Everything about Conflict In The Niger Delta totally explained
Conflict in the Niger Delta arose in the early 1990s due to tensions between the
foreign oil corporations and a number of the Niger Delta's minority ethnic groups who felt they were being exploited, particularly the
Ogoni as well as the
Ijaw in the late 1990s. Ethnic and political unrest has continued throughout the 1990s and persists as of 2007 despite the conversion to
democracy and the election of the
Obasanjo government in 1999. Competition for oil wealth has fuelled violence between innumerable
ethnic groups, causing the militarization of nearly the entire region by ethnic militia groups as well as
Nigerian military and police forces (notably the
Nigerian Mobile Police). Victims of crimes are fearful of seeking justice for crimes committed against them because of growing "impunity from prosecution for individuals responsible for serious human rights abuses, [which] has created a devastating cycle of increasing conflict and violence". The regional and ethnic conflicts are so numerous that fully detailing each is impossible and impractical. However, there have been a number of major confrontations that deserve elaboration.
An environment of crisis: background
» See also Environmental issues in the Niger Delta and Petroleum in Nigeria
Nigeria, after nearly four decades of oil production, had by the early 1990s become almost completely dependent on petroleum extraction economically, generating 25% of its
GDP (this has since risen to 40% as of 2000). Despite the vast wealth created by petroleum, the benefits have been slow to trickle down to the majority of the population, who since the 1960s have increasingly abandoned their traditional
agricultural practices. Annual production of both cash and food crops dropped significantly in the latter decades of 20th century,
cocoa production dropped by 43% (Nigeria was the world's largest cocoa exporter in 1960),
rubber dropped by 29%,
cotton by 65%, and groundnuts by 64%. In spite of the large number of skilled, well-paid Nigerians who have been employed by the oil corporations, the majority of Nigerians and most especially the people of the
Niger Delta states and the far north have become poorer since the 1960s.
The Delta region has a steadily growing population estimated to be over 30 million people as of 2005, accounting for more than 23% of Nigeria's total population. The population density is also among the highest in the world with 265 people per kilometre-squared (reference
NDDC). This population is expanding at a rapid 3% per year and the oil capital,
Port Harcourt, along with other large towns are growing quickly.
Poverty and
urbanization in Nigeria are on the rise, and official corruption is considered a fact of life. The resultant scenario is one in which there's urbanization but no accompanying economic growth to provide jobs. This has ironically forced the growing populace to begin destroying the ecosystem that they require to sustain themselves.
The 1970s and 1980s saw the government's empty promises of benefits for the Niger Delta peoples fall through, with the Ogoni growing increasing dissatisfied and their environmental, social, and economic apparatus rapidly deteriorating the
Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) was formed in 1992. MOSOP, spearheaded by Ogoni playwright and author
Ken Saro-Wiwa, became the major campaigning organization representing the
Ogoni people in their struggle for ethnic and environmental rights. Its primary targets, and at times adversaries, have been the Nigerian government and the oil company
Royal Dutch Shell.
Beginning in December 1992, the conflict between Ogonis and the oil infrastructure escalated to a level of greater seriousness and intensity on both sides. Both parties began carrying out acts of violence and MOSOP issued an ultimatum to the oil companies (Shell,
Chevron, and the
Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation) which demanded some $10 billion in accumulated
royalties, damages and compensation, and "immediate stoppage of environmental degradation", and negotiations for mutual agreement on all future drilling.
The Ogonis threatened to embark on mass action to disrupt their operation if the companies failed to comply. By this act, the Ogoni shifted the focus of their actions from an unresponsive federal government to the oil companies engaged in their own region. The rationale for this assignment of responsibility were the benefits accrued by the oil companies from extracting the natural wealth of the Ogoni homeland, and neglect from central government.
The government responded by banning public gatherings and declaring that disturbances of oil production were acts of treason. Oil extraction from the territory had slowed to a trickle of (.5% of the national total). However, because the withdrawal was a temporary security measure, it provided the government with a compelling reason to 'restore order'.
Military repression escalated in May 1994. On
May 21, soldiers and mobile policemen appeared in most Ogoni villages. On that day, four Ogoni chiefs (all on the conservative side of a schism within MOSOP over strategy) were brutally murdered. Saro-Wiwa, head of the opposing faction, had been denied entry to Ogoniland on the day of the murders, but he was detained in connection with the killings. The occupying forces, led by Major
Paul Okuntimo of
Rivers State Internal Security, claimed to be 'searching for those directly responsible for the killings of the four Ogonis.' However, witnesses say that they engaged in terror operations against the general Ogoni population.
Amnesty International characterized the policy as deliberate terrorism. By mid-June, 30 villages had been completely destroyed, 600 people had been detained, and at least 40 had been killed. An eventual total of around 100,000 internal refugees and an estimated 2,000 civilian deaths was recorded.
In May 1994, nine activists from the movement who would become known as 'The Ogoni Nine', among them
Ken Saro-Wiwa, were arrested and accused of incitement to murder following the deaths of four Ogoni elders. Saro-Wiwa and his comrades denied the charges, but were imprisoned for over a year before being found guilty and sentenced to death by a specially convened tribunal, hand-selected by General
Sani Abacha, on
10 November 1995. The activists were denied
due process and upon being found guilty, were executed via hanging by the Nigerian state.
The executions were met with an immediate international response. The trial was widely criticised by human rights organisations and the governments of other states, who condemned the Nigerian government's long history of detaining their critics, mainly pro-democracy and other political activists. The
Commonwealth of Nations, which had also plead for clemency, suspended Nigeria's membership in response. The
United States, the
United Kingdom, and the
EU all implemented sanctions, however, none of these had an impact on oil production.
Shell asked the Nigerian government for clemency towards those found guilty, but its request was refused. However, a 2001
Greenpeace report found that "two witnesses that accused them [Saro-Wiwaand the other activists] later admitted that Shell and the military had bribed them with promises of money and jobs at Shell. Shell admitted having given money to the Nigerian military, who brutally tried to silence the voices which claimed justice".
As of 2006, the situation in Ogoniland has eased significantly, progressed by the transition to democratic rule in 1999. However, no attempts have been made by the government or an international body to bring about justice by investigating and prosecuting those involved in the violence and property destruction that have occurred in Ogoniland, although a class action lawsuit has been brought against Shell by individual plaintiffs.
Ijaw-Itsekiri conflicts (1997)
The late 1990s saw an increase in the number and severity of clashes between militants of the
Ijaw ethnic group, the largest in the entire Delta region with a population of over 7 million, and those of
Itsekiri origin whose number is only about 450,000. The conflict between the two groups has been particularly intense in the major town of
Warri.
While the Ijaw and the Itsekiri have lived alongside each other for centuries, for the most part harmoniously, the Itsekiri were first to make contact with European traders, as early as the 16th century, and they were more aggressive both in seeking Western education and in using the knowledge acquired to press their commercial advantages; until the arrival of Sir
George Goldie's National Africa Company (later renamed the
Royal Niger Company) in 1879, Itsekiri chieftains monopolized trade with Europeans in the Western Niger region. Despite the loss of their monopoly, the advantages already held by the Itsekiri ensured that they continued to enjoy a superior position to that held by the Ijaw, breeding in the latter a sense of resentment at what they felt to be colonial favoritism towards the Itsekiri.
The departure of the British at independence didn't lead, as might have been expected, to a decrease in tensions between the Ijaw and the Itsekiri. With the discovery of large
oil reserves in the Niger Delta region in the late 1950s, a new bone of contention was introduced, as the ability to claim ownership of a given piece of land now promised to yield immense benefits in terms of jobs and infrastructural benefits to be provided by the oil companies. Despite this new factor, rivalry between the Ijaw and the Itsekiri didn't actually escalate to the level of violent conflict between the two groups until the late 1990s, when the death of General
Sani Abacha in 1997 led to a re-emergence of local politics.
The issue of local government ward allocation has proven particularly contentious, as the Ijaw feel that the way in which wards have been allocated ensures that their superior numbers won't be reflected in the number of wards controlled by politicians of Ijaw ethnicity. Control of the city of Warri, the largest metropolitan area in Delta State and therefore a prime source of political patronage, has been an especially fiercely contested prize. This has given birth to heated disputes between the Ijaw, the Itsekiri and the
Urhobo about which of the three groups are "truly" indigenous to the Warri region, with the underlying presumption being that the "real" indigenes should have control of the levers of power, regardless of the fact that all three groups enjoy ostensibly equal political rights in their places of residence.
Ijaw unrest (1998-1999)
The December 1998 All Ijaw Youths Conference crystallized the Ijaws' struggle for petroleum resource control with the formation of the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) and the issuing of the Kaiama Declaration. In it, long-held Ijaw concerns about the loss of control of their homeland and their own lives to the oil companies were joined with a commitment to direct action. In the declaration, and in a letter to the companies, the Ijaws called for oil companies to suspend operations and withdraw from Ijaw territory. The IYC pledged “to struggle peacefully for freedom, self-determination and ecological justice,” and prepared a campaign of celebration, prayer, and direct action '
Operation Climate Change' beginning
December 28.
In December 1998, two warships and 10-15,000 Nigerian troops occupied Bayelsa and Delta states as the
Ijaw Youth Congress (IYC) mobilized for
Operation Climate Change. Soldiers entering the Bayelsa state capital of Yenagoa announced they'd come to attack the youths trying to stop the oil companies. On the morning of
December 30, two thousand young people processed through Yenagoa, dressed in black, singing and dancing. Soldiers opened fire with rifles, machine guns, and tear gas, killing at least three protesters and arresting twenty-five more. After a march demanding the release of those detained was turned back by soldiers, three more protesters were shot dead including Nwashuku Okeri and Ghadafi Ezeifile. The military declared a state of emergency throughout Bayelsa state, imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew, and banned meetings. At military roadblocks, local residents were severely beaten or detained. At night, soldiers invaded private homes, terrorizing residents with beatings and women and girls with rape.
On
January 4,
1999 about one hundred soldiers from the military base at
Chevron’s Escravos facility attacked Opia and Ikiyan, two Ijaw communities in Delta State. Bright Pablogba, the traditional leader of Ikiyan, who came to the river to negotiate with the soldiers, was shot along with a seven-year-old girl and possibly dozens of others. Of the approximately 1,000 people living in the two villages, four people were found dead and sixty-two were still missing months after the attack. The same soldiers set the villages ablaze, destroyed canoes and fishing equipment, killed livestock, and destroyed churches and religious shrines.
Nonetheless, Operation Climate Change continued, and disrupted Nigerian oil supplies through much of 1999 by turning off valves through Ijaw territory. In the context of high conflict between the Ijaw and the Nigerian Federal Government (and its police and army), the military carried out the
Odi massacre, killing scores if not hundreds of Ijaws.
Subsequent actions by Ijaws against the oil industry included both renewed efforts at nonviolent action and militarized attacks on foreign oil workers.
The creation of the Niger Delta Development Commission (2000)
The
Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) was established by President
Olusegun Obasanjo with the sole mandate of developing the oil-rich Niger-Delta region of southern Nigeria. Since its inauguration, the
NDDC has focused on the development of social and physical infrastructures, ecological/environmental remediation and human development.
The emergence of armed groups in the Delta region (2003-2004)
The ethnic unrest and conflicts of the late 1990s (such as those between the Ijaw 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. Conflagrations have been concentrated primarily in
Delta and
Rivers States.
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
Mujahid Dokubo-Asari and the
Niger Delta Vigilante (
NDV) led by
Ateke Tom (both of which are comprised primarily of
Ijaws), conflict became focused on
Port Harcourt and outlying towns. The two groups dwarf a plethora of smaller militias supposedly numbering more than one hundred. 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, KKK, 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've formed alliances with and are largely controlled from above by either Asari and his NDPDF 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 NDPFV 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're 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.
The intense confrontation between the NDPVF and NDV seems to have been brought about by Asari’s political falling out with the NDPVF’s financial supporter
Peter Odili, governor of
Rivers State following the April 2003 local and state elections. After Asari publicly criticized the election process as fraudulent, the Odili government withdrew its financial support from the NDPVF and began to support Tom’s NDV, effectively launching a paramilitary campaign against the NDPVF.
Subsequent violence occurred chiefly in riverine villages southeast and southwest of Port Harcourt, with the two groups fighting for control of bunkering routes. The conflagrations spurred violent acts against the local population, resulting in numerous deaths and widespread displacement. Daily civilian life was disrupted, forcing schools and economic activity to shut down and resulting in widespread property destruction.
The state campaign against the NDPVF emboldened Asari who began publicly articulating populist, anti-government views and attempted to frame the conflict in terms of pan-Ijaw nationalism and "self-determination." Consequently the state government felt the escalated the campaign against him by bringing in
police,
army, and
navy forces that began occupation of the Port Harcourt in June 2004.
The government forces collaborated with the NDV during the summer, and were seen protecting NDV militiamen from attacks by the NDPVF. The state forces failed to protect the civilian population from the violence and actually increased the destruction of citizens' livelihood. The Nigerian state forces were widely reported to have used the conflict as an excuse to raid homes, claiming that innocent civilians were cahoots with the NDPVF. Government soldiers and police obtained and destroyed civilian property by force. The NDPVF also accused the military of conducting air bombing campaigns against several villages, effectively reducing them to rubble, because it was believed to be housing NDPVF soldiers. The military denies this, claiming they engaged in aerial warfare only once in a genuine effort to wipe out an NDPVF stronghold.
Innocent civilians were also killed by NDPVF forces firing indiscriminately in order to engage their opponents. At the end of August 2004 there were several particularly brutal battles over the Port Harcourt waterfront; some residential slums were completely destroyed after the NDPVF deliberately burning down buildings. By September 2004, the situation was rapidly approaching a violent climax which caught the attention of the international community.
[
]The Nigerian oil crisis
After launching a mission to wipe out NDPVF, approved by President Olusegun Obasanjo in early September, 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 .
2006 MEND hostage situation
Further Information
Get more info on 'Conflict In The Niger Delta'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://conflict_in_the_niger_delta.totallyexplained.com">Conflict in the Niger Delta Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
