•We have suffered total neglect after Yar’Adua
•When we strike, it will be devastating
By Emma Obe
Masked faces, bands on their arms, tattoos on their bodies and faces, they cut a menacing picture.

Add to that, the croaky, hoarse voices, literally belching smoke from their mouths and nostrils.

They say they are not joking. Of course, no one thinks so, especially beholding the machete-clutching and gun-wielding group: The new militants in the oil-rich, but troubled Nigeria’s Niger Delta.

Recently, they made public their anger against the Nigerian state: gross neglect of the region, squalor and abject poverty, abandonment of the benefits of the amnesty programme initiated by the late President Shehu Yar’Adua administration, among others.

Findings by THISNIGERIA reveal that the militants in the Niger Delta are not about to let go in their five-point demand, provoking further tension in the region.

There are threats by the aggrieved groups to carry out “massive actions” that will deal a devastating blow on not only the region but also the nation’s political and economic hubs, if their demands are not met.

Our correspondent gathered that the agitators are planning to strike if the authorities fail to urgently address the needs of the region. There are unconfirmed stories making the rounds of alleged stockpiling of arms and ammunition by the militant groups.

Ondo2020: Ijaw Communities in Edo express concern over militants presence

Some ex-militant leaders when contacted to respond to the development would rather not talk. 

It is not clear if their dissatisfaction is responsible for the recent rise in the cases of violent activities in the creeks and waterways in the region, especially in Rivers, Bayelsa and Delta states, where piracy, kidnapping and oil bunkering are being frequently reported.

An ex-agitator in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, Okolo James, said, “That was the situation in the dying days of President (Olusegun) Obasanjo administration before attacks on oil pipelines and installation and kidnapping of oil workers became widespread”.

Yar’Adua, in 2009, inaugurated the Presidential Amnesty Programme, which restored peace to the region and rejuvenated the nation’s collapsing economy because of the stampeding of oil production in the Niger Delta by the militants.

Under the programme, repentant militants were granted pardon and availed empowerment packages. Some others too received local and international scholarships.

Now, agitators in the region have said that the amnesty armistice has collapsed, and there are emerging signals that the peace in the oil -rich region might crash again.

James added, “As it was in those days, there is a growing army of young people who are agitated. It is either they did not benefit from the amnesty programme or were too young to be captured into the programme. But the bottom line is that they are legitimately agitated.”

A few days ago, a video released by a Nigerian TV station went viral, revealing armed young Ijaw militants in military camouflage reading out a text shelling out a five-point demand and threatening to attack oil installations and pipelines in the Niger Delta, and even launching attacks on Abuja and Lagos to drive home their point.

The group, which goes by the name, the Supreme Egbesu Liberation Fighters, accused the Nigerian government of failing to deliver on its obligations in the Presidential Amnesty Programme.

The group complained about the failure of the government to provide education, running water, electricity, health facilities and access roads.

It also raised issues about the slow progress in the Ogoni clean-up, which they said the government was using as a political bait. It similarly asked that the region be allowed to manage its natural resources “the way Zamfara State gold mining sector is being handled by their own people”.

The group noted that despite concerted efforts by the people of the Niger Delta to create an enabling atmosphere for peace in the region, the government had betrayed their trust.

“Rather, what is visible is the presence of military gunboat and the numerous military personnel dispersed to the Niger Delta who are killing, raping, and maiming the innocent people of the region”, it added.

The group nominated ex-President Goodluck Jonathan and Nyesom Wike, governor of Rivers State, to mediate between it and the federal government.

Efe Nwanogor, a Port Harcourt-based security expert, attributed the renewed threats by militants in the Niger Delta to the seeming rapprochement between the federal government and bandits, whose negotiators had rather trivialised the Niger Delta struggle by comparing it with the banditry going on in the north.

He queried, “I suspect that the militants in the Niger Delta or ex-agitators are trying to show that they are still very present. And if you cast your mind back to the pre-amnesty period and the time of the amnesty, apart from stipends that was being paid to some people that were given some training with regard to the issues that precipitated the entire struggle in the Niger Delta area, has any been met?

“So, I think that that may not be far from why the ex-agitators are making it a point now. Why pamper criminals who exist for the mere case of criminality. You must not pamper criminality. Those who have genuine reason to be angry at the system, you must meet them at the point of their need. You must be seen to be doing something to assuage the anguish, the grievances that exist.”

One development that has fanned the embers of the rage in the Niger Delta is the unsatisfactory management of the Presidential Amnesty Programme. Very recently it was revealed that the Amnesty Office returned N26bn to the federal treasury after it failed to pay contractors and settle other outstanding bills.

An ex-militant commander, General Ebi John, warned that the return of the N26bn to the federal treasury would spell doom for the Federal Government.

He said, “As I speak to you, 90 per cent of vendors and contractors were not paid. The disadvantage of the return of the N26bn unspent fund is that thousands of ex-agitators who were waiting for their vendors to call them for training and empowerment are stranded at home”.

Though the Egbesu group listed the withdrawal of the security surveillance contract previously given to indigenous companies as one way that the government has removed empowerment from the people of the region, Mark Aladun said there are many ways by which the Federal Government has shut down the economies around which the people get empowerment.

He said, “You can take a cursory look at the state of things in the Niger Delta and reach your own conclusion. The major industries which previously sustained life in the region have been shut down since this government came to power. In Warri, Shell has moved. The refinery has not been working for many years. The Warri ports have also been down. Sapele is a ghost of its former self.

“If you come to Port Harcourt, the Port Harcourt quays are idle and rusting. The Port Harcourt refinery has been out of operations for a long time. So those who even operate around the Port Harcourt depot don’t have where to go. They are creating a huge oil and gas hub in Lagos where they will redirect oil and gas industries to and then shut down the region.

“Though the Onne Port is open, since the government frustrated Intels out of business, there is little that is going on there. Most of the cargo that should have been Onne-bound is redirected to Lagos ports. Take a look at the Akwa Ibom and Calabar axis. They have used intractable legal tussles to frustrate the Aluminium Smelting Company at Ikot Abasi, which would have energised the axis. They are not serious about the Brass NLNG project.”

Wuwu Gomba, a lawyer in Port Harcourt laments the infrastructure decay in the region. “The major road that links the region, the East-West road is still uncompleted. What will it take the Federal government to complete this all-important road?” he asked.

Gomba draws attention to the development of solid infrastructure in the north and southwest and wonders why the Federal Government has not thought it fit to do a similar thing in the Niger Delta where the oil and gas that runs the economy is mined.

“See how much they are spending on the railways between Lagos and Ibadan, between Katsina and Niger republic. Look at the functioning railway system between Abuja and Kaduna. Don’t we deserve that here?

Some of the agitators have also called attention to what they said is a deliberate agenda to kill or frustrate interventionist agencies in the Niger Delta like the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs and the Niger Delta Basin Development Authority.

“Since the APC took over power, NDDC has had no less than six management boards. And only one of them was properly constituted. Even then, it did not serve out its term. How can any commission that is so unstable carry out its functions?” asked John Obele, a Port Harcourt-based Niger Delta activist.

He added, “Look at the Ministry of Niger Delta. It has been engrossed in mindless politics since Senator Godswill Akpabio took over. Only a few days ago, Governor Nyesom Wike alleged that the NDDC was only engaged in removing governors. Can you imagine that?”  

Governor Wike who hosted the Senate Committee on the Niger Delta last week in Port Harcourt passed a vote of no confidence on the commission. He condemned the commission for failing to take on legacy projects that will not only stand the test of time but would provide the needed development the people of the region deserve.

Meanwhile, the Public Relations Officer of the Joint Task Force Operations in the Niger Delta, Major Victor Olukoya, declined comments on the developments in the region.

According to him, there is recent directive from defence headquarters for them not to grant press interviews.