by Robyn Dixon
15-11-05
Separatist leader Mujahid Dokubo-Asari,
who signed a peace treaty with the government last autumn, chooses his words
carefully. His only aim, he says, is the disintegration of Nigeria, through
violent struggle if necessary.
"Armed struggle is my life," he said at his Port Harcourt headquarters in
September -- shortly before police arrested him on treason charges.
The populist warlord, who helped drive up international oil prices last year
when he threatened "all-out war" in the region, is believed to control thousands
of militants in the coastal Niger Delta, where most of the country's oil is
found. Dokubo-Asari's rhetoric about popular control of the oil resources of the
Niger Delta and his bitter condemnations of Nigeria's authorities echo the
widespread anger and frustration in many communities in the delta region over
the lack of any benefits trickling to local people from oil.
Nigeria supplies about 10 % of US oil and has been growing in importance as a
supplier. Oil accounts for about 95 % of the country's exports. But the delta is
a volatile cocktail of warlords, oil thieves, corrupt government officials and
unemployed youths.
Ten years after Nigerian authorities executed Niger Delta writer and
community activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, popular anger and unrest continue to grow,
while warnings of a calamitous slide into violence abound. Saro-Wiwa campaigned
for a greater share of oil wealth for the population and protested environmental
damage, but little progress has been made since his death.
Dokubo-Asari's warning about the potential for a violent explosion in the delta
is not an isolated opinion.
"Unless something drastic is done, there will not be peace around here. There's
going to be trouble," prominent human rights activist Anyakwee Nsirimovu said.
With the decline in traditional occupations like fishing and farming because
of environmental degradation, many young people are easily recruited into
militias or crime cartels, which get their funding from oil "bunkering," or
theft. Dokubo-Asari openly admits taking oil from pipelines and selling it. He
doesn't regard it as stealing.
"We take the oil. It's on our land. We take it and use it the way we want to,
and there's nothing the Nigerian state can do about it. The oil belongs to our
people, and we have every right to take it. We sell it," he said before his
arrest for reportedly calling Nigeria an "evil entity."
After his threats of war, Dokubo-Asari and leaders of other militias signed a
peace treaty late last year and handed in weapons in return for cash. His
comments threatening to resume his armed struggle since then led to his arrest
for treason.
A December 2003 report by WAC Global Services for Shell, the largest producer in
the region, warned of a "growing cadre of irretrievable youths" exposed to
crime, illegal weapons and violence.
"The pool of foot soldiers for criminal and radical political groups is
large. One day's worth of illegal oil bunkering in the Niger Delta will buy
quality weapons for and sustain a group of 1,500 youths for two months," the
report said.
"It is important to note that illegal oil bunkering is probably the most
significant accelerator of conflict in the Niger Delta," it said. "The sheer
amount of money and criminal networks involved means that conflicts in the
region are likely to become increasingly criminalized [and therefore entrenched]
and well funded."
Estimating the number of annual killings related to oil theft at 1,000, the
report said the violence posed a threat not only to future oil operations but to
Nigerian national security.
"The criminalisation and political economy of conflicts in the region mean that
the basis for escalated, protracted and entrenched violence is rapidly being
established."
After Dokubo-Asari and his lawyer were arrested, his militia occupied and
closed down oil facilities and threatened to blow up pipelines and platforms
across the delta, but soon retreated. His militia, the Niger Delta People's
Volunteer Force, has so far refrained from a return to violent struggle in the
wake of his arrest.
In September, Dokubo-Asari bragged about his militia's strength, claiming to
have more than 1 mm militants ready to fight.
"Arms are available everywhere. There's never a problem with arms," he said,
declaring that the Nigerian military could not control the delta or prevent oil
theft. "They try, they have military patrols, but this place belongs to us. The
oil belongs to us. The creeks belong to us. The environment belongs to us."
Dokubo-Asari wants to see international oil companies leave the country,
because "if they leave, the lifeline for the Nigerian state will be cut off. The
Nigerian state would crumble, and the machinery of oppression and environmental
degradation would not continue."
One community, Rukpokwu, just outside Port Harcourt, closed Shell facilities in
a weeklong August protest over what residents called a poor cleanup job by
contractors after a pipeline spill in December. Shell responded that the
community had frustrated initial efforts to contain the spill by demanding cash
payments for access to the area.
Shell was forced to withdraw from another delta region, Ogoniland, in 1993 in
the face of public opposition.
Ledum Mitee, spokesman for the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People,
the group Saro-Wiwa founded, accused the company and its contractors of "divide
and rule" tactics, bribing certain people or offering contracts to circumvent
community opposition and get its work done in the region, which has half a mm
people and massive oil reserves. Mitee faced trial with Saro-Wiwa and is often
seen as his successor.
One community chief in the Ogoni village of Kegbara Dere, Clement Goni Badom,
said people were still so opposed to the company that calling someone an agent
of Shell was like using a swear word. The company said that it would only return
to the area if welcomed by the community. Despite the anger, the company argued,
communities have turned to Shell to address poverty in the region instead of
looking to the government.
Shell said it had adopted a new approach across the delta region, abolishing ad
hoc payments to communities or individuals to get access to sites.
Activist Nsirimovu said Shell's policies were "beautiful on paper. But those
standards don't apply here."
Baakpa Birabil, 60, a farmer in Kegbara Dere, is angry that his small plot of
land was destroyed in a spill two years ago.
"My anger is toward Shell, who just came to my land and exploited it without
leaving anything for me. You can see we are very poor people." He said people
had expected good things when the oil companies first arrived, decades ago.
"We never expected it would bring bad things," he said.
Source: The Times