(Adds comment from militants, background, paragraphs 12-15) By Felix Onuah ABUJA, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua has replaced his chief of defence staff and named new heads of the army, navy and air force in his first major military shake-up since taking office more than a year ago. The reshuffle is the latest sign that Yar'Adua is throwing off the influence of his predecessor Olusegun Obasanjo. It comes two days after he scrapped the office of chief of staff in the presidency, a post held by one of Obasanjo's top allies. Yar'Adua appointed Air Marshal Paul Dike, previously head of the air force, as his chief of defence staff late on Wednesday. Major-General Abdulrahman Dambazau, formerly an army commander in the southwestern city of Ibadan, was made head of the army while Rear Admiral Isaiah Iko Ibrahim, previously head of Naval Training Command in the commercial capital Lagos, was appointed head of the navy. A presidency statement said the outgoing military chiefs were all retiring from service. "It could be interpreted as the latest indication of rolling back any lingering influence of the former president," Antony Goldman, an analyst at London-based risk consultancy PM consulting, told Reuters. The reshuffle means the departure of General Andrew Azazi, who as chief of defence staff was the highest-ranking army officer from the Ijaw ethnic group, the majority tribe in the restive oil-producing Niger Delta. His replacement, Dike, is also from the Niger Delta. But the fact that he is from the air force leaves Dambazau, who is from Yar'Adua's northern Hausa ethnic group, as the most senior ranking army officer. "He has a good reputation in the ranks, and perhaps will be less compromised when it comes to delta issues," Goldman said. CALMING THE NIGER DELTA The Niger Delta, a vast wetlands region which opens out into the Gulf of Guinea, is the heart of Africa's top oil industry. Maintaining security there is the Nigerian army's main priority. Attacks by militants who say they are fighting for a fairer share of the region's natural resources have cut oil output from Nigeria by more than a fifth since early 2006. Criminal gangs have taken advantage of the breakdown in law and order, profiting from an illegal trade in stolen crude worth millions of dollars a day. Security experts and rights groups say local politicians and some members of the security forces are sharing in the spoils, making the problem harder for the government to contain. The main militant group in the region, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), dismissed the reshuffle as insignificant and said it had no impact on its campaign. "It means nothing to us if the army has another northerner as its chief because this does not make pipelines invisible," the group said in an email to Reuters. Yar'Adua has been under intense pressure to quell the violence in the Niger Delta as any further threat to Nigerian output risks pushing up volatile world oil prices. He has pledged to address the root causes of the unrest, promising more development for impoverished communities whose land and water have been polluted by oil extraction, but has also promised tough action against armed groups in the creeks. Yar'Adua, a civilian with no military background, took office in May, 2007, replacing southerner and ex-military ruler Obasanjo in the first democratic handover from one civilian president to another since independence from Britain in 1960. (For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http://africa.reuters.com/ ) (Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Matthew Tostevin)
U.N. peacekeepers from Nigeria stand guard during a demonstration by supporters of Haiti's former president Jean Bertrand Aristide, demanding his return, in front of the National palace in Port-au-Prince July 15, ...
