Introduction
The oil-rich Niger Delta has been engulfed in militant activities in recent years. Militancy in the Niger Delta is undeniably an issue of local resistance to repressive state institutions. The Niger Delta is the theatre where these repressive state institutions, using taxes from the multinational oil corporations, inflict their obscene brutalities on the helpless inhabitants of the oil-bearing communities (Owolabi and Okwechime 2007).
From a transnational perspective, resistance polities have become the refuge for those who are alienated by capitalist social relations and the hegemonic power of the federal government/corporate alliance over oil, and seek to oppose their exploitative agenda. Depending on the specificities of each moment, the balance of social forces and the organisational capacity of local social movements, these movements seek forcefully to rectify the inequities embedded in the imperatives of global accumulation. To be candid, the cocktail of political marginalisation, repression, conditions of poverty, abject deprivation and social exclusion in the Niger Delta represent legitimate grievances for violent group mobilisation. The reason has been that oil production in the Niger Delta has not generated wealth for the majority of the people, but simply the outflow of wealth. For instance, the centralist nation-building project of the military in post-civil war Nigeria, bankrolled by petrodollars, manifested as a virtual transfer of oil wealth from the Niger Delta to other regions of the country. It is owing to the failure to win concessions through peaceful means that the youths in the Niger Delta have been inexorably driven to militantly protest, marginalisation, unemployment, development deficit and inequality.
The origins of militancy in the Niger Delta
The origins of militancy in the Niger Delta can be divided into remote and immediate causes. The remote causes include inter alia: environmental degradation, marginalisation and underdevelopment in the region, the existence of obnoxious laws such as the Petroleum Act of 1969 and the Land Use Act of 1978, and the killing of Ken Saro-Wiwa. The immediate causes of militancy on the other hand include the militarisation of the Niger Delta by the Nigerian state, the ‘Youths Earnestly Ask for Abacha’ programme, the Kaiama Declaration, bunkering by Niger Delta youths and the mobilisation of youths as political thugs during the 1999 election. Though youth involvement in the Niger Delta struggle took a decisive turn (characterised by militancy) with the repression suffered at the hands of the Abacha regime that turned Niger Delta communities into garrison enclaves patrolled by the Nigerian militants, the eye opener that propelled the youths to change tactics was the Youths Earnestly Ask for Abacha programme, while the motivational force was the Kaiama Declaration.
In his bid to transform himself into a civilian president, the late military dictator General Sani Abacha invited youths from all the local government areas of the federation to participate in the Two Million Man March in Abuja, an event which resulted in a serious number of backlashes, especially in the Niger Delta. Hundreds of youths were mobilised to attend the Abuja programme from the poverty-ridden and development-elusive interior enclaves of the Niger Delta. While in Abuja, the youths from the Niger Delta saw, for the first time in their lives, express roads with four lanes, roads that were free of potholes, bridges built over dry land (flyovers) that contrasted with the absence of bridges across creeks and rivers back home, and beautiful streets and high-rise buildings. The youths at first thought that they were in a foreign land, but after several inquiries they were told that they were in Abuja, the federal capital of Nigeria, a new city built by oil revenue sourced from the Niger Delta. The perception of relative deprivation among Niger Delta youths amplified by exposure to the magnificent new Federal Capital Territory awakened the people of the region to the surreptitious and persistent transfer of wealth from the Niger Delta to other regions (Ukiwo 2009). Therefore, after seeing Abuja in its impressive splendour, the youths returned home to fight for the development of their land and to secure resource control. After the Abuja trip, protests against the activities of the oil industry increased in geometric progression and culminated in the birth of the famous Kaiama Declaration.
The Kaiama Declaration was named after the historic town of Kaiama (the home town of Isaac Adaka Boro and the revolutionary headquarters of the Ijaw nation) where the All Ijaw Youths Conference was held on the 11 December 1998. On that fateful day (the day the Niger Delta changed), over 5000 Ijaw youths, drawn from over 5000 communities of about 40 clans that make up the Ijaw nation, met in Kaiama to deliberate on ways of finding solutions to the problems associated with ‘the enslavement in the fraudulent contraption called Nigeria’ (Ikelegbe 2005). The Kaiama Declaration that was announced at the close of deliberations recognised that oil and gas are exhaustible resources and declared that the complete lack of concern for ecological rehabilitation in the light of the Oloibiri experience was a signal of impending doom for the Ijaw race (Ikelegbe 2005). The document was signed and published with the intention of changing the terms of the relationships between the oil companies and the national government.
The first four articles of the Kaiama Declaration stated that:
All lands and natural resources (including mineral resources) within Ijaw territory belong to Ijaw communities and are the basis of our survival.
We cease to recognize all undemocratic decrees that rob our people / communities of the right to ownership and control of our lives and resources, which were enacted without our participation and consent. These include the land use Decree and the Petroleum Decree etc.
We demand the immediate withdrawal from Ijaw land of all military forces of occupation and repression by the Nigeria State. Any oil company that employs the services of the Armed Forces of the Nigeria State to ‘protect’ its operations will be viewed as an enemy of the Ijaw people.
Ijaw youths in all the communities in Ijaw clan in the Niger Delta will take steps to implement these resolutions beginning from December 30th 1998 as a step towards reclaiming the control of our lives. (Ijaw Youths Council 1998)
It is important to note that the repressive character of the Nigerian state, coupled with military brutalities in the Niger Delta necessitated the acquisition or possession of alternative sources of power to oppose the activities of the Nigeria military. This led to the reinvocation of the Egbesu deity (the Ijaw god of war) as a means of protection against military attacks. There is a belief in Ijawland that if you are fighting a just cause, the Egbesu will make you impervious to bullets if certain rituals are observed, and even make you invincible. To Best and Kemedi (2005, p. 31), ‘Egbesu seems to be an ancient cult that was revived in the 1990s with the aim of recruiting young Ijaw men to be inculcated with the Egbesu rites and beliefs so as to act as a cohesive group in the forceful protection of the Ijaw people.’
Inspired by the triumphant release of Timi Kaiser Ogoriba, president of the Movement for the Survival of the Ijaw Ethnic Nationality in the Niger Delta (MOSIEND), from detention in Government House, Yenagoa on 29 June 1998, following the suppression of the military security apparatus at Creek Haven, the demonstrations that followed the Kaiama Declaration recorded unimaginable results. (Ogoriba was believed by his followers to be wielding Egbesu power.) The Ogoriba–Government House incident was the first public test of the Egbesu power as the protesting youths became impervious to gunshots fired at them by security operatives in broad daylight in Yenagoa. The resultant effect spread like wildfire and was accompanied by widespread Egbesubirination (the ritual of obtaining Egbesu power) by youths in the region. The practical experience of the researcher is that the Egbesu power is a very potent force that compels its believers and devotees to be aggressive towards military personnel. Thus, the military men deployed to quell the early post-Kaiama Declaration demonstrations across the Niger Delta were boldly attacked by barehanded youths, basking in the supernatural bulletproof euphoria of the Egbesu power. A notable example is the killing of many soldiers by youths from Kolokuma/Opokuma Local Government Area in Bayelsa State who were seeking to liberate Kaiama from military occupation following the All Ijaw Youths conference.
Moreover, it is a fact of history that the first set of militants that emerged in the Niger Delta did not consist of gun-carrying insurgents, but violent resource agitators that depended solely on the protection of the Egbesu power in their exploits. The first sets of guns used for the struggle were those captured from security operatives. However, due to the strict regulations which are prerequisites of success in the use of Egbesu for protection, and the attendant violations and deaths recorded on the part of the Niger Delta youths, the need to acquire arms and ammunition became inevitable.
I wish to emphatically argue that the deviation from anchoring the struggle in the protection of the Egbesu power which emphasised purity, equity, justice and truth, ushered in greed, self-centeredness and fractionalisation among the leadership of the struggle. With the walls of the status quo breached, every form of ‘outsider’ came streaming through the gates: cult leaders, political thugs, criminals, and self-centred individuals hiding under the cloak of resource agitators. Therefore, instead of focusing on how the needs and aspirations of the region would be actualised through violent agitations to press home the demands of the local people, some militant agitators became preoccupied with how to satisfy their parochial interests, deviating from the tenets of the struggle.
The unholy mix of insurgency and criminality evidenced by the involvement of armed groups in hostage-taking, illegal oil bunkering, illegal oil refining and trading, as well as the proliferation of criminal groups disguised as militants, has promoted the view in some circles that militancy in the Niger Delta is driven by the greed of the dramatis personae (Ukiwo 2009) which necessitates critical analysis of the process by which militants were created.
Typologies of militant groups in the Niger Delta
I must emphasise the fact that the militant creation process in the Niger Delta is differentiated: there are different types of militants in the region. This is attributed to the divergent factors or reasons that motivated or compelled such youth to become militants. Members of militant groups expressed a variety of reasons for joining. This included: desire to protect their land, communities and ethnic groups; to protest against government and oil companies' political and economic marginalisation of their communities; fear for their personal safety following threats by members of other armed groups or government security agencies; being hired by politicians to help rig elections, intimidate voters, and attack opponents; to make money through criminal activities, and so on. We shall therefore proceed to identify and discuss the typologies of militants in the Niger Delta which will help decipher the issues of criminality and fighting for justice.
Peaceful resource-agitator militancy
This category of militants refers to armed youths in the Niger Delta that decided to militarise the struggle due to the inability of peaceful agitations to yield the desired goals in the region. It embraces youths that are committed to the development and resource control struggle in the Niger Delta. The first set of militants that emerged in the Niger Delta after the Kaiama Declaration, especially those who depended on the Egbesu power to execute Operation Climate Change, belongs to this category. One crucial fact to note is that the pioneer resource-agitators membership was devoid of criminality. Criminality only crept in later as the struggle continued. The militants were thus sustained by goodwill donations from wealthy individuals and communities in their region. What transpired was that youths with the zeal to fight for their people were mobilised to carry out attacks on oil companies and government security forces that perpetuate exploitation and marginalisation in the region. A good example of militants that fall under this category are Government Ekpemopolo (General Tompolo), Ebikabowei Victor Ben (Boyloaf), and Alex Preye.
Political-thug militancy
This second category developed from political thugs to become militants in the Niger Delta. Though thuggery in the Niger Delta is as old as the Nigerian experience, it was the 1999 general elections that ushered in the political-thug militancy category. The move to return Nigeria to civilian rule raised the curtain for serious politicking by politicians struggling to be elected into various leadership positions. Considering the do-or-die character of Nigerian politics, which is premised on winning at all costs, some youths were engaged to perpetrate electoral crimes such as election rigging, snatching of ballot boxes, intimidation of voters, and kidnapping and attacks on opposition candidates. These youths were armed with dangerous weapons and financially mobilised by the politicians to carry out their parochial undemocratic plans. Paradoxically, after they had ensured victory for their political masters, the youths were abandoned and nothing tangible was ever done to retrieve the guns and ammunitions from them. Therefore, with instruments of coercion in their possession, some of the frustrated and neglected youths decided to set up militant camps and became involved in the destruction of oil installations and the kidnapping and hostage-taking of expatriate oil workers for ransom.
Thus the political-thug militancy category was the creation of politicians. Experience has shown that the aftermath of every general election in Nigeria since 1999 has led to the emergence of new militant groups fighting for space and relevance in the Niger Delta. Youths are always contracted and armed prior to elections to perform illegal roles during elections. It was in this context that Asari Dokubo and Ateke Tom (in Rivers State) were recruited to the cause of delivering the 2003 elections for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Specifically, they were to deliver certain local government areas that were seen as crucial to winning Rivers State. For instance, Ateke Tom (then a community vigilante leader) was contracted for the purpose of securing Okrika, Ogu/Bolo and Port Harcourt local government areas in the 2003 elections. Asari Dokubo was also contracted to perform similar functions in Akuku Toru, Degema and Asari Toru local government areas. They were both successful and the Peoples Democratic Party won the election in those areas (Coventry Cathedral 2009, p. 64; Best and Kemedi 2005, Manby 2004), Likewise, in Bayelsa State, notable militant leaders such as General Africa, Joshua Maverick, Young Shall Grow, Egberi Papa, and Daddy Ken graduated from being political thugs to become militants. Owing to the ‘abandonment-after-usage’ syndrome, both Asari and Ateke in Rivers State turned their attention to the transnational illegal oil bunkering networks, collecting tolls on the trade, providing security to bunkering crews, selling oil or operating illegal oil refineries whose products were sold below market prices. In essence, the recruitment of young men from a widening cesspool of unemployed youths by politicians anchored another dimension of militant creation.
Cult-group militancy
As the name implies, the cult-group militancy category embraces initial cult leaders and membership that altered their activities to militancy. This category of militants basically emerged from the Rivers State axis of the Niger Delta. There are two types of cult groups that feature most often in the media reports of conflicts in the Niger Delta. First is the campus cult groups formed by the original fraternity groups such as Supreme Vikings Confraternity, Black Axes, Buccaneers, and Mafia Fighters. Second are the urban social groupings that spun off from the university fraternities and use coercion to recruit, indoctrinate and retain their members, frequently for violent purposes. They include Dey Gbam, Dey Well, Greenlanders, and Germans. The latter groups, which are also known as street cult groups, seek to exert control over defined geographic areas that they conceive as their territory.
Most of the street cults are the creation of the university cults in the sense that the university students who founded the original confraternities recruited younger and less-educated teenagers to fight their street battles, while these youths in turn recruited still younger populations. By this process a hierarchy of armed young people was formed. Life became cheaper the lower down the pecking order one descended (Asuni 2009). From initial clashes between cult groups with sticks and broken bottles, it soon progressed to the use of machetes, locally made guns (popularly known as Akwa-Made) and later advanced to the use of sophisticated guns and explosives such as dynamite, as the battle for supremacy and territorial control intensified. The fact remains that many of the politicians in the Niger Delta, especially in Bayelsa and River State, are known to be members of confraternities, particularly the Vikings (which dominates higher institutions in the two states). These politicians and other wealthy ex-members act as patrons to the various cult groups and also fund their activities.
The cult groups were also contracted to perform thuggery roles during elections in return for financial incentives and sophisticated guns and ammunition. One cult member described a meeting in Government House, Port Harcourt just prior to the 14 April 2007 polls during which he saw government officials hand out between N5 million and N10 million to several different cult groups in return for their assisting or simply accepting the PDP plan to rig the polls (Human Rights Watch 2007). Some of them were also contracted to protect bunkering networks with their ever-increasing armoury. Ateke Tom, Soboma George, Farah Dagogo, and Occasion Boy belong to this category. Moreover, in order to sustain their activities, confraternities frequently change their loyalty and actions in response to new sources of money. Most of the confraternities have been implicated in the hostage-taking of foreign oil workers in the Niger Delta. Again, due to the exposure of cult members to gun battles, numerous militant groups such as the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) employ confraternity members as combatants. For example, the head of the cult group the Outlaws, Soboma George, doubles as an MEND commander (Wellington, 2007). It is a common practice in the Niger Delta for cult members contracted by militant leaders as combatants in their camps to be paid between N200,000 and N300,000 every two weeks, based on the type of activities they carry out. Other notable cult leaders simply break away from their parent bodies, set up their own groups, acquire arms and ammunition and begin to operate as militants in the region.
Community/ethnic-warlord militancy
The Niger Delta has witnessed a series of intra- and inter-communal conflicts. These conflicts are attributed to the divide-and-rule politics of the Nigerian state and its alleged collaborators, the multinational oil companies. Most of the conflicts were fought over land ownership claims, payment of compensation due to spillage and exploration activities, and so on. Some notable conflicts of these nature include the Warri crisis, Olugbobiri and Peremabiri crisis, Odioma and Liama crisis, Ogbolomabiri and Bassambiri crisis in Nembe, Biseni-Agbere crisis, Ikwerre and the Okrika crises.
The zeal to protect one's community from external aggression led to the acquisition of community armouries manned by able-bodied youths. As seen in the Warri, Nembe, Olugbobiri and Okrika crises for instance, the weapons acquired to fight communal wars were diverted to militancy when peace returned to the affected communities. Therefore the ethnic-warlord category of militants transformed from initial communal and ethnic warlords to become militants. Examples of militants that fall under this category are Government Ekpemopolo, Prince lgodo, Alex Preye, and Commander Ajugbe.
Be that as it may, the line separating the various categories of militants is very fluid. The reason has been that militants like Ateke Tom, Tompolo, Soboma George and Farah Dagogo fall into two or more categories. Moreover, militants that basically carry out criminal activities like kidnapping belong to the cult-group militancy category.
Conclusion
This paper has identified and discussed the remote and immediate factors that that led to the advent of militancy in the Niger Delta, such as decades of marginalisation and state repression, oil-induced environmental degradation, endemic poverty, teeming unemployment and a development deficit. The success of the original militancy, derived from developmental and resource-control aspirations and from the Egbesu military ethic of purity, equity, justice and truth, stimulated the other forms of militancy. This process led to the subsequent variety of motives for and forms of militant action in the Niger Delta. The resultant diversity can be conceptualised using the above typology, but that should not obscure the nature of militancy as a dynamic set of actions. Indeed some militant groups fit into more than one category in terms of their actions. As with many struggles, the original goals of the militancy became somewhat lost in the course of the struggle because it opened a space for other forms of violent action. These new kinds of militancy and violence had objectives far removed from the original aspirations for which the Egbesu-inspired militancy had served as a mobilising cultural form.
The fact remains that militancy in the Niger Delta is as a result of the abundant oil wealth derived from the region not leading to regional prosperity. Consequently, people-oriented effective and efficient policies, geared towards addressing the development deficit and uneven wealth distribution in the region, must be implemented to nip militancy in the bud.
Note on contributor
Kimiebi Imomotimi Ebienfa is a postgraduate student in the Department of Political Science, University of Ibadan. He holds a bachelor of science degree from Niger Delta University and master of science degree from the University of Ibadan, where he specialised in comparative politics. His research interests include oil and environmental politics, public policy, international security and terrorism.