A Nagging Problem

The subsisting offer of amnesty to militants in Nigeria's troubled Niger Delta region by the Federal Government, analysts insist, is a mere quicksand in addressing the nagging problems of the oil-rich region
By Bayo Bernard
When the history of Nigeria is finally written, the bogging issue of militancy in Nigeria’s oil-rich region, the Niger Delta, will surely not be a mere footnote. In fact, the amount of blood-letting that has resulted from youth restiveness and agitations is perhaps as much as the quantity of oil that has been exploited from the region since oil was first discovered in Oloibiri, present-day Bayelsa State, more than 50 years ago. Confronted by this monster, successive governments have adopted several interventionist policies aimed at bringing enduring peace and development to the region. First was the famous Willink's Commission set up by the British colonial government in 1958 to stem the tide of unrelenting agitation of the minorities in the Niger Delta. The commission was charged with looking into the fears of the agitators, with a view to help assuage such fears. But 50 years down the line the menace of militancy still poses a threat to the corporate existence and future of the nation.
Following weeks of military action against the Niger Delta militants, President Umaru Yar’Adua had reiterated his government's readiness to grant amnesty to militants who are ready to lay down their arms. The gesture was, at the time it was first announced regarded by many as another round of palliatives meant to merely contain the rising spate of violence in the region. The federal government had three months ago set up a panel headed by Major-General Godwin Abbe (rtd), Internal Affairs minister, to work out a strategy for youths disarmament as part of a comprehensive programme to rehabilitate youths who have taken part in insurgence against the Nigerian state.
The General Abbe-led “Presidential Panel on Amnesty and Disarmament of Militants in the Niger Delta’ submitted its report to President Yar’Adua penultimate week. Investigations by The Source revealed that the recommendations made by the panel are, however, similar to those made by panels constituted in the past. Apart from making elaborate recommendations based on its major terms of reference, which was to advise government on strategies to adopt in order to make the restive youths lay down their arms in exchange for amnesty, the Committee was believed to have touched on sensitive issues such as massive government injection of funds to rapidly develop the area.
The latest effort is thus been viewed by many as a mere quicksand approach, which like previous interventionist measures failed to tame restiveness in the region. The offer of amnesty according to many, is suspect in the sense that the government has refused to implement reports of several panels that had been set up in the immediate past. General Abbe believes, nonetheless, that his panel’s recommendations, if holistically implemented, will bring militants to the path of peace: Abbe: “Mr. President, we have tried to proffer solutions to a number of challenges that will arise in the course of giving meaning to your magnanimity. We are convinced that the recommendations in the report will provide a comprehensive framework for dealing with the matter of disarmament, demobilisation and rehabilitation or reintegration of the militants.”
He pointed out that the panel recommended the full participation of all tiers of security agencies, civil society groups and other stakeholders in achieving the goals of general amnesty for ex-militants and the establishment of lasting peace in the Niger Delta region.
Inspite of government’s optimism that its arms-for-amnesty policy will set a new pathway for peace, the approach is being regardeds by major stakeholders as a mere charade as peace, according to many may continue to elude the region as long as some thorny issues are not ironed out.
Jomo Gbomo, spokesman for the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND), contend that it would be difficult for the militant to accept the offer, because according to him, government has refused to honour past agreements with the militants.
“Nigeria is not a country where the rule of law is genuine. We all stood aside and allowed a fake judicial system hang Ken Saro-Wiwa. All the commanders listed for the so-called amnesty happen to be in Okah’s charge sheet as wanted men. Now, the question is “why should they believe such an offer when they are yet to be captured and tried?”
Henry Okah, leader of MEND, is currently facing a 62-count criminal charge of treason, treasonable felony and attempts to overthrow the Federal Government.
Some militants, for instance, believe that the amnesty being offered by the government is another attempt to lure them out of their hiding camps in the creeks, into the waiting hands of security forces who will later hand them over for prosecution.
Some of then who spoke with The Source last week said that they have learnt a bitter lesson from the experience of Asari Dokubo, leader of the Niger Delta Volunteer Force (NDVF), who was arrested by the administration of ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo and made to face trial after the group had laid down their arms and sought to participate in the peace negotiation initiated by the government.
Indeed, since the recent military offensive against some militants camps in Delta State, the possibility of bringing the militants to the negotiation table has somewhat become dicey.
During the operation involving the Army, Airforce and Navy several militant camps were destroyed and some of their leaders killed. The Joint Military Task Force (JTF) operation started on May 13, after militants attacked and killed some soldiers in Delta State. On May 15, using helicopters equipped with machine guns, the JTF attacked several communities in the Gbaramatu kingdom, including Okerenkoko and Oporoza, during which some militants and civilians were killed.
If the Federal Government expected the youths to be calm as a result of the amnesty offer, it was wrong because just less than three days after the General Abbe panel report, the MEND issued a stern warning to oil companies operating in the region to leave or face the wrath of militants. MEND said it was prepared for an attack against oil installations in retaliation for the JTF offensive. To make good Barely 24 hours after the expiration of the ultimatum, a flow station owned by Chevron Nigeria Limited was gutted by fire last Tuesday, an attach MEND claimed responsibility.
MEND had penultimate Friday threatened to carry out “Hurricane Piper Alpha” aimed at crippling oil exploration and exploitation in the region, after the three-day ultimate given the oil companies, which expired. Investigations, last week, revealed that the oil majors including Anglo Dutch oil firm, Shell Petroleum Development Company, Chevron and others have already asked their workers to take precautionary measures in the face of the threats.
The end to the threat posed by militants to the country’s oil industry, watchers of the blood-letting in the region say may, indeed, be a distant dream.
This according to them, is because of the government’s refusal to implement recommendations of previous panels concerning the thorny issue of degradation with desperate underdevelopment in the oil-bearing region. This state of affair, they say, has added fuel to the burning issues of insurgency and kidnap in the region. The Willink's Commission recommended majorly that effort should be made to rapidly develop the area.
According to investigations, over $140 billion have been lost to insurgency and oil bunkering in the 50 years of the nation’s oil history.
It was with the view to stem the loss, as oil revenue contributes no fewer than 83 per cent of the national revenue that led to the establishment of interventionist agencies such as the Presidential Implementation Committee and the Oil Minerals-Producing Areas Commission (OMPADEC) between 1970 and 1990, and now the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
Successive governments also set up various panels on the same issue, including the General Alexander Ogomudia Special Security Committee on oil producing areas in 2001 by the President Obasanjo administration among others.
The coming of the Yar’Adua’s administration saw the establishment of the Ledum Mittee Technical Committee on the Niger Delta, and charged with collating the recommendations of all previous panels and make recommendations to the government. The committee submitted its reports to the government in December 2008. However, since the panel submitted its report, the government is yet to issue a white paper. Like other panels, the highlights included the transformation of the region’s infrastructure and provisions of jobs for its teaming, yet restive youths.
Indeed, of all the panels set up on the Niger Delta issue, the Ogomudia panel is believed to have answered the many-bogging questions needed to restore peace to the area.
Its major recommendations include: upward review of the minimum 13 per cent derivation to not less than 50 per cent; enactment of laws that would make it mandatory for the creation of manufacturing companies to produce local contents for oil-producing companies; helping communities diversify into agricultural production unique to their environment; establishment of civic centres for development of sports, and extra curricula activities to engage the youths during idle periods.
Among others, the committee also recommended the training of indigenes of oil-producing communities for employment in oil companies and the establishment of police stations in the oil-producing communities.
As a consequence, therefore, many argue that the amnesty offer would amount to scratching the surface of the Niger Delta issue, as the answer to the region’s nagging problems, they say, lies in the implementation of a wholesale development plan for the country’s goose that lay the golden egg.