph Etella Harry, the group's mediator who disclosed this at a news conference in Abuja, said a cache of 7,000 AK47 riffles, 30 war boats, and 1,000 general-purpose machine guns are to be surrendered by the group. Other items to be surrendered are explosives, police and army uniforms used by the militants.

He warned that the government should be swift about collecting the arms because politicians are jostling to buy them for the election in 2011.