NIGER DELTA MILITANTS
AND FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF NIGERIA
The Niger Delta militants’ disposition against the Federal
government of Nigeria and the oil firms coupled with international pressures,
compelled the Federal Government to grant amnesty to the Niger Delta Militants.
The amnesty deal is a desperate effort by the Nigeria State to end the Niger
Delta crisis, and thereby restore some dignity and pride to itself.
The current conflict
in the Niger Delta arose in the early 1990s over tensions between the foreign
oil cooperation and a number of the Niger Delta’s minority ethnic groups who
felt they were being exploited, particularly the Ogoni and the Ijaw. Ethnic and
political unrest has continued throughout the 1990s and persists as of 2013
despite the conversion to democracy and the election of the Obasanjo government
in 1999. Competition for oil wealth has fueled violence between many ethnic
groups, causing the militarization of nearly the entire region by ethnic
militia groups as well as Nigerian military and police forces. The regional and
ethnic conflicts are so numerous that fully detailing each is impossible.
EMERGENCE OF ARMED
GROUPS IN NIGER DELTA
The ethnic unrest and conflicts of the late 1990s (such as
those between the Ijaw, Urhobo and Itsekiri), coupled with a spike in the
availability of small arms and other weapons, led increasingly to the
militarization of the Delta. By this time, local and state officials had become
involved by offering financial support to those paramilitary groups they believed
would attempt to enforce their own political agenda.
Prior to 2003, the epicenter of regional violence was Warri.
However, after the violent convergence of the largest military groups in the
region, the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force (NDPVF) led by Muja hid Dokubo-Asari and the Niger Delta Vigilante
(NDV) led by Ateke Tom (both of
which are primarily made up of Ijaws), conflict became focused on Port Harcourt
and outlying towns. The Nigerian government classifies these groups as
"cults", many of which began as local university fraternities. The
groups have adopted names largely based on Western culture, some of which
include Icelanders, Greenlanders, and Vultures. All of the groups are
constituted mostly by disaffected young men from Warri, Port Harcourt, and
their sub-urban areas. Although the smaller groups are autonomous from within,
they have formed alliances with and are largely controlled from above by either
Asari and his NDPVF or Tom's NDV who provided military support and instruction.
The NDPVF which was founded by Asari, a former president of
the Ijaw Youth Council, in 2003 after he "retreated into the bush" to
form the group with the explicit goal of acquiring control of regional
petroleum resources. The NDPVF attempted to control such resources primarily
through oil "bunkering", a process in which an oil pipeline is tapped
and the oil extracted onto a barge. Oil corporations and the Nigerian state
point out that bunkering is illegal; militants justify bunkering, saying they
are being exploited and have not received adequate profits from the profitable
but ecologically destructive oil industry. Bunkered oil can be sold for profit,
usually to destinations in West Africa, but also abroad. Bunkering is a fairly
common practice in the Delta but in this case the militia groups are the
primary perpetrators.
NIGERIAN OIL CRISIS
After launching a mission to wipe out NDPVF, approved by
President Olusegun Obasanjo in early September, Mujahid Dokubo-Asari declared
“all-out war” with the Nigerian state as well as the oil corporations and
threatened to disrupt oil production activities through attacks on wells and
pipelines. This quickly caused a major crisis the following day on September
26, as Shell evacuated 235 non-essential personnel from two oil fields, cutting
oil production by 30,000 barrels per day.
GRANTING OF AMNESTY
On June 26, 2009, the Nigerian Government announced that it
would grant Amnesty and an unconditional pardon to Militants in the Niger Delta
which would last for 60 days beginning on 6 August 2009 and ending 4 October
2009. Former Nigerian President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua signed the amnesty after
consultation with the National Council of State. During the 60 day period armed
youths are required to surrender their weapons to the Government in return for
training and rehabilitation by the government.
During the 60 day period militants led their groups to surrender weapons which includes; Rocket-propelled grenades, guns, explosives, ammunition and even gunboats have all been surrendered to the government.
During the 60 day period militants led their groups to surrender weapons which includes; Rocket-propelled grenades, guns, explosives, ammunition and even gunboats have all been surrendered to the government.
COLLABORATION: AS A
MEANS OF SOLVING THE ABOVE CONFLICT
Following the above
description, one can see that collaboration was the means used in handling the
conflict between the federal government and Niger Delta militants because in
this conflict the Niger Delta militants were rebelling because oil which was
what constituted more than half of the country’s income was gotten from their
place and yet the area was underdeveloped, giving the fact that their roads
were bad, oil spillage polluting the water and making it unsafe for the farmers
and fishermen in those riverine areas, and so many other problems that were
been unlooked by the federal government in the Niger Delta. The conflict became
creative such that all this matters causing the conflict were tabled before the
government when former president Umaru Musa Yar’Adua granted them amnesty in
exchange for them to end the conflict in the area and for peace to reign in the
country, which was how it all ended. This conflict led to the development of
some areas in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. It this conflict, it can be
seen that both parties came together in dialogues, listened to each other to
find solutions to the problem making it easy to come out with relatively good
decisions as earlier stated, so both parties benefited from each other.
REFERENCES
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OnlineNigeria.com. Retrieved 2011-04-23.
http://www.nigerianmuse.com/nigeriawatch/oputa/OputaVolumeTwo.pdf
Jump up“BBC
News - Nigerian militants seize workers from oil rig". Bbc.co.uk.
2010-11-09.
Retrieved
2011-04-23.
Jump up“Violence
in Nigeria's Oil Rich Rivers State in 2004: Summary". Hrw.org. Retrieved
2011-04-23.
Nick Mathiason (2009-04-05). "Shell in court over
alleged role in Nigeria executions | Business
The
Observer". London: Guardian. Retrieved 2011-04-23.
Obi, Cyril and Siri Aas Rustad (2011). Oil and insurgency
in the Niger Delta: managing the
Complex
politics of petro-violence. London: Zed Books. ISBN 978-1-84813-808-7.
Shedrack G.B (2006) Introduction
to Peace and Conflict Studies in West Africa. Spectrum Books
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Retrieved
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