Niger Delta: Will solace come this time?

Genuine peace may be coming the way of the troubled Niger Delta, if the present opportunities are well-harnessed by the people. EBENEZER ADUROKIYA rues the atmosphere, the intriguing new drive and the prospects that may usher in a new dawn in the troubled region.

ON Friday, the vice-president, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, continued his visit to the Niger Delta region as part of efforts to bring about peace in the troubled region, which is a major economic base for the country. The vice-president, who led a high-powered delegation to Bayelsa State, was received by the state governor, Honourable Seriake Dickson.

It will be recalled that the Federal Government, represented by the vice-president began the visits, meant to calm frayed nerves in the region, in Delta State, following  the recent threats by militants from the Niger Delta to resume hostilities against oil and gas installations.

The Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) and the Niger Delta Greenland Justice Mandate (NDGJM) had, in the wake of the new year, issued separate statements announcing their resolve to teach the Federal Government, as it were, further lessons for not acting on the 16-point recommendations for peace by the Chief Edwin Clark-led Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) presented to President in November 1, 2016. Describing the FG’s action as deliberate, insensitive and insincere, the militants vowed to make a shipwreck of whatever is left of the already devastated and bleeding oil-economy of the country unless the FG acted fast and discreetly.

It will be recalled that the underperformance of the 2016 budget vis-a-viz the economic recession was largely attributed to the economic sabotages manifested in the all-time low exportation of crude oil in the face of low crude oil price at the international market.  It was largely believed that it was on this note Vice-President Osinbajo, in spite of his tight schedules recently, hurried down to the region, particularly Delta State to douse the brewing tension that could culminate in another wanton depletion of accruable barrels of crude oil which might inadvertently affect the sponsorship of the 2017 budget tagged “the budget of recovery and growth.”

Reasons militants resumed hostilities in 2016

From the days of inimitable Niger Delta activists starting from Pa Dappa Biriye, Major Peter Isaac Adaka Boro down to the activistic era of late playwright and poet, Kenule Saro-Wiwa against the regime of late maximum despot, General Sanni Abacha, the agitation against international and indigenous oil companies over environmental pollution and degradation, its attendant health implications, dearth of developmental infrastructure, neglect and marginalization of the region by successive federal government’s in spite of being the proverbial hen that lays the golden egg, among other factors, have been advanced and tabled before the world as heinous, wicked, inhuman and unacceptable.

The agitation gained further momentum during the eight-year reign of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, and nothing tangible was embarked upon to still the gathering storm until his successor, late Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua and his vice, Dr Goodluck Jonathan came into power and beckoned on reincarnated Adaka Boro, Chief Government Ekpemupolo, leader of the defunct Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) and Mujaheed Asari Dokubo, for a truce.

Obviously by then, the military option to tackle the activities of the militants, which included destruction of economic assets, vandalism and kidnapping of expatriates and oil workers, had failed, although recalcitrant agitators like John Togo had fallen to the superior fire power of the Nigerian troops and never saw the sunny side of the struggle.

It is believed that late Yar’Adua’s socialist inclination, wisdom and swift intervention, through then Vice-President Jonathan, who went after the boys in the deep creeks with the then Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta State, brought about the Presidential Amnesty Programme after the agitators were convinced to lay down their arms.

Hence, programmes to rehabilitate the militants, in phases, were itemised among which were payment of monthly stipends to each of the registered militants who had laid down their arms and ammunition to the military. The programme also included sending some of the boys abroad for various trainings in the oil and gas sector after which they were to be employed by oil companies or the government or be empowered to start up a business.

In spite of the ill-health and sudden demise of this rare gem – the late Yar’Adua – his vice, Dr Jonathan continued with the amnesty programme and the militants, later nicknamed agitators or freedom fighters, were kept at bay and busy from relapsing into perpetrating economic sabotage in the region. It is also instructive to note that a few of the leaders of the militant groups, such as Tompolo and Alhaji Asari Dokubo, had gained inroad to presidential recognition and immense opulence, often argued, at the expense of the foot soldiers.

So, there were complaints and agitations by some aggrieved former militants who felt neglected, short-changed or used and dumped by their leaders who had already gained immense financial and political relevance even at the twilight of Jonathan’s government. Resumption of hostilities by this aggrieved group was a matter of time.

The coming of President Buhari

A growing concern began in the Niger Delta region when it was becoming obvious that former military dictator and presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) could likely emerge president in 2015. The fear was that being a no-nonsense former military despot, Buhari might not be freely disposed to continue with the amnesty programme and even probably neglect the region after the exit of Jonathan, a Niger Deltan.

And barely a year into President Buhari’s inauguration, the former agitators and newly recruited ones, who had monitored the so-called body language of the president and utterances of some of his aides such as the Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi, had concluded that nothing good might come out of Nazareth and went back to the trenches to resume hostilities.

The immediate catalysts of the resumption of hostilities, bookmakers observed, were the anti-corruption trial of the time-honoured lord of the creeks, Tompolo, over the alleged $13 billion he allegedly sold the land harboring the proposed Nigeria Maritime University, Okerenkoko to the Federal Government through NIMASA.

But to most Ijaws, like the national president of the Foundation for the Human Rights and Anti-Corruption Crusade (FHRACC), Alaowei Cleric Esq., the ultimate plan of the Federal Government is to hound Tompolo to the point of death as done Adaka Boro, whose life the then leaders of the Niger Delta traded for peace in order to engender development which never came into fruition.

The unguided proclamation by President Buhari during one of his foreign trips that he would give priority to regions in the country that voted him into power and that of  former governor of Rivers State, Amaechi that the Nigeria Maritime University would be revoked because it was a priority misplaced, a terrain too remote, volatile and suicidal for parents to seek admission for their children and wards, did not augur well for the agitators.

Armed with the above facts and more that the present government was after all against the region, the former militants concluded that the Buhari government was anti-Niger Delta and concluded to go after the favorite goat of the Federal Government – crude oil. So, between January 14 and 15, 2016, crude oil and gas pipelines in Kpokpo and Shanomi creeks in Escravos, Warri South Local Government Area of Delta State were bombed. On January 15, Chevron Nigeria Ltd’s (CNL) Utunama Makaraba crude oil and Olero Gas pipelines were also blown up. The saboteurs went as far as Akwa-Ibom to blow up one of the biggest export stream, the 48-inch Qua Iboe crude oil export pipeline to further advance their operation tagged: “Operation Red Economy.”

As Nigerians were still trying to come to terms with the identity of the perpetrators, a group with the name, the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA), who declared the “Operation Red Economy” in its tweeter handle, claimed responsibility for the sabotages and warned the Federal Government to expect more attacks aimed at grounding the nation’s economy. The rest is now history as the dreaded group and other faceless ones, eventually grounded the oil economy of the country. Vice President Yemi Osinbajo officially announced that the current economic recession was largely due to the severe attacks on oil and gas facilities in the Niger Delta region.

Demands of the militant groups

Members of the NDA were the most dreaded of all the militant groups owing to the finesse and sophistication with which they perpetrate their nefarious activities within the glaring domain of security agents in the creeks and the group’s ability to inform the world of its dastardly activities through the social media each time it carried out such sabotage. There was also much truth and veracity in the reportage of their activities on their Twitter handle by their spokesperson, “Gen. Murdock Agbinibo.

Top at the ladder of their demands was the clarion call for restructuring of the country such that attaining resource control could be made easier for each geopolitical zone to have a substantial control over its resources. The group also strongly advocated that daily proceeds from oil explorations and exploitations since 1958 be spent on in building the region.

To engender anything meaningful in the region as a paradigm shift from the past, members of the NDA demanded that the Nigerian President Buhari should visit the region and see, first hand, what the ordinary Deltan was going through as a result of neglect by successive governments and oil multinationals.

“Since the day crude oil was discovered in commercial quantity and quality in Oloibiri, present day Bayelsa State, what we have been asking from successive governments in Nigeria is portable drinking water in the midst of plenty of water mass, electricity, roads, employment, quality education/educational facilities, resource control, participation in the oil business and inclusive governance that will engender substantial freedom.

“The reverse has been the case from Oloibiri, Brass LNLG and export terminals in Bayelsa; Bonny LNLG and export terminals in River State; ExxonMobil in Akwa Ibom; Escravos EGTL/ Tankfarm and export terminals to Forcados Tankfarm and export terminals in Delta State operated respectively by Anglo-Dutch Shell, Chevron/Texaco Overseas, Agip ENI, ExxonMobil.

The communities have endured poverty, inhumanity and desolate living conditions. But when you move into these facilities operated by the Multinational Oil Corporations, they are living like kings and presidents.

“For over five decades, we have given Multinational Oil Corporations and their collaborator, the Nigerian State, peace, cooperation and love for the crude oil to flow unhindered from our land.

“The continuous tranquility is only manifesting in the development of mountains, rocks, valleys, deserts and lagoons, but the Niger Delta territory is continually alienated from all types of development and all essence of quality human life.

“Meanwhile all successive governments worship the crude oil taken from the region. Our communities and the people are only good at securing the pipelines, oil and gas facilities. What a tragedy?,” NDA declared in their publication of June 9, 2016 on its website. The statement, which was issued in the heat of attacks on oil and gas pipelines in the region, further denounced the military option by the Federal Government to repress the uprising.

Hinting further on the continuous exclusion of the Niger Delta from development in favour of other parts of the country, the group, which enjoyed considerable support from most Nigerians home and abroad, made a clarion call for self-determination.

“Finally, we are calling on the international community, to come and support the restoration of our right to peaceful self-determination from this tragedy of 1914 that has expired since 2014.

We want our resources back to restore the essence of human life in our region for generations to come because Nigeria has failed to do that. The world should not wait until we go the Sudan way; enough is enough,” it warned.

FG’s military efforts to contain sabotages

Of course, on one hand, the Federal Government did not lie low as it deployed several military personnel and hardwares to contain the sly militants whose knowledge of the terrain is matchless. The more soldiers were combing the region to fish out the elements, the more the attacks on oil and gas facilities almost on a daily basis.

There was much focus on the Gbaramatu kingdom in Warri South West Local Government Area of Delta State where some of the attacks were recorded. This made Tompolo, believed to be out to arm-twist the government to drop the corruption charges against him at a Lagos High Court, and his kinsmen as the prime suspects perpetrating economic sabotage against the country.

So, during a military invasion of Oporoza and other communities in Gbaramatu kingdom allegedly in search of Tompolo one midnight, 10 pupils of the only secondary school in the community were apprehended while several women and the aged sustained varying degrees of injuries in an attempt to escape members of the Joint Task Force (JTF), code named Operation Delta Safe. Amid the attacks on oil and gas facilities and the manhunt for perpetrators of the economic crime on the other hand, the oil economy was bleeding, as crude oil export shrunk to an all-time low 1.3 million barrels per day as against 2.2 million barrels before the debacle.

The FG, as represented by Buhari’s Senior Media Aide, Shehu Garba, said it was finding it difficult to ascertain who to liaise with in the region to begin a dialogue owing to the eruption of several self-acclaimed leaders and militant groups seeking attention from the region.

The FG, in order to defuse the anti-Niger Delta mindset the people already have against it, swiftly moved to kick-off the implementation of the report on the cleanup of polluted Ogoni land. Seen as a carrot approach, this gesture, to a large extent, calmed the frayed nerves of at least that part of the region with its accruable socio-economic benefits.

The emergence of Pan-Niger Delta Forum 

As tension continued to mount over the serial military siege in volatile parts of the region particularly the Gbaramatu kingdom amid no collective voice of elders and leaders from the region to mediate between the Federal Government and the aggrieved militants, elder stateman and former Minister of Information, Chief Edwin Clark, came to the rescue by summoning a elders and other stakeholders to a forum in Warri to chart a way out of the imbroglio.

Before the emergence of Clark’s ingenuity, government functionaries such as Dr Ibe Kachikwu, the then Minister of Petroleum and NNPC Group Managing  Director, Brig. Gen. Paul Boroh, Presidential Amnesty Programme Coordinator, had visited Gbaramatu kingdom to plead that militants from the area be assuaged and placated to lay down their arms.

Prof. Osinbajo, the Chief of Defence Staff and the Inspector General of Police, had earlier also paid a visit to the sites of bombed oil and gas facilities and Oporoza in Delta State without a stop over at any of the embattled communities

Clark’s well-attended stakeholders’ forum, which eventually held a meeting at the Conference Centre of the Petroleum Training Institute (PTI), Effurun, called for a cessation of hostilities by the various militant groups and appealed to the Federal Government to show willingness to dialogue with the region by withdrawing its troops from the creeks. The forum, named Niger Delta Stakeholders Forum, was, however, boycotted by some of the ethnic nationalities in the region and tagged an Ijaw forum in some quarters, as they constituted the highest attendees. The forum, however, culminated in what is now known as the Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) headed by the octogenarian, Chief Clark and was astonishingly endorsed by members of the NDA and some other militant groups as their credible mouthpiece.

Members of the forum, which cuts across the Niger Delta region, include but not limited to former military governor of Rivers State, who is the Amanayabo of Twon-Brass, HRM Alfred Diete-Spiff, former Minister of Police Affairs, Alaowei Brodrick Bozimo, Mr Tony Uranta, HRH Anabs Sara Igbe, Dr Afred Mulade and Pastor Power Aginighan.

Having secured the mandate of the various militant groups, PANDEF went into work and harmonized the ageless demands of the various agitating groups and grouped them under a 16-point demands which, sometime on November 1, 2016, leaders of the forum presented to President Buhari at the Aso Villa.

The 16-point demands, which is without its fair share of criticisms from some elements in the region, included reinstatement of the Nigeria Maritime University, Okerenkoko, relocation of headquarters of all International and Indigenous Oil Companies to the region to engender speedy development, commencement of the Export Processing Zone (EPZ) project comprising the Gas City Project at Ogidigben and the Deep Seaport Dockyard and Shipyard in Gbaramatu, completion of the East – West road and upward review of derivation fund, among others.

New militant threats

The New Year began with an uneasy calm among the people of the Niger Delta region as they waited, with baited breath, albiet vainly, for the response of the Federal Government after PANDEF submitted the 16-point demands to it last November. While members of the forum kept reminding the FG to act as a matter of urgency, members of NDGJM issued a statement of its readiness to resume hostilities and this was swiftly followed by that of the lethal NDA, which reaffirmed its suspicion that President Buhari-led FG might, after all, be insincere and playing games with the leaders of the region.

Osinbajo’s fact-finding visit 

Barely two weeks after the threats, Vice-President Osinbajo paid the all-important fact-finding visit to Delta State ostensibly to douse the tension amid the proposed 2017 budget, whose implementation is largely hinged and targeted on 2.2 million barrel of crude oil per day for export.

His first port of call was the Gbaramatu kingdom where he was treated to cultural worldview of the Ijaws and listened to demands reeled off by scribe of the Gbaramatu Traditional Council, Chief Godspower Gbenekama, president of the Ijaw Youths Congress, Comrade Udengs Eradiri and PANDEF’s presentation of its 16-point demands to the vice-president by former minister of police affairs, Bozimo.

In his calm reaction, Osinbajo did not only empathise with the rape done on the Niger Delta region by previous administrations, he also admonished the people to look beyond the present and prepare for the future. “The Niger Delta that we see today including this great kingdom, is an area of poor infrastructure, few schools and hospitals and severe pollution.

“The Niger Delta of today is one of daily pipeline vandalism. In 2014 alone, there were over 3,700 incidences of pipeline vandalism; from January to June 2016, there were over 1,447 incidents of pipeline vandalism, and between 1998 and 2015, over 20,000 persons have died from fire incidents arising from vandalism of pipelines.”

He bemoaned the numerous uncompleted projects dotting various parts of the region, most of which were abandoned by agencies such as the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) as well as the wishy-washy implementation of the Presidential Amnesty Programme. Professor Osinbajo reiterated that “like most part of Nigeria, years of official neglect and corruption have created massive setbacks.”

The future is here 

Armed with the message of hope, Osinbajo averred that “my message to you today is that it is time to prepare for the future; our future is not a future of environmental degradation, it’s not a future of poor infrastructure, it’s not a future of no roads, not a future of harassment and locking up, our future is a future of progress and of development.”

According to him, “there’s no time because the future is already here, the future is not more than today and to prepare for a great and promising future of the Gbaramatu kingdom. He enjoined people of the region to arm themselves with the recognition that the Niger Delta is a unique environment that has its unique challenges, recognition that the region is a special place and a special economic zone for the country and must key into the developmental plans of the Special Developmental Zone.”

The vice-president also thrilled the people of Gbaramatu kingdom with the cheering news, after inspecting the controversial Nigeria Maritime University, Okerenkoko, that the recognition of the institution and its take off was “a fine deal.”

Matters arising

The visit of Osinbajo further reaffirmed that unity of purpose is far-fetched among the various ethnic nationalities in the region, especially those in Delta State. But for the immense wisdom deployed by the professor at a meeting with stakeholders at the PTI Conference Centre, hell would have been let loose as the Urhobos, the Aniomas, the Isokos made frantic efforts to outwit ones another based on unsubstantiated data of who is host to the largest or smallest production of oil and gas.

Each ethnic group that was present at the meeting presented a larger-than-life demands that the nation’s yearly budget can hardly cope with. It was also obvious that the Itsekiri played a rather passive role in the welcoming of the vice-president in spite of his visit to the Olu of Warri palace. No Itsekiri, for instance, was spotted at Gbaramatu during the VP’s visit. The speech of the Itsekiri monarch, requesting that the land on which the maritime university is sited belonged to the Itsekiri and therefore should be renamed to reflect this fact is a sign that all is not yet well with the two brothers whose animosity for each other grows in leaps and bounds by the day.

The misconception that the Ijaws seem to always behave as if they constitute the entire Niger Delta  region has yet to be corrected; the reason some other ethnic groups in the region see PANDEF as an Ijaw forum projecting an Ijaw agenda. The Itsekiri Leaders of Thought (ILoT) and the Movement for the Protection of Iwere Homeland have, in separate statements, denounced the forum.

However, Ijaw leaders and activists would not subscribe to the misconception. Elder statesman and Ijaw leader, Chief Clark has, on several occasions, debunked this insinuation. According to the octogenarian, membership of the forum cuts across all the ethnic nationalities in the region and should therefore be seen as the authentic mouthpiece of the Niger Delta. Cleric Esq of FHRACC, Comrade Sheriff Mulade and chairman of Kokodiagbene community, called on other ethnic nationalities, especially the Itsekiri to embrace the common front, in which the Olu of Warri is part of, to project and see to the actualisation of the dreams of the region.

If the FG will not cash in on the unceasing rivalry and discordant tunes among the various ethnic nationalities in the region, efforts must be made, and swiftly so, to douse whatever tension a few elements would want to orchestrate to truncate the current ray of hope through the recent visit of the vice-president.