Niger Delta Crisis: Which Way Forward?

Everyday we hear of the crisis in the niger delta . we hear of abductions and sabotage et all.

but really what is the cause of this fracas?

The niger deltans argue that they produce the bulk of the wealth of the nation, from proceeds of crude oil, which is gotten from their land. They argue that government does not compensate them for their loses which occur from the prospects of this crude by the expatriates. They argue that their farm lands have been destroyed, their waters polluted by oil spillage, that they have no infrastrctures etc .

They have dialogued with govt lots of times without their demands being met. They feel so aggrieved, that they, feel taking up arms is the only way out since govt has refused to see their plight.

Hmmmm. my people, do you feel this is the way out, or are there other ways out for the Niger Deltans?

Just search this site and all the answers you will find all the answers.

Try these ones

www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-3723.0.html
www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-5553.0.html
www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-7415.0.html

@owo: thanks a million for supplying those links.

d way forward? disband d militant groups. dey r doing more harm dan good & r very greedy.

STATE Security Service (SSS) operatives in Delta State are now on the trail of a Warri-based female socialite said to be a sponsor of militants operating in the Niger-Delta region just as about 300 militants have either fled the region or gone into hiding since the SSS and the Joint Military Task Force (JMTF) in the Niger-Delta commenced separate but synchronized manhunt for them about a fortnight ago.


Sunday Vanguard reliably gathered that the female financier, said to be a younger sister of a commissioner in one of the South-South states and woman friend to one of arrowheads of the Niger-Delta struggle, escaped from her Warri abode, last week.


Investigations by Sunday Vanguard showed that the widespread search for militants and audacious incursions into the once deified hideouts of the various gangs that specialized in the kidnapping of foreign oil workers for ransom in Rivers, Bayelsa and Delta states by security operatives made the woman to flee.

She was said to have recently given out N1 million to some militants for an undisclosed project before security operatives got to her deserted residence.
Last Wednesday in Warri, men of the SSS also ransacked the house of an Ijaw leader suspected to be involved in oil bunkering.

A security source, who disclosed this to Sunday Vanguard, asserted that “because the SSS has a list containing the names and addresses of the militants, the boys felt the game was up and took to their heels when they saw the dexterous manner the leader and some members of one of the feared kidnap gangs, including a government official that facilitated payment of ransom to militants, were picked up after they were lured to Asaba”.

Investigations by Sunday Vanguard showed that the region witnessed a respite in the last two weeks with no reported case of kidnap unlike the preceding two weeks during which an average of one person was kidnapped every two days.
Flight to London

Sunday Vanguard learnt that one of the kingpins who made good money from the business fled to London when the heat from the security agents on his trail became too hot. He was shocked by the dossier on him and in, collaboration with his partners-in-crime, a decision was taken for him to escape because so many things would happen if he was caught and forced to spill the beans.

Many others were said to have traveled. It is believed that their plan was to see how the security agents would sustain the present crackdown on militants. But security sources said the plan was not to give them a breathing space but flush out kidnappers, particularly moneymaking hostage takers’ from the region.

Some of them fled leaving their vehicles and girlfriends and just a week or more outside their traditional home ground, a number of them were said to be feeling like fishes out of water in their new abodes.

Case files opened on government accomplices

Sunday Vanguard gathered that case files had been opened on the alleged role of some elected and appointed government officials in the kidnap business in the region. Security agents decided to investigate them following what a source described as revelations by some of the kidnappers already in custody on how they abetted and aided the business. It is a poignant blow to most of them who were feeding fat on the pay-offs from some of the state governments but they were also understood to be doing everything possible to cover their tracks, including lobbying and pressing button to stop their being invited for questioning in connection with kidnap.

Our source, a top security officer in the region, said: “If these politicians and government officials make the mistake of getting involved in any kidnap case again, we will pick them up and tell them that we have dossier on all they have been doing since. It is because they get involved in the past by collecting money from governors for these boys that the criminal act became a lucrative business for them”.
The intelligence reports on the affected persons have reportedly been forwarded to Abuja and the directive is that all the suspected accomplices be put on surveillance.
How the kidnap “industry” was paralyzed

“For those who don’t know, even if they are wont to deny it, this kidnap thing is masterminded mainly by some Ijaw youths and the network of their communities along the coast of the states in the Niger-Delta is wonderful but Delta State is no doubt the tactical headquarters, while Rivers State is the cash cow followed by Bayelsa State. Edo, Akwa-Ibom, Cross River and Ondo states are not so much in the reckoning of the militants business wise. It took us time but when we found out that the kidnappers in most of the cases took off from Delta State, we decided to pick them up, and as we did that, we were able to send panic into the various syndicates. And because the leaders who do the conceptualization and planning from Delta State are on the run, the boys who execute the drawn-out programme in Rivers and Bayelsa states for instance have been left without shepherds”, an informed source hinted. However, the spokesman of the Ijaw Youth Council, Mr. Peter Ajube, in an interview denied that hostage taking and vandalization of oil facilities in the region were the handiwork of Ijaw youths. He said that criminal elements had infiltrated the struggle and cashed-in on the crisis to make money.

Ijaw happy with the clean up

Clearly, there is a difference between those kidnapping for the struggle and those kidnapping for money but, in all, kidnapping for whatever reason is wrong and it’s a criminal offence. However, if one were to gauge the mood of the Ijaw nation on the crackdown by security agents on kidnappers, the truth, according to the national president of the Federated Niger-Delta Ijaw Communities (FNDIC), an influential Ijaw body, Chief (Dr) Bello Oboko, was that the Ijaw nationality is happy with the move by security agents to get rid of commercial kidnappers.

Oboko told Sunday Vanguard in Warri, last Wednesday, that it was because the Ijaw nation was not happy with the activities of commercial kidnappers that the FNDIC was mandated by Ijaw leaders at a meeting in Bayelsa State on Thursday, August 17 to proceed to Letugbene in Bayelsa State to rescue the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) worker, Comrade Nelson Ujeya, now deceased, that was kidnapped by Letugbene youths on August 8.

He said it was unfortunate that the boys who went for the rescue mission were shot dead by men of the Joint Military Task Force (JMTF) in the Niger-Delta, August 20, on their way back with the hostage.

The FNDIC leader said that before the Letugbene case, the group had had cause to disown the moneymaking hostage takers in Rivers and Bayelsa states, saying: “In reality, the struggle is not to take foreigners hostage and make money from it, our struggle is to draw government attention, whether federal, state or local to the underdevelopment in the region, particularly Ijaw land, and enjoin them to develop the areas since oil exploration and exploitation activities have degraded our environment and deprived our people of their means of survival”.

Oboko said that it was the same way FNDIC intervened when the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) kidnapped nine expatriate oil workers in Delta State purportedly as human shields and bombed oil installations following the bombardment of some Ijaw villages by the JMTF, some months ago, that it intervened in the Letugbene case only for its peace emissaries to be killed.

http://www.vanguardngr.com/articles/2002/cover/september06/10092006/f210092006.html

see what i have been saying since? it is money dey r after. let me get back to work.

tanx a lot sijien. tanx also for d links owo. we all knw dat these ppl r afta money. wen i say these ppl, i refer t govt and d top ppl in d niger delta. govt collect sums of cash t allow d foreign oil companies do as they please, and d leaders in these areas collect cash t keep their ppl under check. me i cant blame d militants, though they r goin about fings in d wrong way. the ppl in these areas dnt av electricity, water, bridges, schools, name it. nd d whiteys thr r livin large nd even dating d local gurls nd leaving em pregnant. so d guys thr r pissd.

walaty, i used 2 b on d side of people who said d oil companies r not doing enuff until i joined spdc . i am now privy 2 facts & figures & have seen dat dis whole thing is about greed. every party here is greedy from d govt down 2 d militants. what finallybutressed dat thinking is dat my class went 4 a field trip and militants surrounded us,but let us go when dey saw dat dere was no whitey with us. if dey were interested in freedom, dey would have taken us, abi dont u agree?

@sijien,

who you be wey do go kidnap you? in the past, most governments had paid lip service to the development of the region which led to so much aberation in the name of - militants, area fathers, king makers etc. even the oil companies have some unclean hands inside but you choost to overlook all such and heap the blame 100% on the host communities.

@Sijien,
what facts and figures do you have?
What do you  know? I challenge you again, to present them here and I will provide five times more figures, fact (more authenntic) than yours to prove that you are dead wrong in the premise and conclusion on this issue.

You sound too naive. Do you know everyone on this forum? Do youknow the information that they have? Have you even been confirmed on the job?  Why don't you say what you know and leave it at that.
Be careful before you put yourself in some trouble.

Where were you when over 50 IKO (in Ikot Abasi, Akwa Ibom) people were killed for daring to protest the acid rain (caused by large flares) which made them to change their roofs every 9 months? Did they tell you about that in your SITP class of yesterday?
Where were you when Shell sent a lawyer to observe all the proceedings in the "Kangaroo court" that sentenced Ken Saro-Wiwa to death? Did tehy tell you about it in your SITP class?

Are you alive in that same shell that has created jobs for their people that were redundant  because the North sea fields are declining? Why did they not send them to North America where they have a "large" operation? Did they tell you that in your SITP class?

Have they told you that Shell was there in Bonny for almost 40 years (before NLNG came along) and the only serious thing that they gave to the community was a library that nobody uses?

Have they told you that the Niger Delta generates almost a quarter of Shell group's profits?

How can you be so naive in this day and age when you can have access to almost any information that you want?

I put it to you that you do not know the history, current realities or real desires of the Niger Delta  peoples.

Unknown to you and your sponsors, the struggle for the fulfilment of the dream of the Delta's peoples has gotten to an intellectual level therefore, it will not die until it is accomplished.

abeg owo, kudos to you. you are saying exactly what i want to hear. if i might point out, you forgot to mention the killing of the odi people. we must agree that the oll companies are greedy and they conive with our greedy leaders to reap the people off.

Why does the presidency keep tolerating this miscreate treatment from this people? why can't we as a nation deal with this issue ones and for all, I do not condole innocent killing but this people are creating havoc in this region.

5 Soldiers Killed, 9 Missing in Militants Attack
http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=59788

Related topics:
- Niger Delta: What Is The Problem?
- Movement For The Emancipation Of The Niger Delta (MEND)
- Niger Delta Militants In Pictures
- Niger Delta Is Like Vietnam?

Odeku, if you are not very careful you will be kidnapped too.

ishmael , How can you kidnap the person you can't see? this region and their action is becoming intolerable you don't go ahead and start killing the messenger of peace, this soldiers that were killed were doing their job, this are someones kid, someones husband and the action of this militants is barbaric. i am curious what is the population of this region? why can't the chief of Army staff send in battalions and flush the whole town out once and for all, send a clear message that there will be sever consequences when you kill military boys.

yes, the soldiers are people's children, while the militants and people of niger-delta region are children of gorillas abi?? Watch your tongue o.

a military solution will not work, so try as you might to flush them out, it wont end. did it work in israel, or aparthied south africa? Fact is if they gov doesnt come to the table to develop the region this will go on.

beside the mismanagement of the $12 billion by IBB. come to Lagos and see how people are suffering and smiling, 99 standing in Molue and 25 sitting. you don't see us going out killing and kidnapping people do you?

any act of abduction is barbaric and will never get your point across, its an act of terrorist and since they are resulting to killing and kidnapping , we as Nigeria should give them a taste of their own medicine and see how they like it. Bombaclot.

remember the ANC were considered terrorists in souh africa and today are not only the ruling party but seen as the ideal for leadership on the continent.

and peope in lagos r not attacking anyone because they know that the little they suffer comes from the niger dealta, they know the niger delta is much worse

The problems in the Niger Delta region, loss of electricity, and everything that is happening to this country right now is because of the idiots call the North. Nigeria is just 46 years old and the north ruled 35 years out of it and Obasanojo the remaining. Nigerian dreams right now is to see that no Northerners can rule this country for another 35 years because they will destroy the country and bring in to the 9th century while the world is in 21th century. The Northerners want Nigeria to become even poorer than what we are and also they want us to beg other countries for Food because it is their culture to be backward and stupid.

Good point, and my question is still unanswered, MR obong are you justifying this kidnapping and killing of soldier as a means of getting attention in this region? you can't compare apple to orange. the issue in South Africa is totally different than the one in Niger Delta, corruption is not the same thing as suppression, what are the senators from this region doing? what is the governor doing, this people were elected to speak for the people, and yet they haven't done a good job. so if you want to kill someone or kidnap someone, go after IBB, your governor, and the senators.

It is a multi-faceted problem which cant be resolved by military invasion by d f.g. nor the militant nature of d inhabitants. Yes agreed oil exploration in d region in d past has been unfair in terms of development,employment e.t.c but in d same vein d leaders of d region hav contributed also to d decadence inherent dere.

we have argued dis in different threads n will continue to do so

Let's put it like this, the military option can solve the crisis, if and only if the people that implement it are cold hearted enough to take lessons set forth by Niccolo Macchiavelli, Deng Xiao-Ping and a certain Iosef Dzhugashvili. . .

I doubt that that can happen nowadays. Until later, I'm out people.

Let the military continue their operations there no problem, but body go tell dem too. Sebi dem sef dey get casaulties. Secondly northerners have not done anything wrong; lets put on all the blames on those who have served in various government. Has Obasanjo been able to address the issue? Is he a northerner?

I do not condone the action of the militant group, but it is very important to listen to them and view things from another angle. This situation could be resolved with an effective strategy, but most of our leaders are not creative; they are too busy stealing and implicating one another (childish uncivilized game).

FYI:
I believe conoil and associates have implemented a solution. They've promised to develop the state and makesure that the local people are benefiting from the oil profit.
The group needs to slow down and be patient; Conoil usually comes through or stands by their promise.

@ ALL

THE ANSWER IS BLOWING IN THE WIND,

ALL IT TAKES IS COMMON SENSE, TO SETTLE THE SITUATION IN NIGER DELTA,

THESE PEOPLE ARE NOT BORN-ANIMALS, THEY ACTUALLY REQUIRE SOMETHING, WHAT IS IT? THEY WANT THE GOVERNMENT TO CREATE A BETTER LIFE FOR THEM, WHY CAN'T THE GOVERNMENT DO THIS? AT LEAST THEY ARE PUMPING OILS FROM THEIR LAND, THEY ARE EVEN VERY NICE, THEY ARE NOT ASKING FOR MONEY, THEY ARE ASKING FOR HEALTHCARE, SCHOOLS, E.T.C. ITS A SHAME ON NIGERIA THAT THE VILLAGES THAT GENERATES OIL IS ONE OF THE POOREST, PLEASE VOTE FOR ME SO THAT I CAN REPAIR NIGERIA AND STOP ALL THIS RACISM BETWEEN YORUBA AND IBO AND HAUSA,

It's a pity there hasn't been a lasting solution to the problem in Niger-Delta . It's casualty today and abduction tomorrow etc. I think, the problem is not the Government and other Stakeholders not being able to satisfy the need of the people only, but also problems within the people themselves . There are some idiots siphoning the money meant for the development of these areas, you know how we do here but that doesn't conclude Government and Stakeholders have done all they need to do, they still have more to do too.

The government neglected the people of Niger Delta and now they are reeping what they sowed, the current Niger Delta violence is a result of their uncalled for actions, but they are not simply sleeping, I won't be surprised if a statistics came out saying that the amount of money invested in the Delta had increased by 20%. The Niger delta dilemma is one that is of two significant seperate problems one is the neglection of the Nigeria delta people the Itsekiris and the Ijaws but number two is  the refusal of the federal government to respond to the demands of the Militants, the government have now seena need to de-elevate poverty in the area and a lot of money is now been invested but the more difficult crisis of negotiating with the militants is far more displeasing, the government cannot simply give the militants what they want, how can they return a man like Asari Dokubo to his organisation, some say that he is an activist but the man is clearly a terrorist that is a disfunctional leader of a terrorist organistion, the MEND and the less inferior militant organistaions are terrorist organistions like Hamas, The Tamil Tigers or Hizbollah, but the militants can not be treated in the same approach simply because of what they represent or what they say they represent, a big problem was created the second that the militants decided to step up and speak for the people of the niger delta, but the goverment because of their past sins are not in a position to announce them as such people, that's why the niger delta issue is much more than just neglection ------------peace------------

Abeg wetting una dey talk about, government no neglet us for Lagos carry all the work go abuja? we no kill no man, now all this people are shouting people are saying this, tell me wettin government do this people wey other states no dey suffer beside the hausa people. no matter wettin government do for this people dem go always want more, its a ransome, you never pay or give in or you will regrete, send mobile police go there with suger cane nd beat their head

That's another problem, money was invented and jobs created so that wealth could be shared according to labour. So therefore the people of the Niger Delta simplycan't expect to get their oils worth of money because they are a part of a nation and resources should not be distributed based on geography but rather on population, there needs to be an order for this to be effective and this can't be enforced until the militants are rmoved that leads e to discussing the plan, seperating then by the use of force, this is not a problem that can be solved by brains and negotiating the government have already tried that but that doesn't seem to exist in the vocabulary of the militants and the Ijaw people. The government wil have to use force at one stage or another but preferably i would suggest that they save the arms for the later stages and not for the lather, if they seperate the interests of the people of the delta from that of the militants then they can apply force thus creating peace but when peace as been created the state of peace in the area will remain fragile beacuse of the problem of distribution, I'm quarter delta so i think i've got a bit of say in this. ----------peace-----------

Good point, and my question is still unanswered, MR obong are you justifying this kidnapping and killing of soldier as a means of getting attention in this region? you can't compare apple to orange. the issue in South Africa is totally different than the one in Niger Delta, corruption is not the same thing as suppression, what are the senators from this region doing? what is the governor doing, this people were elected to speak for the people, and yet they haven't done a good job. so if you want to kill someone or kidnap someone, go after IBB, your governor, and the senators

in nigeria the ND are bein suppressed also. its not just corruption. when they arrest your civil leaders, hang them, ahoot them, bomb your communities, destroy your farm and fishing fields, among other things, its certainly opporession.

ok, i agree some of the leaders of the ND are to blame. but frankly until recently they havent been given much of the oil money. with an increasing share we can see some positive changes in that region. the distractions like alams is simply a ploy by obj to make that region appear corrupt. from all appearances obj has stolen more than alams

Let's put it like this, the military option can solve the crisis, if and only if the people that implement it are cold hearted enough to take lessons set forth by Niccolo Macchiavelli, Deng Xiao-Ping and a certain Iosef Dzhugashvili. . .

I doubt that that can happen nowadays. Until later, I'm out people.

even that force wont work. the feds have to implement a plan. only ideas and results will defeat the ND militants. if they produce a donald duke liek effect on the ntire region people will stop carrying guns

But such a harmonious dreamcannot be achieved in a state of violence