Making the Amnesty Programme better

At the inception of the Fourth Republic in 1999, then President Olusegun  Obasanjo introduced some measures and pushed through some legislations to try to appease the Niger Delta people in quelling the rising agitation for economic justice and equitable distribution of the region’s resources. Today, renewed attacks by new militant groups in Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta region have reduced Nigeria’s oil production to a 22-year low. It is however feared that if President Muhammadu Buhari sticks to his sledge hammer approach, the violence will escalate and the target and tactics of militants may change as well, with dire economic and security consequences for the country.

The emergence of militancy in the Niger Delta region led to problems of insecurity, pipeline vandalisation, disruption of oil output and revenues to the Nigerian government. Against this background, the late Umaru Yar’Adua-led Federal Government initiated an Amnesty programme in 2009. Yar’Adua declared the Niger Delta amnesty project on June 25, 2009 as a five-year programme of “Disarmament, Demobilisation, and Rehabilitation or Reintegration” for armed agitators who accepted the offer of amnesty. The disarmament and demobilisation phases of the programme, which are mainly security-based, have been largely achieved. But the Federal Government has seemed to renege on the processes that underlie achievement of the reintegration phase, which is development-based and geared towards sustainable peace.

This unprecedented move was a sharp departure from the typical use of state violence to suppress dissent by indigenous civilian and militia groups in the Niger Delta, and signified a realisation that the Niger Delta crisis required a democratic, participatory solution and not one that legitimised militarisation and brutal oppression of impoverished maritime communities. Furthermore, this action reflected a new political reality for the Nigerian state—it had to ‘pay attention’ to the people of Niger Delta, beyond empty rhetoric and cooptation of regional political actors. Shortly before the amnesty declaration, a Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs was created in September 2008 to coordinate the previously dysfunctional development and security interventions in the region. In addition, a new position in the Nigerian presidency called the ‘Special Adviser to the President on the Niger Delta’ was charged with the implementation of the programme.

The amnesty programme has served the strategic purpose of increasing stability in the Niger Delta region, which has enabled the state to pursue its economic interests in conjunction with the MOCs. Nigeria’s dependence on petroleum is structural—up to 95 per cent of exports and around 85 per cent of state revenues are generated from oil and gas. Likewise, the entire state architecture and political system is underwritten by a profitable network of distributive patronage between competing ethno-regional interests, lubricated by enormous oil rents. At the height of the Niger Delta crisis, oil production dropped to around 700,000 barrels per day (bpd).

Therefore, the renewed attacks by militant groups not only undermine Nigeria’s economic stability, but also risk exacerbating maritime insecurity in the Gulf of Guinea (GoG). Owing to recent attacks on critical infrastructure, Nigeria’s oil production has plummeted from 2.2 million bpd to about 1.4 million bpd. (16) Nigeria is already losing about N2.79 billion ($14 billion) daily to the closure of the ExxonMobil-operated Qua Iboe terminal, following the evacuation of Exxon-Mobil’s workers. This has compounded government revenue losses caused by the fall in global oil prices since mid-2014. In addition to crippling oil exports, the new wave of militancy in the Delta has also choked the supply of gas to local power plants, thus hobbling Nigeria’s power grid. Electricity generation in Nigeria has declined from about 4,800 megawatts in August 2015 to 1,000 megawatts in May 2016, seriously undermining overall productivity and service delivery in the economy. The renewed violence has also impacted maritime security in the GoG. Pirate attacks emanating from the Niger Delta remain a major threat to the oil industry in Nigeria and merchant shipping in the GoG. An estimated 70 percent of all piracy-related incidents in the GoG are directly related to Nigerian criminal gangs, mostly originating from the Niger Delta.

In the first quarter of 2016, at least 12 attacks were recorded in the Gulf of Guinea, including nine in Nigeria, one in Côte d’Ivoire, and two within the territorial waters of the DR Congo. Should the cycle of violence escalate, it is likely that the NDA and other similar groups could increase attacks on vessels and offshore facilities. Consequently, the interests of foreign investors will be further compromised as their facilities come under destructive attack, their staff threatened, and safe navigation in the GoG undermined by militant pirates. In Nigeria, one of the programmes that need built-in sustainability criteria through proper funding is the Amnesty Programme of the Federal Government. The Amnesty Programme, AP, has created tremendous impact in terms of training Niger Delta youths and enhancing their capacities for a re-engineered economy in the region and by extension Nigeria. The  programme  has been the most aggressive in terms of human capacity building in all its ramifications.

Niger Delta youths have inundated the training institutes in Ghana, South Africa, the Philippines, Russia, Ukraine, India and so many countries around the world. Soon, the Niger Delta will produce lots of pipeline and Under-water Welders, Pilots, Boat Builders, Seafarers, Marine Engineers and ICT gurus among others. The most critical question then would be: Where are we going to get these skilled youths either gainfully employed or enable them employ themselves to deliver value for and enhance productivity? This question has become all the more necessary because most of the hitherto existing industries in the Niger Delta such as the Aluminum Smelting Company at Ikot Abasi, scores of Industries such as Michelin, WaterGlass Boat building Company, West African Glass Industries, Pabod Breweries, the Cement Company at Okpella, National Fertilizer Company of Nigeria, NAFCON, to mention just a few, have either gone underground or driven out of the country by the excessively high operational costs due largely to the absence of needed infrastructure.

• Temile lives in Bomadi, Delta State.