What would you like for your birthday? How about your freedom - gift wrapped - in an all inclusive flight home, plus your release from your quarters in a southern Nigerian oil swamp that you have been living in as a hostage for the last nine months? Not to mention you get to roll with your very own entourage of a notorious sub military "terrorist" organisation!

Ok, it might not sound as a appealing as the iPod or new phone you were hoping for, but this was the present that was promised to British captive Matthew Maguire, who was captured along with 27 other hostages by "pirates" who then handed them over to The Movement of the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND).

The oil worker was the last of the hostages to be released by MEND, but has been reported to have turned down his "birthday present" and opted to stay with the group on the grounds that he has now become "an advocate for change in the region."

Now this could simply be viewed as a serious case of Stockholm syndrome, or could it be that the protesting - that ultimately led to his capture - was so justified that he wanted join the fight against his own kind?

MEND has undoubtedly changed the security paradigm in Nigeria since their rise in early 2006: multiplying attacks, kidnappings of foreign oil workers and sabotage at oil installations on land and offshore, quickly earning them reputation of "terrorists" and "killers."

This means that it is often too hard for people to see past  the crimes to the cause; and often these type of military groups are only remembered for their activities rather than as activists. 

With oil exports accounting for 95 to 99 per cent of the country's foreign revenues, and only an alleged 5% of that going to the indigenous and/or local people - it is no wonder to me why there are groups like MEND are taking vigilant action in an attempt to reclaim what essentially belongs to them.

Countries like Dubai and Saudi Arabia and others close by have all benefited immensely through selling their oil that they are now some of the richest countries in the world. Despite being the eighth largest exporter of oil, it appears that Nigeria should be considered the same.

However, Nigeria won't be creating man-made islands in the shape of palm trees, with special sand that’s temperature can be electronically controlled, as they still remain poor compared to their also "oil enriched" counterparts in the Middle East.

I find it hard not to admire some of MEND’s Robin Hood-esque plight to steal from the rich and give it to the poor; but then I find myself cringing at the extreme and violent lengths they have gone to in the name of so called "justice" conjuring up thoughts in my head of why they say the earth in Delta is soaked with blood as well as oil.

So with that juxtaposition of thoughts it begs the question - are they terrorists or activists? And in a world with so much injustice, it can often be that one man's serial killer could be another man's saviour. Or in the case of our captive turned rebel, one man's conquest could soon become another man's cause indeed.