Success and Failures

A year after the Nigerian state sealed an amnesty deal with militants from the mineral-rich Niger Delta region, tension between the two sides remains high with the recent instability of the government and continued dissatisfaction among rebel groups. A brief look at Niger Delta’s recent troubled history, and its ‘blessing’ which has led to more sorrow than joy.

Nigeria is ranked sixth in the world as the largest crude oil and gas producer. It has a history of well over 50 years of oil and gas exploration and exploitation, but for many of the area’s inhabitants, this discovery has brought a curse rather than blessing to the Niger Delta region, where the ‘’black gold’’ is located.

In the past half a century, the area had been left devastated by this unprecedented environmental degradation occasioned by oil activities. This dire situation has led to local unrest, spearheaded by the likes of Isaac Adaka Boro and Ken Saro -Wiwa in the late 1960s and 1990s, respectively, who campaigned vigorously, albeit peacefully, for a better deal for the region. This movement eventually deteriorated into armed struggle, obstructing the area’s economic and social developments.

It is pertinent to state that the ethnic unrest in the area in the late 1990s, especially the conflict between the Ijaws and the Itsekiris, led to the militarization of the region. At the return of Nigeria’s democratic rule in 1999, politicians found most of the jobless youths ready tools to execute their political agenda and subsequently armed them.

By 2003, there was massive small arms proliferation in the Niger Delta, and after the elections the youths kept the weapons and infiltrated the region to form cult movements. Tom Ateke formed the Niger Delta Vigilante Warlord and the Icelander group until they were chased out of Port-Harcourt and later settled in Okrika. A number of these groups later became splinter militant groups that took up arms to protest their alleged economic exploitation and political marginalization.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), the chief militant group with its network spread across the region and beyond, had caused a slash in oil output between 2006 and 2009. Its constant attacks on oil facilities and resultant clashes with military personnel stationed there subsequently forced the government to open talks with its leaders.

These negotiations were held against the backdrop of the government's belief that peace is central to Nigeria’s stability, and that whatever happens in the region has a spiraling effect in the country and the global oil price.

On April 25, 2009, President Umaru Yar’Adua signed an amnesty declaration, which stated that all rebels who turn themselves in between August 6 and October 4 will be pardoned.
The amnesty deal ultimately brokered by the federal government with the fire brand militants could be seen as one of the greatest achievement of this present government headed by President Musa Yar’ Adua. Unfortunately, the president’s health continued to deteriorate, and on November 23, 2009, he was flown out of the country for medical treatment in Saudi Arabia.
 
ormer Defense Minister Godwin Abbe, a retired officer, and other government officials saddled with the responsibility of carrying out the post amnesty promises in the absence of the sick president failed to rise up to their challenges. This has made many skeptics, who were already doubtful of the government’s sincerity, raise fresh alarm.

Meanwhile, the president’s unexpected return to the country in the early hours February 25, and the inability of the president to transmit power to Vice President Goodluck Jonathan, due to pressure from the president’s loyalists not to hand over power to his number two, threw the country into a reign of constitutional pandemonium. The Niger Delta’s post amnesty agitation was now relegated to the back burner while the nation ponders the outcome of the power struggle at the apex of the government’s political structure.

Other major incidents further diverted attention from the Niger Delta. Ethnic and religious clashes around the city of Jos left hundreds dead in March. This came just three months after a Nigerian national attempted to blow up a Northwest airline flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. This incident led to the US government placing Nigeria on its terrorist watch list.
Few people doubt president Yar’ Adua’s sincerity in resolving the Niger Delta debacle. This, however, is not the case with the people carrying the mandate of the amnesty. It is publicly known that some of the people in the amnesty committee have political ambitions to run for public office in 2011, and that ambition has given their input a political dimension.

Corruption has also been a major obstruction in the progress of the amnesty. The government so far has voted vast amounts of funds towards the process, and yet the integration and rehabilitation centres still lack the basic facilities for accommodation and training. Consequently, many youths are still loitering within and outside the communities where the centres are located. The money, it is believed, has been shared among committee members as allowances, over-inflated contracts and fake payments. There have also been reports of former military commanders inflating the number of their soldiers in order to get more money for salaries.

However, the premier challenge currently facing the success of the amnesty declaration is the consistent threats by MEND to resume attacks on the nation’s oil installation. These threats have continued despite the fact militant leaders and former MEND commanders, such as High Chief Government Ekpemupolo, alias Tom Polo, Tom Ateke, Victor Ben Ebikabowei alias Boyloaf, Fara Dagogo, Soboma Jackrich, have turned in their weapons and embraced the amnesty process.

In carrying out their threat to cripple the oil industry, MEND detonated two car bombs on March 15, 2010 in the Delta State capital of Warri, where a post amnesty dialogue was being held. MEND warned that the bombings in Warri, which left one person dead and several others injured, are part of a new wave of attacks on any conference which they consider deceptive.

“The deceit of endless dialogue and conferences will no longer be tolerated,” the group said in an email statement. MEND did not only claim responsibility of the deadly attack, but also threatened that they would carry out more attacks on installations and oil companies across the Niger Delta, including those who had been spared in the recent past such as Total.
“MEND will attack any such gatherings designed to propagate more falsehood. Members of the public are hereby warned to avoid such gathering as they may not be fortunate to have a warning before detonation.”

“In the coming days, we will carry out a number of attacks against installations and oil companies across the Niger Delta and will spread out to companies such as Total which have been spared in the past. We hope the actions which follow will persuade Mr. Uduaghan that we exist outside of cyberspace”, MEND said in its email, referring to the executive governor of the Delta State.

Contrary to MEND’s claim, information has been going around that the bomb attack was carried out by disgruntled youths who wanted to use the occasion to express their anger about the manner in which the government was handling the amnesty process. These youths, according to sources within the Niger Delta approached many groups including the Joint Revolutionary Council (JRC) of Cynthia Whyte, a rebel group with no ties to MEND. In the end, however, it was said that MEND agreed to take responsibility. Whatever may be the onus surrounding the operation, the recent actions have proven that the militants supports for the amnesty is fractured.

Besides MEND, the outspoken and self exiled Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo Asari, founder of the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force (NDPVF), has also distanced himself from the government amnesty. Asari claims to continue fighting for self determination of the Niger Delta people through violent means. In his recent outburst during the Hope for Niger Delta Campaign conference in The Hague, he warned all multinational oil companies to quit the Niger Delta or face war.

"The views of the NDPVF is very clear: we are going back to armed struggle, and anybody who is caught in the line of fire will be treated as an enemy, whether he is an American, a Dutch man, wherever he is from. There is no two ways about it,” Asari asserted. “I will never accept that peace, I will fight. I am 46 years old, I will fight until I get victory and place freedom on the palms of my people's hands or I die," he said.

Many analysts now believe that the post amnesty deal has failed, pointing out that the government needed to conduct more consultations than what it had already done. The post amnesty process, these critics claims, leaves room for concerns and confusion as to whether it settles issues of militancy or other issues in the Niger Delta.

In February this year, a conference titled ‘Peace Consolidation in the Niger Delta’ was held in the Hague by Hope for Niger Delta Campaign, a non-governmental organization based in The Netherlands. A resolution made during the conference underlined that the Nigerian government must implement a report made by the Niger Delta Technical Committee. The Committee was set up by the Nigerian government to review all previous committees report and recommend a blue print to resolving the Niger Delta impasse. Committee chairman Ledum Mitee stressed during the conference that that the amnesty deal would not end agitation as the recommendations of his committee were yet to be implemented. Without mincing words, chiefly among the gains of the arrangement is that the nation’s economy which depends largely on oil appears once again to be regaining stability and momentum, with the restoration of oil output level following the amnesty.

Besides, Abuja has offered local oil bearing communities a ten per cent stake in oil and gas venture in a bid to calm frayed nerves, and  has also put in place programs for the region including railway and road constructions. While the government’s favourable policies towards the Niger Delta people have been in place for a while, its implementation remains a quandary.
Well meaning Nigerians, including some ex-militant leaders, have called for patience and support to ensure that the post amnesty programs are translated into reality. However, the continued fractured approaches from different groupings and the current instability in the government make the immediate future in the Niger Delta very difficult to predict.

Should the Nigerian government lose its grip on the amnesty process, then the region would slide back into a terrible crisis. It is hoped that the government would pay more attention to the amnesty agenda, and restore hope to a process that may pave the way for development of the region.

Foto's: Sunny Ofehe

Comrade Sunny Ofehe is founder and president of ‘Hope for Niger Delta Campaign’ in the Netherlands.