Niger Delta: One region, many handicaps

Oil and gas-induced crime and criminality are common denominators in the Niger Delta. In spite of the COVID-19 debacle, the issues of herdsmen/farmers’ clash, kidnapping, cultism, armed robbery and ritual killing, piracy and illegal oil bunkering, among others are still rife in most parts of Bayelsa, Rivers, Delta, Akwa-Ibom, and Edo states. In this piece, EBENEZER ADUROKIYA, ALPHONSUS AGBORH, HENDRIX OLIOMOGBE, ONYEMA GODWIN, INIOBONG EKPONTA AND EBIOWEI LAWAL report the security situation in the region.

Cult activities and illegal oil bunkering are Siamese twins preponderant in most parts of Delta South and Delta Central senatorial districts in oil-rich Delta State. Most youths from the three major ethnic groups of Ijaw, Urhobo and Itsekiri, as well as others, are deeply engaged in these twin vices.

Curiously, the menace of cult violence is increasingly taking various horrible shapes associated with criminality, communal and political dimensions, with the unfortunate involvement of school dropouts, idle graduates, artisans, petty traders, commercial bus drivers and tricycle operators in the state.

In his reaction Darlington Akpoturu, social media activist, said “When I was in College of Education Warri, my junior course mate who was a cultist told me never to bow to any pressure to ever join any cult group. He attributed his misery then to being a cultist. Because he was a good friend, he opened up to me and told me never to think of joining.”

Another respondent, Emeleze Victor Onos observed that “It is politics that fuels cultism; until our politicians truly repent nd take their hands off political violence, cultism will thrive.”

Oil bunkering in oil-bearing communities in the oil-rich, but impoverished state, will remain, and continue to thrive, as long as poverty and other anti-social denominators subsist among the people.

Over time, the Operation DELTA SAFE, a joint outfit made up of the Navy and other security outfits, has intensified the fight against crude oil theft, pipeline vandalism and illegal oil bunkering in the Niger Delta region with appreciable successes.

As it relates to the activities of the Nigerian Navy Ship (NNS DELTA), the patrol team recently located a dugout pit with about 1,257.96 barrels of a product suspected to be stolen crude oil at Ogbodede Creek in Warri South Local Government Area of Delta State. However, governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta has pledged that the state government will continue to partner with the military and other security agencies to ensure peace and order in the state. He made the pledge last Wednesday, when Maj.-Gen. Olubunmi Irefin, the new General Officer Commanding (GOC), 6 Division, Nigerian Army, Port-Harcourt, paid him a courtesy visit at the Government House, Asaba.

For the nine local government areas of Delta North, the ugly stories of herdsmen invasion remain the same. Priests, nuns, businessmen and other top government or private personalities had had their experiences in the hands of herders who also kidnap at random.

Angered by the attacks on some communities in Oshimili North Local Government Area where farmers were maimed and women killed, the chairman of the council, Mr. Louis Ndukwe, decided to evict the herdsmen from the bush in the area, giving them seven days notice to quit or have their structures demolished.

 

For Bayelsa, communal conflicts, piracy take centre-stage

It was a breezy Thursday evening in Amarata, a suburb in Yenagoa Metropolis, the Capital of Bayelsa State. On that fateful evening of November 8th, 2018, some residents were still returning from work while those that have arrived home were probably fixing something to eat or preparing to go to bed when tragedy struck. It was about 8.30pm, 16-year-old Seiyefa Fred, a 100 level female student of the state-owned Niger Delta University, was just 50 yards away from her house when some assailants shot her at close range, took her phone and left her to die.

The height of the killing spree was when a gang of hoodlums invaded a corps members’ residence along School Road, Swali Community in Yenagoa, shooting three members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and leaving several injured. Of the three corps members, two were confirmed dead at the scene, while one, who was critically injured, was rushed to a nearby hospital.

And as was expected, Bayelsa was branded as unsafe and was declared the most difficult place to do business.

For many residents of Yenagoa metropolis, this is their everyday experience, but for those living in far-flung communities that are not accessible by road, the story is different. For them, the forms of violence, insecurity and crime they face range from inter or intra-communal conflicts resulting from contestations over land, sea piracy, kidnapping and bunkering activities resulting from unemployment.

In a report titled Insecurity in Bayelsa State: The Issues, Actors and Solutions, written by Dr. Jack Jackson, a lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and Tokpo Coronation, a lecturer in the Department of Political Science, Federal University, Otuoke and presented in Yenagoa recently by the Niger Delta Dialogue (NDD) with funding by the European Union (EU), Bayelsa was described as the haven of lack in the midst of plenty.

Part of the report reads: “Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea has become a major security challenge, with a significant number of pirates originating from Nigeria. The increasing menace of piracy and armed robbery on the country’s territorial waters, particularly in Bayelsa waterways, is detrimental to the local economy of the country and the state.

“Accordingly, Nigeria loses about $26.3 billion US dollars annually to sea piracy and sea robbery. It has also been found that sea robbery or sea piracy is prevalent in the rivers and creeks connecting Ogbia and Nembe Local Government Areas and along River Nun and other rivers and creeks in Southern Ijaw local government areas of Bayelsa State. The acts of sea piracy include the carting away of goods belonging to traders, kidnap of victims and carting away of outboard engine boats.”

Proffering possible solutions to the spate of insecurity in Bayelsa State, the researchers recommended that the state government should work with the State House of Assembly to review the laws against cultism, sea piracy and kidnapping to reflect current global and local realities, and such laws should be enforced to the letter.

 

In Rivers, kidnapping and murder are commonplace

Sometime in July 2019, Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike, launched a security outfit code-named Operation Sting, which is considered as his administration’s boldest response to the escalating insecurity in the state since the conclusion of the 2019 general election.

The state, since after the 2019 election, especially the governorship election, saw a new wave of insecurity signposted by armed robbery, kidnap and murder, making the state dreaded for such violent crimes.

The Ogoni and Emohua axis of the East-West road and parts of the Isiokpo-Elele-Ubima axis of the Onitsha-Owerri road became a nightmare for travellers, especially those traveling in commercial buses.

This was the situation when the government came up with Operation Sting, which, according to Wike, was the administration’s own “specialised and dedicated security initiative anchored on an integrated and complementary approach, fully funded by the Rivers State government to effectively tackle both the sources and drivers of insecurity in their diverse criminal manifestations and operations and nib them in their buds or rout and root them out of existence.”

Recently the state command of the Nigeria Police arrested Honest Digbara, popularly known as Boboski, wanted for various criminal acts. He later died in police custody.

The Rivers State Commissioner of Police, Joseph Mukan, while parading the suspect, shortly before he died from gunshot injuries said “This suspect is responsible for most of the criminal activities in the state. He was responsible for the kidnap of Barrister Emelogu who was killed after collecting ransom; he was also responsible for the killing of a Divisional Crime Officer, Afam Division, SP Moses Egbede, as well as the killing of a soldier and personnel of Civil Defence at Gio pipeline in Ogoni last year, killing of two policemen at a Federal Highway at Botem among others. The arrest of Boboski today is a milestone for the Command and victory for the Ogoni people, Rivers and Nigeria at large.”

 

As A’Ibom battles bandits, cultists

Residents of Afaha Oku in Uyo Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State have bemoaned what they described as “constant raids by bandits,” lamenting that “these criminals masquerading as cultists have wreaked havoc in many homes.”

Narrating their ordeals, some of the victims explained that it has become a routine for idle youths to attack their homes and seize their personal belongings. Ezekiel Abasubong, an undergraduate student at the neighbouring University of Uyo (UNIUYO), who was trapped in Lagos due to the COVID-19 –induced closure of schools, said his house along Idak Okpo street was burgled in his absence and essential items including laptop, carted away by the bandits.

Another resident, Mr. Anthony Okoro, a beverage dealer along Oron Road, lamented that “I was deeply terrified when some criminals scaled my fence and ransacked my home, after ordering everyone including my children to lie flat on the floor.”

Along the adjoining Ikpa Road, several boutiques have been abandoned by their owners following series of burglaries with cloths carted away by the hoodlums.

The bandits, according Chief Eno Clement, a former chairman of the community, “recently attacked the house of my late predecessor, Chief Tony Tom, from whom I took over, and many houses occupied by students raided for cash, phones, laptops and other personal belongings.”

He, therefore, called on security agents to enforce constant security surveillance around the community, adding that “most of the security infractions that take place at the university are always a spill-over of their activities in this community.”

However, the village head-elect of Afaha-Oku community, Chief Felix Eyo, who confirmed the crime trends in his domain, described the development as “sad and shocking. I think the criminals are capitalizing on the fact that there is a leadership vacuum in our community and chose to take the laws into their hands,” Etteidung Eyo explained.

He, however, implored security agencies to intervene with a view to addressing the security infractions in his domain, pending the time his position as the community monarch, would be regularised.”

When contacted on the matter, the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Mr. Frederick Nnudam, dismissed it as normal in every society for petty crimes to occur.

“There is no society that is crime-free even in the advanced societies. We are not living in heaven because that is the only place where there is absolute peace,” he said, adding that the new Commissioner of Police (CP), Anengheme Andrew, was still trying to adjust himself to his new command before commencing action against criminals.

He assured that “as soon as he settles down, you will see a different kind of policing.”

 

Edo: Still under burden of kidnappers

Roving bands of kidnappers are on the loose and threatening to turn peaceful Edo State into a panic state. Driving on the Benin-Auchi Road has turned into a nightmare for travellers. One risked being abducted by roving bands of suspected killer herdsmen who have taken over the road which runs all the way from Benin to Auchi, Okene and Lokoja in Kogi State right to Abuja.

Urhukhosa, Uhunmwode Local Government Area, has been fingered as the black spot and den of kidnappers who strike at will.

Miss Uwaila, a 100 level Microbiology student, was killed by some suspected cultists in uptown Benin where she reportedly went to study at night sometimes in May.

For Mrs. Hassana Garuba, Saturday July 20 was one hell of a day as she was kidnapped along Lokoja-Okene-Auchi Road with her driver on her way to Auchi, Edo State for the funeral of her husband, Alhaji Zakawanu Garuba, the former speaker of the Edo State House of Assembly who passed away earlier in the day at the National Hospital, Abuja.

Worried by the menace of the herders, a group, Ogbakha-Edo, raised alarm over the sudden influx of thousands of young able-bodied jobless men ostensibly into Edo South.

The Secretary General, Dr. Andrew Osaretin Izekor, lamented that apart from eye witness reports, the social media has been awash with videos of these young men either being offloaded in their hundreds from long haulage trucks, or streaming in a dreadful surge in the streets of Benin City.

He said that the fear of these suspicious people was heightened by the unenviable reputation they have gained as easily and allegedly inclining to armed robbery, kidnapping and terrorism.

While reiterating the association’s earlier request for the security agencies and the state government to treat the matter with dispatch, he called on the Oba of Benin, Omo N’Oba Ewuare II to take notice of the concerns he raised and to use his position to mobilise all the forces that can neutralise this threat, to act urgently.

A suspected herder who reportedly kidnapped a 35-year-old man at the university town of Ekpoma, Esan West Local Government Area of Edo State on July, 8 was apprehended by the police.

The Edo State police spokesman, Chidi Nwanbuzor, explained that the suspect who gave his name as Yusuf Ismaila, 23 from Kano State, was part of a five-man gang of kidnappers who operates along the Benin-Auchi expressway and environ.

He said that the kidnappers on sighting the operatives engaged them in a gun duel, adding that in the process one of the suspected kidnappers was hit by a bullet and arrested while the rest fled.