Wednesday 3 December 2014

NIGER DELTA MILITANTS AND FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF NIGERIA


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.
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
"Africa | Nigeria offers militants amnesty". BBC News. 2009-06-26. Retrieved 2011-04-23.
"Armed Conflicts Report - Nigeria". Ploughshares.ca. Retrieved 2011-04-23.
Eric Aghadiuno (1999-01-04). "Ijaw Tribe". 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                
     Limited, Ibadan, Nigeria.
Walker, Andrew (2009-05-27). "Africa | Will Nigeria oil offensive backfire?” BBC News.
     Retrieved 2011-04-23.


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