Ethnicity, and Conflict in the Niger Delta Region of ...

"Blood Oil," Ethnicity, and Conflict in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria J. P. Afam Ifedi J. Ndumbe Anyu

Mediterranean Quarterly, Volume 22, Number 1, Winter 2011, pp. 74-92 (Article) Published by Duke University Press

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“Blood Oil,” Ethnicity, and Conflict in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria J. P. Afam Ifedi and J. Ndumbe Anyu

The long-standing conflict in the Niger Delta region grew out of disputes between the Niger Delta’s ethnic communities, oil companies operating in the region, and the Nigerian government. The conflict reveals dynamic patterns that fall into three historical periods: precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial. Moreover, a mix of salient factors contributed to the conditions that are currently exacerbating the conflict: external administrative control (slave trade and colonialism) of the Niger Delta that is alien to the indigenous people; the presence of lucrative commodities (crude oil, palm oil, and timber); and the Niger Delta people’s resistance to exploitation and assertion of their rights. During the first period, European powers and slave trade were critical. The second period involved British rule and the palm oil trade, and in the third period issues were localized. The conflict now involves the Nigerian state and its attempted monopolistic exploitation of crude oil. An understanding of the interplay of these factors offers some understanding of the events, issues, and circumstances surrounding the conflict in the delta and undergird the algorithm for any likely solution. In this essay we isolate the respective periods for analytical purposes and examine the general factors that have formed the basis of conflict in the area. We do not assert that there is moral, social, or

J. P. Afam Ifedi is a senior official with the Washington, DC, court system and a lecturer in the Political Science Department at Howard University. J. Ndumbe Anyu is associate professor of public administration and policy at the School of Business and Public Administration, University of the District of Columbia, and assistant editor of Mediterranean Quarterly. Mediterranean Quarterly 22:1 DOI 10.1215/10474552-1189665 Copyright 2011 by Mediterranean Affairs, Inc.

Ifedi and Ndumbe: Conflict in the Niger Delta 75

economic equivalence between or linking the desperate periods beyond the larger rubric of controlling the economic, social, and/or political conditions identified. Moreover, we do not argue that economic relations of production undergirded by slavery or that the slave trade itself was justified either in the past or the present. On the contrary, in this essay we examine the Niger Delta conflict with a view to illuminating the origins, dynamics, and factors that contributed to it. We also examine the approaches taken by the Nigerian government to address the problem of minorities in the delta region and its response to the recommendations of the Willink Commission of enquiry into the plight of the minorities in the region. Niger Delta: The Geography and People The Niger Delta is one of the largest wetlands in the world and the site of most of Nigeria’s biodiversity. It also generates more than 80 percent of the country’s revenue from the sale of crude oil. The region has a population of more than 21 million and covers a geographic area of more than seventy thousand square kilometers. There are a few large cities and more than three thousand small and often remote villages and communities in the mangroves, swamps, and lowland rainforests. The majority of the indigenous peoples live in rural communities and villages and depend primarily on fishing and farming for their livelihood. The few who reside in urban areas rely heavily on commerce, the crude oil industry, and related enterprises. The terrain is extremely harsh and is a part of a large swath that is one of the world’s most fragile ecosystems. Many of the communities are located along creeks and accessible only by boats. They are particularly vulnerable to natural disasters, including floods and ocean encroachment, and man-made disasters that include oil spills and leaks and various forms of pollution. Furthermore, the Niger Delta consists of a number of ecological zones — sandy, coastal ridge barrier, brackish or saline mangroves, fresh water, permanent and seasonal swamps, and forest and lowland rain forest. The area is traversed and crisscrossed by many rivers, streams, rivulets, and creeks and by twenty estuaries.

76 Mediterranean Quarterly: Winter 2011

The Nature of the Niger Delta Conflict The root causes of the Niger Delta conflict are traceable to a profound lack of development in the region, which reflects the Nigerian government’s neglect. As matters stand, the Niger Delta is saddled with development and environmental challenges, including devastating levels of poverty, declining agricultural production, a low level of industrial activity, and severe environmental degradation, all of which produce social conflict. The construction of oil pipelines and the exploration for oil in the Niger Delta region have also resulted in serious problems for fishing, agriculture, and the environment, as well as on the inhabitants. These problems pose a grave danger to the economic, social, and political stability of the region.1 Despite the fact that the region is the main source of Nigeria’s external revenue that ensures huge petrol dollar receipts, little returns to local development. Thus, there is persistent discontent and a conflict fuelled mainly by economic deprivation and underdevelopment as well as environmental degradation and acute pollution. Dissent that was formerly organized along village, clan, or ethnic group lines has now coalesced into a broader yet loose network of groups aggrieved by the Nigerian government’s failure to address the problems afflicting the region. These groups have resorted to armed conflict. The presence of foreigners in the Niger Delta contributed to the conflicts between and among local ethnic groups during the precolonial period and later between the indigenous peoples and the British colonialists. Early relations between Europeans and people of the Niger Delta were dominated by slavery and the slave trade. Slavery also shaped the nature of conflict, cooperation, and rivalry for economic and political supremacy between and among the many ethnic groups that live in the region. Slavery was the decisive economic factor, mode of production, and way of life in the Niger Delta region for more than three hundred years, beginning in the late fifteenth century. Records of slave shipments from the present-day town of Bonny, Nigeria, and Old Calabar by English slave traders show that between 1650 and 1800 about 1,010,000 slaves (24 percent of the West African total) were shipped from the Bright of Biafra ports; between 1690 and 1807, 1. O. Osunde and A. Adeleye, “Niger Delta: Collapse of Nigeria’s Oil Hub,” Sunday Tribune (Nigeria), 5 October 2009.


English traders shipped another 1,069,100 slaves (40 percent of their total trade) from the port cities in the Brights of Benin and Biafra. 2 These ports are all in the Niger Delta region. The Portuguese and later Dutch, French, Swedish, and British slave merchants traded with local elites. Disputes over payment occasionally resulted in pitched gun battles between Africans and European traders, and cross-fertilization of ideas among the many different groups was rife.3 After Britain abolished its own slave trade in 1807 and sought to abolish the trade by other nations by 1815, the volume of traffic and trade in humans from West Africa was reduced and subsequently ended. The collapse of the slave trade led firms from Liverpool to turn their attention to other Niger Delta exports, such as palm oil, which was used for soap, candles, and lubricants in Europe’s early industrial revolution.4 Palm oil soon supplanted slavery and dominated trade in the Niger Delta. The intensive quest for palm products fueled the next phase of the delta’s history and was dominated by George Dashwood Taubman Goldie, a wealthy British trader. Goldie persuaded four major British commercial interests to combine and form a single enterprise under his leadership, the United African Company, later renamed the National African Company, and enter into treaties with Niger Delta chiefs and kings. At the Berlin Conference in 1885, European powers agreed to divide Africa into spheres of influence, and the British flag and influence were supreme in the lower Niger area. The British government granted Goldie a royal charter in 1886 to the Royal Niger Company, the new name for the existing company.5 This company organized its own secret service, customs courts, prisons, and territorial administration and police, which protected the interest of the companies and enterprises in the Niger Delta. It was similar to the role that the Nigerian government plays for oil companies today. The Royal Niger Company’s effort to bring about total monopoly of the palm oil trade in the Niger Delta was opposed by many shipping interests 2. Paul E. Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); International Crisis Group, “The Swamps of Insurgency: Nigeria’s Delta Unrest,” Africa Report no. 115 (August 2006), 4. 3. International Crisis Group. 4. Ibid. 5. John E. Flint, Sir George Goldie and the Making of Nigeria (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1960); International Crisis Group.


and merchant entities in Europe, as well as by Niger Delta middle men who were being deprived of their livelihood by the prohibitive system of tariffs and licenses imposed by the company, having bought off its African competitors. Niger Delta residents who circumvented the restrictive rules through smuggling were shot by Royal Niger Company officials. Furthermore, punitive expeditions were organized and led by its agents against dissident leaders, including Kings Jaja of Opobo and Nana of Ebrohimi, who were accused of attempting to establish trading monopolies of their own. The Niger Delta natives often reacted to the oppressive actions of the Royal Niger Company by attacking company officials in a manner similar to today’s attacks on oil companies operating in the delta. One such attack involved a raid on the Royal Niger Company headquarters in Akassa, killing twentyfour people and taking sixty-eight captive; many were company employees from Liberia. Some were released, others killed, and still others kept as prisoners. The company retaliated with an armed expedition to Nembe Kingdom; although five British officers were lost in the ensuing conflict, the kingdom was routed.6 The incident prompted a British government inquiry into the trading conditions and activities of the Royal Niger Company, which was already losing favor with the British government. The company soon sold its commercial interests to Lever Brothers; another merger led it to be renamed the United Africa Company. After the demise of the Royal Niger Company, the British government continued to carry out punitive expeditions as a way to pacify resistant peoples of the Niger Delta well after the Southern Nigeria and the Northern Protectorate regions of Nigeria became amalgamated to form a single administrative unit in 1914. By 1929, there was general unhappiness with Britain’s heavy-handed methods and the constantly growing colonial intrusion into ethnic life, and women and eastern communities of the Niger Delta led a revolt, mainly over rumors of a new tax that the British intended to levy on their income. The British government reaction to the revolt was brutal, overbearing, and disproportionate. More than fifty women were killed by British troops who fired on crowds of demonstrating women at Opobo, Utu Etim, Akpo, and Abak.7 This incident provoked government inquiries, and in the 1930s officials 6. International Crisis Group. 7. Ibid.


of the British government restructured the region’s native courts and native authority system.8 This new system of reestablishing native courts and the local governing hierarchy led by warrant or British imposed chiefs was intended to eliminate or reduce corruption among warring chiefs chosen by the colonial administration.9 Although the effort did not eliminate all flaws in governance and the system, relative peace and cooperation prevailed in the delta region during the 1940s and 1950s. Ever since, the area has been embroiled in constant struggle against various administrative authorities, and the sense of historical grievance that is widespread across the Niger Delta continues to fester. Under Nigerian sovereignty, the growing unhappiness among the indigenous populations of the region is partly attributed to the lack of participation in their own governance, lack of development, and distrust of outside groups’ efforts to bring about better living conditions to the region, even if those outside groups happen to be Nigerians. As Nigeria’s British administrators prepared the country for independence in 1960, the people of the Niger Delta saw an opportunity for self-determination, and they tried to persuade the British government to give the region a measure of local autonomy within Nigeria’s federal structure. The leaders of the Niger Delta traveled to London in the 1950s to try to persuade the British government to grant the Niger Delta people regional autonomy, but they failed in their effort. A new commodity — oil — along with political dispensation and the persistence of neglect of the Niger Delta set the stage for the events that shaped the politics of the delta region in postindependence Nigeria. The most salient of these factors were the discovery of oil, first in the delta village of Oloibiri in 1956, and the Nigerian government’s failure to implement and sustain the Willink Commission report of 1958.10 By the time of the report, oil exploration in the area, which had started in the 1930s, had yielded a find of 8. Mary Robinson, “Bridging the Gap between Human Rights and Development: From Normative Principles to Operational Relevance,” Presidential Fellows Lecture, World Bank Institute, Washington, DC, 3 December 2001. 9. United Nations Development Program, Integrating Human Rights with Sustainable Human Development: A UNDP Policy Document (New York: United Nations Development Program, 1998). 10. Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, Perspectives on Poverty (Stockholm: Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, 2002).


commercial quality and production continued to grow, completely altering the economic relationships and the politics of the area just as palm oil had done in the nineteenth century. Crude oil has come to pit the communities of the Niger against the economic interests of the Nigerian government just as palm oil had pitted them against the Royal Niger Company. Again, as in the era of palm oil, Nigeria and the Niger Delta communities are interlocked in sporadic violence over the allocation of petrol dollars and the damaging environmental impact of oil spills and pollution in the region. Over the past fifty years, more than 1.5 million tons of oil have been spilled in the delta region, some fifty times the pollution unleashed in the Exxon Valdez tanker disaster in Alaska in 1989. These spills have caused serious damage to the ecology of the Niger Delta. Pollution threatens rare species of fish, turtles, and birds; it is destroying the livelihood of many of the 20 million people living in the region and damaging crops and fuelling an upsurge in violence. The oil companies have disturbed a fragile ecosystem that supported fishing and farming.11 Engineers and project managers constructing a network of pipelines through a mangrove swamp, or laying roads through marshland, have disrupted spawning grounds, changed the course of streams, and threatened village livelihood.12 The extent of damage from oil spillage in the Niger Delta’s ecosystem in the past fifty years has been catastrophic to flora and fauna. Furthermore, the oil firms entered a region splintered by ethnic rivalries. The more than two dozen ethnic groups that inhabit the delta have a history of fighting over the spoils of the delta, from slaves to palm oil and, now, crude oil, exacerbating current problems. The plight of the people of the Niger Delta is historical, and efforts by state and nonstate actors to find lasting solutions go back to the colonial era. The government of Nigeria has continuously sought ways to address the problems of the area since independence in 1960. Its efforts have been haphazard, poorly conceived, and incapable of meeting the demands and conditions for peace sought by the people of the area. The Nigerian state, like its predecessor the British colonial government, lurches from efforts at peaceful solution to sporadic violence toward the peoples of the area. Even as policies and 11. “Niger Delta Bears Brunt after 50 Years of Oil Spills,” Independent, 28 October 2006. 12. Tom O’Neill, “Nigerian Oil, Curse of the Black Gold; Hope and Betrayal on the Niger Delta,” National Geographic Magazine, February 2007.


programs aimed at resolving the problem are regularly being formulated and implemented, the people of the Niger Delta have gone from peaceful protests to outright violence with the Nigerian state. The Nigerian State, the Willink Commission, and the Search for Solutions Since the independence of Nigeria in 1960, successive civilian and military governments have been accused of marginalizing and neglecting the Niger Delta. Efforts made by successive Nigerian governments to address the problems have not resulted in peace. The federal government has appointed more than twelve panels to review and find solutions to the development needs of the region, which, while rich in oil deposits, remains impoverished. Each of these panels have been derided by residents, as disillusioned and frustrated Niger Delta politicians and activists have increasingly demanded control over oil and other natural resources.13 Commercial oil exploitation exacerbated the scale of agitation for local control of resources and autonomy in the region. In an earlier attempt to assuage the fears of the minorities across the emergent Nigeria, the British colonial government empaneled the Willink Commission in 1958 to study and make recommendations on regional conflicts, on the eve of formal independence, with particular attention to the worries of the ethnic minorities, especially those of the delta region. Prior to Nigeria’s independence in 1960, the Ijaw and other groups in the Niger Delta had expressed their unhappiness, asserting that national and regional policies were designed to marginalize them. The panel was headed by Sir Henry Willink, a former British health minister. It deemed itself to be unqualified to form conclusions on any legal or moral obligations of the Queen of England to revoke colonial era treaties, which chiefs and kings from various ethnic groups of the area hoped would accord them some semblance of ethnic autonomy. The panel also rejected the creation of new states, noting that “it is seldom possible to draw a clean boundary which does not create a fresh minority.”14 The Willink Commis13. International Crisis Group, 17. 14. H. Willink, “Report of the Commission Appointed to Inquire into Fears of Minorities and the Means of Allying Them,” C.O. 957/4, Colonial Office, July 1958, in International Crisis Group, 18.


sion report also took special note of the “challenges of poverty, complex ethnic rivalries and geographical barriers posed by the rivers that crisscross the Delta.” It particularly indicated that the Ijaw, the largest ethnic group in the Niger Delta, was “poor, backward and neglected” and recommended that their land be designated a “Special Area” with a federal board to “consider” its problems for ten to twelve years. It also noted that the board should consist of representatives from the then eastern and western regional governments, “preferably Ijaws,” and four representatives from “peoples of the areas.” As the Willink Commission was carrying out its work, the first Niger Delta oil well began producing crude oil in commercial quantity, a development that created new conditions on the ground that would define events between the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the peoples of the Niger Delta. A combination of efforts by the Nigerian government through development agencies and violent resistance by various groups in the Niger Delta have so far failed to mitigate or redress the burning issues afflicting the area. The first demonstration of discontent by people of the Niger Delta area over their status in independent Nigeria was orchestrated by Isaac Jasper Adaka Boro, an Ijaw by ethnic origin. On 23 February 1966, Boro organized about 159 of his compatriots and, following a brief period of training, staged a secessionist attempt under the banner of the Niger Delta Volunteer Service, declaring an independent Niger Delta Peoples Republic. But his twelve-day rebellion was soon put down and Boro received a reprieve from execution by agreeing to join the Nigerian army and fight for the federal government. He was killed in 1968 under mysterious circumstances. Boro’s rebellion was the culmination of political frustration, injustice, and grievance that people of the Niger Delta had been experiencing in the early days of an independent Nigeria. The Ijaw people and other minority groups were marginalized by the dominant ethnic groups in Nigeria — the Igbo, Hausa, Fulani, and Yoruba. Minority groups could not reach the top echelons of national politics and hence had very little or no control over their political and economic destiny. Consequently, they could not muster enough political clout to secure their own federal state within the eastern region in order to attain the long-denied right to self-determination. Efforts by prominent Niger Delta politicians, including Harold Dappa Biriye, led to the founding of the Niger Delta Congress


(NDC), a political party that under Melford Okilo won the only seat by a Niger Deltan in the federal house, in the 1959 general elections. In his campaign Biriye promised to secure a nation-state for the Niger Delta but did not deliver on his promise because he failed to muster support for his initiative in the Igbo-dominated National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC). In 1962, the NCNC won virtually all of the seats (8 out of 9) in federal elections and all but 4 of the 110 seats in the Eastern House of Assembly. Postindependence Policy Responses to the Niger Delta Problem Immediately after independence in 1960, Nigeria’s new government attempted to implement the recommendations of the Willink Commission. It accepted the recommendation that called for the establishment of a Niger Delta Development Board (NDDB), which was mandated to (1) survey the Niger Delta to ascertain the measures needed for development, (2) prepare and estimate cost of programs drawn up to boost the physical development of the region, and (3) report to the federal government and governments of midwestern and eastern Nigeria.15 However, before the NDDB gained enough traction on its work to fully carry out its mandate, its efforts were disrupted by the Nigeria-Biafra civil war, which followed quickly on the heels of the board’s formation. After the civil war the military government, headed by Olusegun Obasanjo, promulgated in 1976 the River Basin and Development Authorities Decree, creating eleven basin agencies to assist agriculture, irrigation, fishing, and pollution control. Many in the Niger Delta felt that the broad mandates of the River Basin Decree and NDDB were inconsistent with the objectives of the Willink Commission report. Indeed, the people of the Niger Delta argued that the original recommendation was that particular attention be paid to the Niger Delta, not to establish broad national control. In 1980, the government of President Shehu Shagari established the Delta River Basin Development Authority (NDRBDA), which was intended to provide irrigation, check flooding and erosion, gather hydro and meteorological data, provide potable water, widen and dredge canals, and carry out soil 15. Lanre Fagbohun, “The Niger-Delta Environment: There’s Hope Amidst Chaos,” Nation, 30 September 2008.


analysis. But on the whole the NDRBDA failed because of inadequate funding, and its very broad mandate made implementation of policies difficult. Subsequent to the demise of the NDRBDA, the Nigerian National Assembly enacted revenue provisions for the allocation of 1.5 percent of a federal derivation fund for the Niger Delta. This did not materialize because of bureaucratic bottlenecks. The Presidential Implementation Committee (PIC) was established to outline strategies for development of the area, raise the hopes of the people, and put in place structures to assist in the attainment of its objectives. In the end, like its predecessors, it failed in its objectives for the same reasons, including rampant corruption. In 1993, following a report by the Belgore Commission established by President Ibrahim Babangida to take a look at the region, the Oil Mineral Producing Area Development Commission (OMPADEC) was established to replace the PIC. OMPADEC responsibilities included the receipt and administration of funds for the Niger Delta from federal accounts in accordance with the ratio of oil revenue allotted to each of the states within the Nigerian federation and the Niger Delta region. It was specifically charged with the task of ensuring the development and rehabilitation of the area from which oil is produced, as well as of managing and finding solutions to ecological problems incident to exploration activities. Initially, OMPADEC showed great promise and achieved significant success in carrying out its mandate, but this did not last for long. Its administrators soon became mired in corruption and began to use its huge fiscal allocation to satisfy private purposes. Soon the commission suffered from large debts and fraud of monumental proportions. The high level of corruption within the organization prompted the government to set up an interim management board to wind down its responsibilities. Hence, OMPADEC met with “an untimely demise [that] orphaned a lot of unfinished and abandoned projects scattered across the region.”16 In 2000 yet another initiative, the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) was established after the election of a civilian government. Immediately after its creation, some Niger Delta activists expressed opposition, stat16. Oma Djebah, “Tackling the Niger Delta Conundrum,” August 2003, www.nigerdeltacongress .com/tarticles/tackling_the_niger_delta_conundr.htm.


ing that its structure would make it unaccountable to the delta communities and susceptible to corruption and mismanagement.17 A critical goal of the NDDC was to reconcile various interests in the region in order to bring about peace in the Niger Delta and to facilitate the transformation of the region into one of prosperity and stability. NDDC started off with well-intentioned projects, including development of a comprehensive master plan to facilitate longterm planning, establishment of operational structures and systemic policies, and assumption of proper trappings of corporate government with an aura of efficiency and accountability. Its enabling law specified inclusiveness and openness providing for stakeholder participation. NDDC was also adequately capitalized to accomplish its mandate from a fiscal standpoint. Under the 2000 law, the panel received 2 percent of oil company budgets, 15 percent of member states’ statutory federal allocations, and 50 percent of ecological fund allocations.18 In 2004, the NDDC produced a multisectoral, fifteen-year draft master plan estimated to cost $2.9 billion to fulfill. Opposition to this NDDC plan was swift and came from the core Niger Delta states of Delta, Bayelsa, and Rivers. They questioned the extension of the NDDC responsibilities to six states that they considered peripheral: Abia, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Edo, Imo, and Ondo.19 Between 2001 and 2004, the Nigerian government allocated about $64 million (about 77 percent of what was budgeted) to the NDDC.20 In 2004, oil companies paid an additional $130 million to the NDDC.21 Furthermore, in 2006 President Obasanjo proposed raising NDDC spending to $150 million, while the National Assembly proposed increasing it to $185 million.22 However, in May 2006 staff members of the NDDC complained that the federal government had not paid anything to the commission since October 2005. Furthermore, one of the agencies set up by the Nigerian government to fight corruption, the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, opened an inves17. J. Shola Omotola, “From the OMPADEC to the NDDC: An Assessment of State Responses to Environmental Insecurity in the Niger Delta, Nigeria,” Africa Today 54, no. 1 (Fall 2007): 81 – 3. 18. Niger Delta residents and NDDC staff members, interviews, April – May 2006, in International Crisis Group. 19. Ibid., 18. 20. Ibid., 19. 21. “NNPC, Joint Venture Partners Paid $398M – Kupolokun,” This Day, 24 June 2004, 1. 22. International Crisis Group.


tigation into allegations of fraud against the NDDC involving misuse of funds, and there were accusations that lawmakers were bribed to cover up a missing $68.5 million.23 Subsequently, allegations of corruption involving the NDDC multiplied. The result was that the Niger Delta community lost confidence in the commission’s ability to deliver on its promises, and militant groups intensified criticism. Action soon followed. In 2004, the NDDC’s offices in the major town of Warri, in Delta State, were vandalized, allegedly by ethnic Ijaw youth protesting its poor management of community affairs.24 The NDDC in turn blamed its poor performance on frequent interference by militant groups. A spokesman for the main Niger Delta militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), a coalition of disparate militant groups confronting the Nigerian government in the Niger Delta, claimed that “NDDC is a channel for further looting of the meager sums allocated to developing the Niger Delta. Most of the contracts go to outsiders. . . . [T]hey even execute projects outside the Niger Delta.”25 The NDDC ended up becoming, in the view of Niger Delta residents, another failed attempt to bring about peace and development in the Niger Delta. Corruption, distrust, and mismanagement contributed to the NDDC’s inability to fulfill the goals for which it was established. Its failures exacerbated the sense of hopelessness in the Niger Delta, and hopelessness leads to violence The Niger Delta region has been in the grips of protracted agitation, violence, and low-intensity conflict. In more than forty years since Boro’s 1966 rebellion, other protest movements have occurred and persist. Most post-Boro agitation is not secessionist in orientation but rather is based on a struggle for autonomy and resource control. This is reminiscent of the Ogoni uprising and peaceful demands to violent action by militias such as the Egbesu Boys, the Chicoco movement, and the Ijaw youth-centered Niger Delta Volunteer Force. Many of these disparate groups coalesced into the umbrella group MEND. In 1990 there was a confrontation in the Niger Delta’s oil-producing area between the federal government and the Ogoni people. The discontent and

23. Lillian Okenwa, “Petition Against NDDC Not Withdrawn,” This Day, 14 August 2004, 1. 24. “Ijaw Youths Attack NDDC,” This Day, 5 January 2004, 3. 25. International Crisis Group, 19.


restiveness of the Ogoni, like the Ijaw and other Niger Delta groups, is deep seated and goes back to colonial days. The British administration had forced the Ogoni into different administrative units at various times against their wishes. In 1908 they were placed under the administrative division of Opobo, in 1947 under the Rivers Province, and finally in 1951 they were included as part of the Eastern Region. Throughout these arrangements, the Ogoni expressed their dissatisfaction with their treatment, neglect, and marginalization.26 The Ogoni people protested their plight as a minority group dominated by majority Igbos by voting against the NCNC in 1957 and underscored it in testimony before the Willink Commission of inquiry into minority fears in 1958. In 1967, they were moved from the Eastern jurisdiction to the Rivers State, where they remain today. 27 The Ogoni and the Ijaw have one thing in common — oil. Oil was found in the Ijaw village of Oloibiri in 1956 and in commercial quantity in the Ogoni territory of K. Dere (Bomu Oil Field) in 1958. Many rich oil fields are found in the four-hundred-square-mile area of Ogoniland, and they contribute more than $40 billion to the national treasury.28 Despite this contribution, Ogoniland remains severely undeveloped — little electricity and clean pipe-borne water and few job prospects or economic projects exist. In 1990, the Ogoni people (made up of Babbe, Gokana, Ken Khana, Nyokhana, Ueme, and Tai, numbering about five hundred thousand) formed the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) under the leadership of Ken Saro-Wiwa, a writer, orator, and businessman.29 The organization adopted the motto “Freedom, Peace, and Justice.” It was founded and operated under the principles of nonviolence and equality. Saro-Wiwa and MOSOP attracted international attention to the Ogoni cause; Saro-Wiwa demanded political and economic empowerment based on resource control, ethnic rights, and environmental justice. Soon the Ogoni Bill of Rights was proclaimed, but a wish to remain part of the Nigerian polity was also adopted. 26. Kayode Ogundamisi, “Isaac Adako Boko: The Seven-Day Revolution in Nigeria,” 13 February 2008, kayodeogundamisi.blogspot.com/2008_02_01_archive.html. 27. Ibid. 28. Ibid. 29. Ibid.


MOSOP demanded from Nigeria’s ruling military regime, under General Sani Abacha, some basic guarantees, among them total political autonomy and participation in the affairs of Nigeria as a distinct and separate unit and the right to control and use a fair proportion of economic resources for Ogoni development. The group argued that the search for oil had caused severe land and food shortages in Ogoni lands and that government-licensed oil prospects fail to respect environmental pollution laws. This neglect culminated in the complete degradation of the Ogoni environment. The Delta Region is one of the richest in Nigeria, but it wallows in abject poverty and destitution. Finally, the Ogoni argued that successive federal administrations trampled on minority rights enshrined in the Nigerian constitution.30 In January 1993, MOSOP held a rally that was attended by almost half of the Ogoni population, and MOSOP increasingly became more hostile to the violation of rights — human and environmental — by Shell, which was licensed by government to carry out exploratory activities in the region. Shell extracts about 3 percent of its oil from Ogoni territory. Shell Petroleum Development Corporation (SPDC) is a joint venture between the Nigerian government and two oil corporations — Shell and Azienda Generale Italiana Petroli (AGIP). Fifty-five percent of SPDC is owned by the state oil company, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), 30 percent is held by Shell, 10 percent by ELF, and 5 percent by AGIP. Shell is the operating partner of SPDC, which is the largest component of SCN (Shell Companies in Nigeria). Although MOSOP’s primary target was the Nigerian government, the group has consistently accused Shell of colluding with officials of the Nigerian government to deprive the Ogoni of oil revenue and compensation for environmental damages due to oil spills and gas flaring.31 Shell pulled out of the Ogoni territory, citing intimidation and hostility toward its staff and operations. Nigeria’s military regime, under Abacha, reacted to MOSOP’s activities with a sharp crackdown; it created the Rivers State Internal Security Task 30. Urhobo Historical Society. “Towards Peace and Security in the Niger Delta: The Urhobo National Association of North America’s Position,” 2008, www.waado.org/organizations/UNANA/statements/ peace_niger_delta.html, accessed 30 October 2008. 31. Interviews by International Crisis Group researcher in a former capacity with MOSOP officials, 2001 – 2005, in International Crisis Group.


Force unit to deal with the Ogoni crisis. Saro-Wiwa and several other Ogoni activists were arrested in May 1994 following the killing of four Ogoni leaders from a MOSOP faction that had opposed Saro-Wiwa’s tactics and had been accused by some of being government collaborators. Sixteen members were tried for murder and nine, including Saro-Wiwa, were convicted and executed by a special military tribunal on 10 November 1995.32 In the subsequent period, many Ogoni activists have been detained. MOSOP has experienced internal fragmentation and lost its former cohesion and strength, but it continues to press for political and economic reform. Disputes between Niger Delta communities and government security forces continue across the delta. These disputes, especially those involving oil companies, have frequently led to bloody confrontations between residents and troops, who frequently use extrajudicial killings to suppress dissent. Events in Umuechem, Odi, and Odioma are salient examples of what the now fully developed military outfits cite as provocations contributing to an escalation of tension and radicalization of the Niger Delta “struggle.” In October 1990, a peaceful protest by residents of the town of Umuechem, River State, demanding electricity, water, roads, and other necessities turned deadly under severe military repression. A contingent of Nigeria’s mobile police attacked the protesters and began shooting indiscriminately. About 80 people were killed and 495 houses were burned down. The military action was in response to complaints from Shell that the Umuechem oil flow station was attacked by an armed group carrying guns and machetes that forced the staff members out of their offices and demanded, among other things, the equivalent of US$160,000.33 A judicial inquiry convened after the incident found no evidence of any threat or wrongdoing by the members of the community; the commission also concluded that the police had displayed a “reckless disregard for lives and property.” In 1999, after the country’s return to civilian rule, another large-scale massacre by security troops occurred. In 1999, several young men described as “hoodlums” by community leaders in the Bayelsa state town of Odi kidnapped and killed several Yoruba police officers in alleged retaliation for the ear32. Ibid., 5. 33. Ibid., 6.


lier deaths of Ijaws in the hands of Yoruba militants in Lagos. The Nigerian government’s ultimatum to the Odi community to hand over the killers was not honored. The government reaction to this refusal was brutal, harsh, and disproportionate. Government forces armed with military tanks and armored vehicles entered the town and, as if engaging in scorched earth warfare, razed to the ground architectural structures and killed many people (estimates range from twenty-three dead as reported by the government to about twenty-four hundred as compiled by local activist groups).34 Another act of mass military brutality occurred in the town of Odioma, Bayelsa State. The military claimed that its soldiers had come under fire from militants. In response, soldiers shot randomly, dousing houses with gasoline and setting them alight and raping women. At least seventeen people were killed. Officials claimed that the raid occurred after a warlord from Odioma was accused of killing a dozen members of a government delegation sent to mediate a dispute between Odioma and the nearby village of Obioku over ownership of an area that had been recently visited by a survey boat contracted to Shell.35 In response to such developments, Ijaw youth convened a conference in the town of Kaiama in 1998. Representing the Ijaw people, the conference enunciated ten resolutions known as the Kaiama Declaration, intended to confront the Nigerian government and the oil company. The demands and conditions of the Kaiama Declaration include that all land and resources within the Ijaw territory belong to Ijaw communities and that all oil company staff and contractors withdraw from Ijaw territory by 30 December 1998, pending the resolution of the issue of resource ownership and control in the Ijaw area. The conference also asked for a sovereign national conference to restructure the Nigerian federation and established the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) to coordinate the struggle of the Ijaw people for self-determination and justice. These demands have not been met or even considered seriously, and consequently a full armed militancy against the government is under way. The second president of the IYC, Mujahid Dokubo Asari, led the establishment of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force, one of many militant Ijaw groups engaged in armed confrontation against the government. Asari’s 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid., 7.


arrest in August 2005, in violation of a ceasefire agreement, led to the amalgamation of some previously disparate and independent militant groups into MEND, as well as to the formation of other militant groups. In addition to frequent armed confrontation against the federal troops, involving the loss of lives on both sides, the militant groups have adopted hostage taking, especially of foreigners, as an attention-getting and revenue-raising strategy. In 2009, the Niger Delta was on the boil, as militant groups engaged federal troops in sporadic gunfights, took hostages, kidnapped innocent people for ransom, destroyed oil facilities and infrastructure, and engaged in oil bunkering, taking oil from pipelines illegally for sale on the black market. All efforts at peace in the delta region have so far been futile. A recent attempt by the federal government under President Shehu Musa Yar’Adua to convene a stakeholders meeting with leaders of the Niger Delta fell apart due to the delta leaders’ disagreement over the choice of the proposed chairman for the conference, Ibrahim Gambari, a former United Nations undersecretary and Howard University instructor. He was rejected on the grounds that he had supported General Abacha’s execution of Saro-Wiwa and other MOSOP leaders in 1995. President Yar’Adua had established a ministry for the Niger Delta to coordinate and ensure that development efforts were carried out, but this effort only met with criticism from militant groups and leaders in the Niger Delta. The general and unconditional amnesty of 4 October 2009, granted to all Niger Delta militants by the Nigerian state, has been generally successful, as many militant fighters surrendered their weapons to the federal government and accepted amnesty. However, the core militant group, MEND, has not acceded to the amnesty program but instead has adopted a unilateral ceasefire pending realization of certain conditions relating to development of the Niger Delta region. MEND insists that the core issues that precipitated the Niger Delta conflict have yet to be addressed and has set up a group of representatives charged with negotiating with the Nigerian state the terms for ending the insurgency. In the interim, in an attempt to assuage the demands of the militants, the Nigerian state has increased by 10 percent the oil revenue dedicated to Niger Delta oil communities. These funds are in addition to the existing 13 percent derivation allocation for the region from the federation account. The government also committed itself to providing skills train-


ing, resettlement, and rehabilitation for erstwhile militants. As a result, the level of attacks on oil facilities, infrastructure, and oil company personnel has abated somewhat, and oil production and its attendant national earnings has increased. But the core causes of militancy and violence in the region have not been resolved, and the militancy is likely to return in full swing. The core of the problem is federalism and revenue allocation, poverty, and general underdevelopment of the region. Conclusions The root causes of the conflict in the Nigeria Delta region are buried in the history of the various powers that have influenced the Niger Delta region from the precolonial era to the present and that have pursued policies detrimental to the welfare of the indigenous citizens. At the core are the human rights abuses and environmental degradation that the citizens and Niger region have suffered from these competing powers and interests. One would have expected that after the country obtained independence from Great Britain in 1960 the situation would have improved. But the prevailing Nigerian government policy approaches to address the main causes of conflict in the Niger Delta have failed, because these policies are the product of a framework of paternalism devoid of altruism. As the evidence presented here shows, in order to address core grievances and the ever-growing conflict, it is imperative that Nigeria must build a meaningful federated system that is representative and inclusive of all its people. In other words, it must have a government that formulates policy and executes development projects that would benefit all of its citizens, not just those of selected regions or states. Moreover, attempts at finding a solution to the Niger Delta conflict must address issues of program and policy development on the basis of a new paradigm founded on a rights-based approach and environmental justice. Granting the citizens of the delta region the right to meaningful participation in decisions that directly impact their lives, thus mitigating the sense of alienation and marginalization, is now understood by all as an imperative that can no longer be ignored.