Introduction
Against a background of the complex politics of an insurgency in the oil-rich Niger Delta which contributed to the disruption of Nigeria's oil production1 and rising violence and insecurity amidst limited military success in reining in armed groups (Obi and Rustad 2011), President Umaru Yar'Adua's proclamation of a 60-day unconditional amnesty for Niger Delta militants on 25 June 2009 (ending 4 October 2009) set the stage for a de-escalation of violence in the region based on the implementation of a phased state-sponsored programme of Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR).
Although the amnesty was based on granting ‘unconditional pardon to all persons who have directly participated in the commission of offences associated with militant activities in the Niger Delta’ (Niger Delta Amnesty Programme website, http://www.nigerdeltaamnesty.org/), it was aimed at removing the disruptive ‘militant elements’ from the globalised production of oil in the troubled region, but justified in the rhetoric of government-speak as a ‘precondition’ for the sustainable post-conflict development of the oil-rich but impoverished region.
The amnesty programme specifically focused on getting armed groups in the region to renounce the use of violence and subscribe to a government-sponsored Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) programme. Unlike an earlier DDR in 2004 (Asuni 2011, 158–163; Kew and Obi 2010),2 the most recent programme was more ambitious in scale. It was both a response to domestic politics involving competing factions of the Nigerian ruling elite (over high oil stakes) and international pressures on the government to rein in the insurgent/armed groups whose acts of sabotage and kidnapping of expatriate oil workers disrupted oil production and exports, thereby resulting in huge losses to the government and oil companies.3 The initial lull after the ‘disarmament and encampment phase' (due in part to the long absence and eventual death of President Yar'Adua) was broken only after Acting President Jonathan took charge in 2010, giving it a clear ‘post’-amnesty DDR direction.
With the conclusion of the first phase of demobilisation in the form of non-violence training for 20,192 Niger Delta ex-militants on 24 September 2011,4 it is apposite to undertake a critical evaluation of the DDR process and the prospects for sustainable peace and development in the volatile oil-producing region. This is against the background of divergent views on the efficacy and impact of the Post-Amnesty Programme (PAP) on peace and development in the Niger Delta. While many scholars and analysts have remained sceptical and critical about the intent and sustainability of the newfound peace in the region (Aghedo 2012, 10; Asuni 2011; Davidheiser and Nyiayaana 2011; Molly 2011, 115; Nwajiaku-Dahou 2010; Ojeleye 2011, 153–154; Olaniyi 2011; Oluwaniyi 2011, 53–54; Onoyume 2011), government officials and the leadership of the Presidential Amnesty Programme and the Foundation for Ethnic Harmony in Nigeria (FEHN, http://www.fehnnigeria.org/), the organisation coordinating consultancies for post-amnesty training, (and some commentators) laud the programme as the ‘most successful demobilisation ever held the world over’ (Akpan, quoting Onyeama, the head of FEHN, in The Guardian [Lagos], October 2, 2011, 59–61).
At the heart of the emerging debate are questions about the effectiveness of the PAP and its prospects for sustainable peacebuilding in the Niger Delta. In this regard, certain fundamental questions are posed: what are the essential underpinnings of the politics of the PAP and whose interests do they serve? How sustainable is such a state-imposed peace project outside of a well-articulated framework hinged upon local participation, transparency and an equitable social bargain? Attention is also paid to a critical analysis of the DDR content of the PAP and the prospects for transforming the current uneasy status quo into an opportunity for radical conflict transformation in the oil region. In this regard, this paper adds to existing knowledge that interrogates the PAP as the expected panacea to the crisis in the Niger Delta based on the application of a political economy of peacebuilding in analysing the prospects for sustainable peace and development on the oil-rich region.
This paper is divided into four parts. The introduction raises the fundamental questions that underpin the study. It is followed by the conceptual framing of the DDR in the context of peacebuilding in sub-national settings. It is followed by the third section, which critically examines the extent to which the PAP has responded to the professed goals of its authors and the demands and aspirations of the people of the region. The last and concluding section notes that the PAP has been less of a DDR programme and more of a political project by a dominant Nigerian elite coalition (comprising top-level state executives, members of their political networks, politically connected retired and serving military and security officials, government officials, traditional rulers and top-level private sector executives) intent on maintaining dominant power relations and preserving the conditions for optimal extraction of oil – the fiscal basis of its power, wealth and hegemony, and the basis of Nigeria's continued integration into the transnational capitalist system. It also examines the prospects for sustainable peacebuilding and proffers some suggestions for the transformation of the Niger Delta and Nigeria as fundamental steps towards building peace in a troubled oil-rich region.
Framing DDR in a volatile oil-rich region: some conceptual issues
Before going into the analysis of the Niger Delta DDR as an example of a ‘homegrown’ peacebuilding programme, it is apposite to examine the concept in some detail. DDR norms and processes have evolved over time (Ojeleye 2011, 141–142), culminating in the adoption of the Integrated DDR Standards (IDDRS) by members of the United Nations Inter-Agency Working on DDR and the Executive Committee on Peace and Security (UN 2006). IDDR principles assert that ‘reintegration of former combatants should be the essential focus and objective of DDR programming’ and should involve ‘national ownership, capacity development, situate DDR within the larger recovery strategy, balance equity and security, and ensure a timely transition from supporting individuals to supporting communities’ (Isaczai 2006).
While sharing the broad aims of traditional UN DDR programmes, which focus on ‘combatants that are present within military structures, the focus of Second Generation programmes shifts away from military structures towards larger communities that are affected by armed violence’ (UNPKO 2010, 3). DDR is therefore a series of planned activities and events that seek to take weapons away from fighters, collect and destroy such weapons and prepare former fighters for a return to normal family and civilian life. It seeks among other things to ensure that such people are able to sustain themselves in post-war society through non-violent means in peaceful contexts. DDR responds to armed groups and other sub-national actors/frameworks and provides space for partnerships involving multilateral agencies, regional organisations, civil society organisations and governments as critical players in post-conflict peacebuilding.5
The point has been made elsewhere that, fundamentally, ‘peacebuilding is a composite of neo-liberal problem solving strategies – a form of praxis rather than a theory or concept’ (Heathershaw 2008, 598–599). It assumed global prominence after the UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali defined post-conflict peacebuilding as ‘action to identify and support structures that will tend to strengthen and solidify peace in order to avoid a relapse into conflict’ (An Agenda for Peace 1992; Barnett et al. 2007, 35). Although the notion of peacebuilding preceded Boutros-Ghali's Agenda for Peace (Galtung 1976), his intervention characterised the emergence of international peacebuilding as one of the central planks of global governance and the reconstruction of a post-Cold War global order, with implications for the roles of the UN, regional organisations and national governments.
However, there have been long-standing contestations between liberal and radical perspectives to peacebuilding. While liberal/institutional perspectives leverage multiparty Western-style democracy and free market economics as the foundations of a peaceful order and therefore a model for the non-liberal ‘other’, their radical critics are quick to point to the false assumptions, ideological and hegemonic designs that underpin the ‘liberal peace’. However, between both perspectives lies a grey area in which various actors interact in complex ways and levels which defy neat categorisation, but tend to reproduce or undermine configurations of power upon which particular constructions of peacebuilding are based.
A political economy of peacebuilding enables us to understand it as a site of competing political and economic interests, and contending relations of power in which hegemonic forces seek to define the character and outcome of the struggle for peace. Thus, peacebuilding activities are not neutral in their normative orientation (Newman, Paris, and Richmond 2009, 12). This paper conceptualises DDR within the praxis of peacebuilding defined as ‘a set of ideas and practices, mediated by the interactions between local communities, and international, national, and regional actors’ (Curtis 2012, 17), aimed at ‘preventing the resumption or escalation of violent conflict and establishing durable and self-sustaining peace’ (Newman, Paris, and Richmond 2009, 3).
In this regard, the high stakes involved in controlling a Nigerian petro-state, and the strong nexus between oil profit, political power and the energy security calculations of the world's existing and emerging powers, partly explain why Nigeria's ruling elite opted for a version of ‘peacebuilding’ that tended towards ‘the maintenance of the status quo’ (Molly 2011, 113).
The PAP as DDR: critical insights into a ‘homegrown’ praxis of peacebuilding in the Niger Delta
It is important to note that the PAP, unlike most other DDR programmes in post-conflict countries of the world, did not involve an open negotiated ceasefire, a decisive military victory or a formal peace-making process culminating in a peace agreement,6 involving the parties to the conflict, local actors and international actors/multilateral agencies. The programme also excluded UN and regional peacebuilding actors, even while later seeking their endorsement. It was conceptualised in the context of the co-optation practices underpinning Niger Delta elites and the federal government's engagement with militia groups, represented by President Yar'Adua's effort to draw up a comprehensive plan to end the conflict and bring about a transition to peace in the region (Obi and Rustad 2011, 200).
The argument of the protagonists of the PAP that it is a homegrown model of peacebuilding, conceptualised outside of the UN paradigm and funded by the Nigerian state,7 cannot be overlooked. Although one critic dismisses the DDR implemented under the PAP as a fiction, a superficial Band-Aid which will only offer very short-term respite in the absence of a broader political solution to the problems of the Niger Delta (Molly 2011, 129), it may be useful to further interrogate the perceived exclusion of ‘international peacebuilders’ from the PAP.
The foregoing underscores the problematic nature of the characterisation of the PAP as a ‘homegrown’ peacebuilding project. While it deals with DDR in a highly globalised, oil-rich, but impoverished region, involving one of the world's most strategic resources, the Niger Delta and national elite are keen to legitimise it as a model ‘Nigerian solution’ to a rather intractable crisis, while at the same time seeking international support and endorsement. This characterises one of the paradoxes underpinning the PAP, which partly plays down the role of international NGOs, multilateral and bilateral agencies, including the United Nations Development Programme, and oil multinationals in conflict resolution and development initiatives in the Niger Delta.
Attention should be focused on two things: the strong desire of the Nigerian elite to maintain ownership and control its peacebuilding project, both against the background of the high stakes in controlling access to power and oil resources, and the desire to preserve its political autonomy against the background of its experience with sections of the international community that had in the past been seen to be sympathetic towards ethnic minority and resistance movements such as the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP), which had embarrassed past governments with its highly effective international campaign for minority and environmental rights. Also related to this was the government's resistance to international intervention in what was considered an internal matter – by seeking to play down the nature of the threat, demonstrate its ability to take care of the problem and pre-empt further external interventionist offers of ‘help’.
Of particular note was the belief of those in charge of the Nigerian state that global powers were more interested in the energy security rather than the human security dimension of the Niger Delta crisis and that, like the Nigerian state, these powers and the oil multinationals stood to gain a lot once the attacks on oil extraction and export infrastructure ceased and oil flowed without interruption into global markets. Given the increased securitisation of Western oil policy in Africa, any failure to resolve the threat to international oil interests in the Niger Delta would have likely attracted direct international intervention.
Three questions flow from the foregoing section: does the PAP represent a domestication of international DDR standards or a ‘homegrown’ model of sub-national peacebuilding? What relations of power underpin the PAP and how sustainable is it as a peacebuilding project? Did the PAP demonstrate the agency of the Nigerian state in defining the nature, content and practice of its own peacebuilding project? Answering these questions requires a radical reading of ‘homegrown peacebuilding’ (Kuku 2011, 33) as state-imposed peace-from-above which sidesteps issues of equity, justice, scrutiny and everyday democracy. The PAP provides a case with which to demonstrate that, far from being a neutral process, certain actors, in this case the Nigerian state and elites, can use the notion and practice of peacebuilding to pursue dominant political and economic interests. Using peace intervention in a local conflict, state elites have been able to respond to international pressures from oil companies (their partners) and energy-dependent global powers (keen to protect their energy security interests in Africa's largest oil producer), while also seeking to neutralise, co-opt and buy off oppositional local forces or disruptive elements. However, by the same logic the PAP has warded off direct international intervention, but without compromising the strong connections between national elites and transnational hegemonic, geo-strategic and economic interests.
This can be gleaned from a statement credited to the special adviser to the president and the chairman of the PAP, Kingsley Kuku (Kuku 2011), who once boasted that ‘the Amnesty programme is the only DDR programme in the world that did not rely on the expert advice from the United Nations. It has been acknowledged as a unique Nigerian-made peace model, proclaimed, funded and managed by Nigerians to this level of success so far without any tragic incidents.’ Yet, in the same breath, he criticised oil multinationals for not doing enough to support the PAP, and justified the policy of sending some ex-militants for skills training outside the country by observing that ‘the extant DDR (disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration) rules and codes as spelt out by the UN strongly recommends [that] the demobilisation and reintegration of former arms-bearers should be at locations far and totally removed from their natural habitats and environments to minimise or eliminate the incentive for them to return to their old ways’ (quoted in Udo 2011).
Although the presidential adviser on the amnesty was clearly trying to promote what was considered a model of ‘homegrown’ peacebuilding and showcasing its ability to demobilise ex-militants through ‘non-violence transformational training, local and overseas skills training’ and restoring pre-insurgency levels of oil production, two things should be noted: the politics and practices underpinning the homegrown project and the contradictions embedded in this rather problematic self-assessment – including the quest for international endorsement and the expression of disappointment with perceived lack of support from oil multinationals and Western countries (Udo 2011).
The background to the politics of a ‘homegrown’ DDR
The politics of the PAP cannot be understood outside of an understanding of Nigeria's petro-state, the relations of power between the ruling elite and the people, and the complex politics and alliances that find expression in the Niger Delta conflict. While a lot has been written on the various dimensions of oil-related politics and violent conflict in the Niger Delta, a few points are worth reiterating. The first relates to the centrality of oil produced in the region as the fiscal basis of Nigeria's post-civil war federalism, providing over 80% of government revenues and over 90% of export earnings, defining the country as a monocultural oil-based economy. Tied to this are the high stakes in controlling oil power which is vested in the Nigerian state, fuelling zero-sum competition for power between competing factions of the elite, but also acting as a cementing/unifying factor in the pursuit of their common interests vis-à-vis the rest of the citizenry. Perhaps most fundamental of all are the deep-seated grievances and struggles of the ethnic minorities of the Niger Delta, whose region produces the oil, but who remain largely marginalised and excluded from its benefits by successive federal governments dominated by other (largely non-oil-producing) majority ethnic groups (in partnership with oil multinationals). This situation is further worsened by the operations of oil multinationals (whose capital-intensive operations hardly generate meaningful local employment) whose activities heavily pollute the environment and alienate and impoverish locals. A major grievance in Nigeria's oil politics relates to the demand of Niger Delta ethnic minorities for (oil) resource control (Ako 2011, 45–52; Obi 2007, 2012). In contention is the distribution of power and oil revenues, with the ethnic minorities of the Niger Delta demanding self-determination and local autonomy within the Nigerian Federation, and redress in the revenue allocation principle of derivation, which had meant the transfer of the bulk of oil wealth generated from the Niger Delta to other parts of the country by successive federal governments (controlled by dominant ethnic groups). Federal takeover of power over oil (previously exercised by the region) since the late 1960s and the progressive whittling down of the revenue derivation principle from 50% in 1966 to 1.5% in the 1990s have fuelled protests and agitation in the Niger Delta, whose people felt both marginalised and short-changed.
In the early 1990s, the struggles of the Niger Delta ethnic minorities were largely non-violent and targeted both the Nigerian state and oil multinationals. These were driven by demands for resource control or a fair share of oil revenues based on a redress in Nigeria's fiscal federalism (which deprived the region of most of the oil wealth generated from it), self-determination and respect for human and environmental rights of the people. When the initial demands were ignored, ethnic minorities like the Ogoni, through MOSOP, embarked upon a successful national and global campaign for self-determination, resource control, ethnic minority and environmental rights that was eventually met with high-handed repression by the Nigerian military (Amunwa and Minio 2011; Obi 2010, 467–481).
By the time Nigeria returned to elected civilian rule in 1999, the ethnic minority struggles of the preceding decade had both altered the context of the struggle for resource control, and opened the door for a faction of the Niger Delta elite to gain increased access to power at the federal and regional levels – while also paving the way for some civil society actors, erstwhile resistance activists and a new generation of militants to become key actors in the region. More fundamentally, it gave the Niger Delta elite a moral basis to demand greater incorporation into the federal elite, while also presenting themselves as new leaders of the region's struggle for resource control.8 Of note, however, were three sets of ambivalent relationships: between individuals within the Niger Delta elite, between the Niger Delta elite and militant/armed groups in the region, and between the Niger Delta elite and those from other ethnic majority groups in Nigeria. Also noteworthy is the view that explores the connections between ‘the economy of rebellion and the rent-seeking official economy’ in explaining the ‘escalation in the scale, sophistication and coordination of armed attacks on Nigeria's oil industry’ (Nwajiaku-Dahou 2012, 296). This compelling analysis shows how elites, the military, oil companies and ex-militants work within a ‘complicit union’ to benefit from the ‘oil-theft trade’, providing a new insight into the political economy of conflict in the Niger Delta.
While the point about the nexus between the escalation of the violence in the oil region and the creation of an enabling environment for the ‘complicit union’ to thrive is relevant, it is partly reflective of the opportunistic manipulation of deep-seated grievances in the region by a Niger Delta elite and militant youth commanders (both) keen to strengthen their positions at the local and national levels. In some ways it captures an aspect of the twists and turns in the long-standing conflict in the region, and extends the logic of mutually beneficial opportunism that marks the expedient co-optation of armed groups for political and strategic ends (thugs for intimidating the electorate and rigging elections, attacking political opponents and waging inter- or intra-community struggles). It also points to the contradictions and complexities that underpin some of the alliances of convenience that are characteristic of the Niger Delta insurgency, in which alliances and tactics are fluid, and actors move across, or straddle, different sides based on exigent calculations of political and personal gain. At different times, and in different places, the elements, drivers and motives of the conflict vary in intensity, but remain anchored in the region's history, national politics and its position in the international political economy of oil.
The legacy of five decades of oil production – alienation, the paradox of plenty, repression, militarisation and high levels of unemployment – and the new opportunities opened up by government co-optation and oil theft have fed into a volatile and complex situation. Of note was the legacy of repression and militarisation which had fuelled militancy and criminality among Niger Delta youth as a means of struggle, resistance, negotiation, survival and politics. Several commentators have noted the blurred boundaries between resistance and criminality (Ikelegbe 2011; Oriola 2012, 534–535). Thus, when a coalition of ethnic minority Ijaw, named the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), took the region by storm from 2006, forcibly communicating local grievance to a global audience (Obi 2010, 477) through well-publicised abduction of expatriate oil workers, attacks on government forces and sabotage of oil installations in the region, it marked an escalation from uncoordinated protests and conflicts into a trans-Delta insurgency. By 2007, after initially dismissing MEND as criminals, the Nigerian state, recognising the adverse impact of growing insecurity in the form of huge losses in oil production and revenues, and the strong reverberations of the insurgent attacks on the global oil prices (in the context of a global war on terror), began to mull over an alternative to the military approach that had largely failed to halt MEND's attacks on oil infrastructure in the Niger Delta. Following elections in 2007, for the first time in Nigeria's history a Niger Delta indigene of Ijaw ethnic minority origin, Goodluck Jonathan, emerged as Nigeria's vice-president, alongside President Umaru Yar'Adua, who was under immense pressure to end Niger Delta militancy and the heavy losses being suffered by government and oil companies (Obi 2007, 93–102). For the Nigerian and Niger Delta elite, what was at stake was the lifeblood of the Nigerian state and continued access to power and oil – two factors that were key to elite survival and capital accumulation in a petrolised context.
One of the initiatives that took place early in the life of the Yar'Adua administration was borne out of consultations involving the state governments of the Niger Delta, the Niger Delta Development Commission, the vice-president, president, Nigeria Delta elites, and oil and gas industry operators. This culminated in the inauguration of the Presidential Niger Delta Peace and Conflict Resolution Committee (NDPCRC) in July 2007, with the following terms of reference: recommend to the federal government how to adequately address issues of the Niger Delta, and liaise with the groups in the Niger Delta region, security agencies and report to the federal government (Nigeriafirst.org 2007).
It is noteworthy that one of the Niger Delta states (under then governor Timipre Sylvia) went ahead to establish a Bayelsa State chapter of the NDPCRC in 2007, under the leadership of Chief James Jephthah (Etim 2008), who was very conversant with the ‘creeks’ and Ijaw militias, and had links with local political networks (Tell 2011, John 2011). It is significant that in terms of timing, the amnesty closely followed on the heels of a major operation in May 2009 by the military Joint Task Force targeting some militia camps in the Gbaramatu area of the western Niger Delta, destroying the camps and communities that were suspected of being sympathetic to their cause, but failing to prevent the escape of a prominent militia commander.
With regard to the inability of the military to completely neutralise the insurgents, the consultations preceding the PAP took the alternative ‘track’ of engaging mainly with militia commanders and their local patrons – those with the demonstrable capacity and connections to threaten oil interests, and not with members of the wider Niger Delta society. Apart from engaging the source of threat to continued (legitimate) access to oil (and power), the state also avoided engagement with popular organisations and environmental rights-based groups that had long adopted non-violent protest (and international campaigns) in pressuring government to address the deep-seated grievances and demands for social justice, equity and respect for the dignity and human rights of the Niger Delta people.
Such groups had earlier successfully opposed the appointment of Ibrahim Gambari, a UN Under-Secretary (and a former federal foreign affairs minister under the military) as mediator of the Niger Delta conflict. According to Oyefusi (2012), his rejection was based on their suspicion that that ‘the choice of Gambari represented the pursuit of sectional interests and a hidden government agenda’ (261). However, in response, the federal government ‘argued that the Niger Delta was a domestic problem and Nigerians were best qualified to solve it’ (Ibid.). Again, after the government abandoned the plan for a Niger Delta peace summit in 2008, it set up a 44-member Technical Committee on the Niger Delta (TCND), including several credible stakeholders and activists from the Niger Delta to, among other things, ‘make recommendations that would help the federal government achieve sustainable development, peace, human and environmental security in the Niger Delta region’ (TCND 2008, vi) and created a ministry for the Niger Delta in the same year. No government White Paper was issued on the TCND report, and neither were its recommendations taken forward or adopted.
Although the TCND did recommend the ‘establishment of a Disarmament, Decommission and Reintegration (DDR) Commission’, the PAP adopted a different approach to the DDR than that intended by the authors of the TCND. It was clear that the Nigerian governing elite, wary of the possible unintended consequences of international intervention (drawing on lessons from other African cases), decided to adopt a new process over which it had complete control and which could be amenable to patronage politics at the local, regional and national levels, while also protecting top state officials and networks involved in ‘complicit unions’ with Niger Delta militia groups.
From amnesty to post-amnesty
Thus, the amnesty was partly the result of the ‘behind the scenes’ activities of the Senator Brigidi-led presidential NDPCRC, governors of the Niger Delta states and politicians (Sampson 2007). It privileged the disarming and demobilisation of militias over other aspects of peace, and its insistence on dictating the terms of a ‘state-authored peace’, namely militants' surrender in exchange for government ‘pardon’ and ‘assistance’. The assistance took the form of training opportunities in non-violence, post-camp skills training, within and outside Nigeria, and the receipt of monthly stipends (N65,000) for former militia foot-soldiers and government and oil company largesse for erstwhile militia commanders.
The foregoing underscores three points: the PAP is state owned and seeks to co-opt/buy off armed groups in the Niger Delta that were clearly threatening state, elite and corporate oil interests, in the face of limited military success, amid accusations of military collusion with militants in the highly lucrative trade in illegally obtained oil. It also provides the Niger Delta elite with some leverage within the national elite using its connections to resolve the ‘militant threat’ to oil-based accumulation, while also reaping the rewards from the integration of erstwhile militant commanders into the networks around state and federal power. The PAP is a product and manifestation of dominant power and is not people centred or aimed at social development in the Niger Delta. As such it suffers from a lack both of legitimacy and of local rootedness, which is further compounded by reports of poor planning, corruption and mismanagement of resources (Aghedo 2012, 8–9; Nwajiaku-Dahou 2010; Oluwaniyi 2011; interviews with Allen, Ebiede, Nyiayaana 2011). Accessing the PAP in UN peacebuilding terms, Molly (2011, 129) is very critical, basically dismissing it as lacking credibility and being ‘essentially a temporary buy-off of current leaders without addressing the causal issues’.
Another important point is that the PAP is a state-led practice of peacebuilding using state (oil) resources, and anchored by a local Niger Delta elite working with a Nigerian ruling elite faction operating in partnership with a transnational elite to optimise oil extraction and production for the global market. It is also connected to the external legitimacy and relevance of the Nigerian state as a partner and guarantor of uninterrupted supply of oil from the Niger Delta (and profits) to the transnational petrolised alliance and the global oil market. The PAP was a strategic attempt by the Nigerian state to arrest an immediate threat to oil production posed by youth militancy spinning out of control.
It is therefore not far-fetched, as noted elsewhere, that the ‘amnesty failed to address either the roots of the conflict, or non-armed groups, who were victims of the violence in the region’ (Obi and Rustad 2011, 205). It also reflected the assumption of the framers of the amnesty that ‘the greatest threats to petro-business were armed militias and the proliferation of weapons in the region, and that once militias were taken out of the equation, stability would return’ (Ibid.). But beyond that, the amnesty also subordinated issues of accountability, transparency and justice to the expediency of state-sponsored, internationally accepted peace-from-above.
Beyond lacking a popular social base and legitimacy in the Niger Delta, the PAP has also lacked autonomy from local elites and national politics. As far back as the time President Yar'Adua proclaimed the amnesty programme, it had become another arena for factional politics within the Niger Delta elite (Obi and Rustad 2011, 207). For example, it pitched the (then) presidential adviser on the Niger Delta amnesty programme, Timi Alaibe, against Timipre Sylva, (then) governor of his home state, Bayelsa. Both men tried to outdo each other in getting militants to sign on to the amnesty, with each publicly claiming the credit for the calibre and number of ‘repentant’ ex-militants they got to ‘drop’ their arms in exchange for peace. There were also allegations that certain interests (a veiled reference to the governor) were sponsoring people claiming to be aggrieved Niger Delta militants to discredit or protest against the PAP (Kuku 2011). Given that both men had access to immense government resources at regional and federal levels, they were able to disburse a lot of patronage and largesse to ‘political entrepreneurs’, ex-militia leaders and political networks in pursuit of their struggle for supremacy in the contest for local political relevance and power.
This struggle between Alaibe and Sylva which came to a head in the contest for the state governorship elections in 2012 (in which both men eventually lost out) however had to contend with the reality of President Goodluck Jonathan's roots as an indigene of Bayelsa State and a major player (backed by federal power and resources) in Bayelsa politics. The logic of patronage politics and access to federally controlled oil revenues have played decisive roles in leveraging the President's protégé Seriake Dickson into the governorship seat, and expanding his political base in Bayelsa and the Niger Delta.
It has also involved dispensing oil largesse to allies, patron–client networks and co-opted erstwhile militia commanders. Recently, the Wall Street Journal carried a report stating how erstwhile Niger Delta militia commanders have been awarded security contracts by the state oil corporation running into millions of dollars (Hinshaw 2012). Part of the report notes that US$450 billion was budgeted for the PAP in 2012, underscoring the huge resources allocated to the programme, giving its operators considerable leverage to distribute largesse in a context characterised by low levels of accountability and ‘cash and carry’ politics. It is therefore not surprising that corruption, favouritism and exclusion have trailed the implementation of the programme.
As Nwajiaku-Dahou (2010, 10–11), has observed, ‘the criteria used to establish eligibility for inclusion were unclear, with the numbers of intended “beneficiaries” widely believed to have been inflated … free riders with little involvement in “the struggle” were also believed to have “surrendered” weapons in order to take advantage of this rare opportunity.’ Thus, the PAP has provided an opportunity for well-connected Niger Delta elites and ex-militia commanders to bring in their protégés or recruit unemployed youth posing as ‘ex-militants’, while excluding some genuine ex-fighters. This lack of transparency about eligibility and participation ties in with the political pathways through which some local interests manipulate and exploit the resources and opportunities presented by the PAP.
There is also the concern that the thousands of ex-fighters being trained within and outside the country may not find gainful employment after completing their vocational studies, and could in the medium to longer term become a disgruntled group of potential recruits for future remobilisation into violence (interview with Ebiede, 2011). Such concerns may not be entirely unfounded, given that most of the trainees are acquiring skills related to the oil and gas industry, which is capital-intensive, requiring rather few skilled and experienced professionals. There are also doubts concerning the quality of training the ex-militants are receiving or whether the training abroad will meet the local technical specificities of the Nigerian labour market or ease their reintegration into society. There is as yet little evidence to suggest that the PAP relates to other institutions like the Niger Delta Development Commission and the Niger Delta Ministry – both federal agencies ostensibly established to develop the region, but having little to show in terms of both institutional coordination or actual performance.
The PAP has become a site for state-connected accumulation and intra-elite rivalry, as various factions seek advantage in the pursuit of personal, present and future political agendas. In the final analysis, a political economy of the PAP suggests that the programme is directed at reproducing the dominant power relations in the Niger Delta in what may be characterised as the peace of the state, reinforcing the legitimacy and power of the hegemonic coalition of Niger Delta and national elites, and incorporating ‘prominent former Niger Delta militia commanders’ into the networks of patronage and power, as a strategy of ‘buying peace’ and facilitating the unhindered extraction of oil from the Niger Delta.
Thus, even though the chairman of the PAP adopted the rhetoric of a homegrown peacebuilding project, it fundamentally promoted a kind of peace connected to the reproduction of local elite interests and global energy security interests and to affirming the control of the Nigerian state over oil in the Niger Delta, thereby securing transnational oil interests. An important lesson from the PAP is that peacebuilding also reflects the capacity of the Nigerian state to define its notion and practice of peacebuilding, even if it does so in ways that respond to, and are influenced by, a host of strategic, economic and ideological considerations.
Conclusion: the PAP and the prospects for sustainable peace and development in the Niger Delta
The evidence so far suggests that the PAP is at best a fragile basis for sustaining peace and development in the oil-rich region in the medium to long term. There is no doubt that the acceptance of the PAP by the majority of ex-militia leaders, their co-optation by a Niger Delta elite and patronage by the state–oil partnership (formalised through joint venture agreements, contracts and class alliances) and the reality that an Ijaw man is the president of Nigeria are strong factors in reining in Niger Delta militancy. Now that an ethnic minority Ijaw from the Niger Delta is president, and in control of an oil-rich federal government, co-opted ex-militia leaders can better leverage access to patronage and arguably have too much at stake to endanger the PAP. They are also more likely to defend the programme as well as a government that apparently coaxed them from camps in the creeks of the Niger Delta to the corridors of oil-induced affluence in the capital, from others that may seek to subvert or challenge the PAP. The PAP has delivered to the government (rather than the people) the type of peace consistent with a status quo that maintains conditions for state ownership of oil, its optimal extraction in partnership with oil multinationals and the sharing of the spoils. However, the present situation of ‘no war, no peace’ can only last as long as the balance of forces on the ground remains tilted in favour of the pro-state ex-militia leaders.
The ‘buying of peace’ from political entrepreneurs and ex-militia commanders-turned contractors also exposes the soft underbelly of ‘homegrown peacebuilding’. Apart from the fragility of the current peace in the oil region, the persistence of adverse social and structural conditions, characterised by widespread poverty, wide socio-economic inequalities, youth unemployment and rising expectations, may likely act either as an incubator for another generation of militants to emerge in the future, or as the remobilisation of returnee ex-militants by their erstwhile benefactors as storm troopers in factional struggles for power and resources (interview with Ebiede, 2011). This scenario cannot be foreclosed for a number of reasons all fundamentally linked to the high stakes of controlling power both in the Niger Delta (that still remains militarised) and at the federal level.
There is also the point that the PAP and the continued presence of the military Joint Task Force (JTF) and private security contractors have not completely eliminated security threats in the Niger Delta. Of note are the increased levels of theft of crude oil in the region currently estimated to result in an estimated loss of US$1 billion monthly. The seriousness of the problem was recently driven home by Austen Oniwon, the group managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, who was quoted as informing a visiting delegation of the Nigerian House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum Resources (Upstream) that Nigeria was losing about 180,000 barrels of crude oil per day to oil thieves (Onwuemenyi 2012). This assumes greater significance against the background of a recent rise in piracy off Nigeria's coastal waters, with some reports implicating some former Niger Delta fighters (McNamee 2012, 6).
There is also evidence that the continued militarisation of the region provides opportunities for various actors: special military forces (including the JTF), security contractors, arms traders, and criminal and transnational oil interests to profit from the ‘no peace, no war’ situation in the region – a situation that continues to undermine any real steps towards sustainable peace and development in the region. The PAP has weak or non-existent linkages with other government agencies established to promote development in the oil region. It does not connect a wider programme of socio-economic transformation and everyday democracy in the Niger Delta in a way that addresses the grievances and demands of the people who desperately seek justice for decades of marginalisation and exploitation. Much like earlier policies that the Niger Delta people protested against, the PAP excludes any participation of the people in the management of their oil resources or in the process of post-conflict reconstruction.
What then are the prospects for change in the Niger Delta? Given the weakening of local pro-democracy, environmental rights civil society and resistance movements like MOSOP, and the co-optation of the Ijaw Youth Council and many ethnic minority organisations by Niger Delta elites with connections to federal power under the Jonathan presidency, it would appear that the social forces struggling for the democratic transformation of the Niger Delta and Nigeria are in retreat. Yet, there are episodic stirrings of forces of protest and resistance which suggest that the potential for democratic renewal and social transformation aimed at liberating the people from exploitative hegemonic forces continues to simmer.
A transfer of power to the real representatives of the people, the diversification of the local economy in ways that advance forward and backward linkages to the oil and gas industry and the establishment of a political process that is socially just and transparent and promotes the participation of the majority of the people in governance will make both ruling elites and the oil and gas industry more accountable and responsive to the environmental and collective interests of the people of the Niger Delta. At the heart of a thoroughgoing project of social and structural transformation of the Niger Delta and Nigeria along more equitable, socially just and peaceful lines lies the emergence of a visionary, democratic and developmental leadership that can literally change the course of history and lay the foundation for sustainable development and peace in the oil-rich region.