Long article but worth reading
Fresh wounds in the Niger Delta
Written by Reuben Abati
The current crisis in the Niger Delta in the form of the transformation of that region into a mini-Iraq with aggrieved citizens taking oil workers hostage, and demanding ransom as if they were disciples of Osama Bin Laden is the inevitable outcome of the failure of the Nigerian state and the professional political class to address the politics of oil. It can only get worse and it will. It would appear that the youths of the Niger Delta have finally discovered how best to treat and beat the Nigerian state. In the past week, they have kidnapped four oil workers: a Briton, a Honduran, an American, and a Bulgarian. They have seized two vessels, and attacked three flow stations. They are threatening to move from one oil major to the other. They call themselves Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND).
Each time radical militants of the Niger Delta seize oil flow stations, kidnap oil workers and inflict punishment on Nigerian security forces, the international price of crude oil shoots up. The daily production output of the oil companies in the Delta drops, and so Nigeria loses revenue. Oil theft is made easier, and perhaps more important for the purpose of the militias, the international community focuses afresh on the problems of the Niger Delta. Their action is dramatic. The effect is even more so. Shell which depends on the Niger Delta for ten per cent of its global oil production, as well as the other oil majors are already used to crises of this nature. There can be no doubt that they consider violent attacks on their processes and installations, part of the price to be paid for doing business in Nigeria. Shell has evacuated over 300 of its staff. Chevron has suspended some of its operations. But they will return either as partners of the Nigerian state or of the commanders of the Niger Delta, depending on how the coming showdown is resolved.
The main challenge lies in how six, seven years into civilian democracy, the Nigerian government has not been able to make any progress in the Niger Delta. The situation in that region worsened during military rule especially under General Sani Abacha who unleashed a regime of terror and repression on the people, killing Ken Saro-Wiwa, the MOSOP activist and eight others. Abacha turned the people against one another and sacked communities. There was some respite under General Abdusalami Abubakar whose main contribution was to organise fresh elections and hand over to civilians. But with the return to civilian rule in 1999, it was expected that there would be ample opportunities for addressing the injustice, the abuse of human rights, the repression and the exploitation which had driven the people of the Niger Delta to the wall. Unfortunately, the response of the Obasanjo administration has been characterised by a disconnect between form and substance.
Take the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) set up by Obasanjo administration in 1999 to replace the ineffective Oil Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission (1992). This is the ad-hoc structure which is supposed to facilitate development in the Niger Delta by identifying and addressing the urgent needs of the people as a complement to the efforts of the state governments and the Corporate Social Responsibility contributions of the oil majors. There is a lot that the NDDC has been able to achieve: schools that have been built, bridges and other social infrastructure, chairs that have been taken to schools, new access roads, but all these do not amount to much. Years of neglect, inequity and deep-seated contempt make whatever is done for the people of the Niger Delta appear too little too late, and coming from the same Obasanjo that has not shown much sympathy, mere sop.
Besides, the NDDC is grossly under-funded. It is saddled with an assignment that covers about nine states, over 300 communities, each with its own peculiar and costly needs, lack of adequate funding limits its capacity. And because its commissioners are political appointees representing different states and interests, NDDC is further hobbled by the placement of politics before the development agenda. The oil companies are not helping to fund the NDDC adequately since in any case they have their own community development projects or so they claim. The state governments are of no help either. In the last six years, states of the Niger Delta have received more money than at any other time in Nigerian history, but this has not translated into any concrete difference. The youths of the Delta are aware of the existence of the NDDC, but when they see a road there or a school there, and they place that beside the amount of oil that has been taken from the Delta since 1956, they are not impressed. They want more. When they are snubbed or asked to go and ask their state Governors for greater accountability, they get angry.
Take also the government's peace-making strategies: Each time the people revolted either as aggrieved farmers or housewives, both the oil companies and government were wont to negotiate with and make peace with the local elite in the persons of traditional rulers, or youth leaders for whom something is packaged either in form of contracts or cash inducements. Thus, a self-seeking kleptocratic elite has since emerged in the Niger Delta which does not in any way represent the interests of the people. It is even a cheated elite.
The angry youths who have since formed themselves into formidable militias have exposed the limitations of that rent-collecting elite and its manipulation by the state. The other year, one traditional ruler was chased out of town by aggrieved youths who accused him of stealing money meant for the community. Youth leaders have also been sanctioned in many communities. Unlike the rent-collectors, the angry youths of the militias see themselves as revolutionaries. They are the ones now dictating the pace of the politics of the mangrove forest. No one should be surprised that there is no Niger Delta elite who can confidently condemn what these angry youths are doing. Such a leader may find it difficult to return home. So, in that sense, the strategy by the Nigerian state of using selected Niger Delta leaders against the people has failed.
A third grand strategy against the Niger Delta has been the use of violence, and the harassment of the rebels. The scope of repression in the Niger Delta is enormous. Even in ordinarily peaceful circumstances, soldiers are stationed in the region. Ordinary persons going about their businesses are searched. In their own environment, the people are subjected to constant harassment by agents of the state. Human rights abuse in terms of the despoliation of the environment, killings and the pauperisation of the people over the years have combined to create in the average Niger Deltan a feeling of discomfort and resentment towards Nigeria. Between 1996 and 2000 for example, more than five military Task Forces were set up to keep the people of the Niger Delta in check. These include the Rivers State Internal Security Task Force, Operation Salvage, Operation Flush, Operation Storm, Operation Sweep, and Operation Restore Hope. What the militias of the Niger Delta have now advertised is the limits of the use of repression as a tool of state engineering. The militias in the current confrontation are obviously as equipped if not better equipped than the Nigerian army. They are turning their guns and rockets on Nigerian soldiers.
They are mowing down these soldiers and collecting oil company workers as hostages. They are speaking up for all marginalised minorities who are not recognised in Section 55 of the Constitution. They have even given an ultimatum. They want their leader, Asari Dokubo released or by February 1, they would hit at the soft underbelly of the Nigerian state and halt all oil exploration activities in the Niger Delta. If President Obasanjo had thought that by arresting and charging Asari Dokubo to court, the militias of the Niger Delta would be cowed, he is now mistaken. The Niger Delta militias are waging a kind of Holy War against Nigeria. It is a war of nerves. It is a costly war. For every Asari Dokubo that is arrested, there are many more in the creeks who are willing to take up arms. When Asari Dokubo is taken to court, he wears an Isaac Adaka Boro T-shirt. He abuses the judge that is hearing his case. His T-shirt is a symbolic statement. His attack on the judge is an attack on the Nigerian state. So what would the President do? Will he declare war against the Niger Delta? Or a state of emergency? Or will he eat the humble pie?
Now we know: no one has a monopoly of madness. This is the answer to the crazy failure of the Nigerian state to give the people of the Niger Delta an opportunity to articulate and canvass their aspirations. Under civilian rule, the psychological assault has been particularly intense. At the National Conference, delegates from the South -South had to stage a walk-out because the North bluntly refused to entertain their demand for resource control. The 19 states of the North even went to court to challenge the derivation formula. South-South leaders are insisting that the President of Nigeria must come from the South-South in 2007, the Northern elite have more or less told them to shut up.
When the people of the Niger Delta further remind the Nigerian state of their contributions to the Nigerian economy through their ownership of crude oil, which accounts for 90 per cent of national revenue, they are told that the oil belongs to the North. This was mouthed by Northern leaders at the National Conference but it is given an intellectual coverage in a booklet by Yusufu Bala Usman and Alkasum Abba: The Misrepresentation of Nigeria: The Facts and the Figures (May 2000) under what the authors call "the geological and hydrological realities of Nigeria" and "the formation of the Niger Delta". The young men in the creeks hear all these, and they are convinced that the only language that Nigeria can understand is that of violence.
Where now are those loud mouths, those arm-chair geologists who always claim that the oil in the delta is no more than sedimentary deposits flowing from the North to the South. Where are those oligarchs who push the view that the Presidency is too good for the South-South? The Niger Delta is the most vulnerable part of the Nigerian fabric. The present drift requires more creative thinking on the part of the state. Who are the sponsors of the militias in the Delta? How did they manage to smuggle their sophisticated arms into the country? Do they keep any bank accounts? If so, who is their banker? Are there fifth columnists involved? Is the conflict stage-managed? President Obasanjo in six years has succeeded in offending so many stakeholders, should any one or group feel determined enough to ambush and sabotage his government, the easiest battlefield is the Niger Delta where the hunted is now the hunter. If anyone wants to disrupt Nigeria and make it ungovernable, all he needs to do is to rent the militias in the Niger Delta and stop the oil pipelines from flowing. Armed robbers, saboteurs and professional terrorists can also take advantage of the situation. By refusing to allow dialogue on the issues of resource allocation and power sharing, the Nigerian state has created war within its own borders. Until the Niger Delta question is resolved, Nigeria sits on a carton of explosives and turns its face towards fire.