“We are being oppressed, pushed to the wall on various fronts, which is why we have picked up the challenge to be the outlaws this government will have to contend with till daily production of oil is reduced to zero in the Niger Delta…”
This signature tune announcing the Niger Delta Avengers, the new face of economic terrorism in the oil rich region, might have set the stage for another unproductive confrontation between the Federal Government and some renegade militants in the region. This newspaper considers this new challenge a test of President Muhammadu Buhari’s statesmanship. What the conundrum demands, we urge, is circumspection and not brinksmanship.
The resurgence of militancy in the Niger Delta region began last month when oil installations were targets of concerted bomb attacks by some renegades. Blown up were major crude oil and gas pipelines to the Chevron Nigeria Limited’s Tank Farm in Warri South West Local Government Area; the main crude line from Makaraba through Otunana and Abiteye to Escravos; the Olero to Escravos gas line; and the Nigeria Gas Company owned Escravos-Warri-Abuja-Lagos pipelines. The Forcados Terminal Pipeline has elongated the list of oil facility casualties in the region. However, unlike last month’s acts, where no group claimed responsibility, the unveiling of Niger Delta Avengers would serve as a working clue for the nation’s security workforce.
That Nigeria has had to confront this monster again at a time the lethality of Boko Haram-induced insurgency in the North East region of the country has seriously abated is very unfortunate. It is unfortunate because the administration of the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua invested heavily in the Amnesty Programme that has brought and sustained peace in the region. This high sacrifice made by the nation is now being rubbished by the prospect of a long drawn confrontation that will do us no good. President Buhari should take measured and tempered steps to douse the rising tension in the region.
At its peak in 2009, insurgency in the Niger Delta region reportedly cut Nigeria’s oil output by over 50 percent and cost her about N4 billion daily in counter-insurgency operations. The faithful implementation of the Yar’Adua administration’s New Deal by his successor, President Goodluck Jonathan, sufficiently pacified the region. The deal, which consumed yearly between N70 billion and N86 billion from 2010 to 2015 in the training of the militants locally and abroad and for taking care of monthly stipends of N65, 000, underscores the supreme sacrifice made by the Nigerian state in the region.
Not to be forgotten is the establishment by the Federal Government of the Ministry of Niger Delta and Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) for intermediation measures aimed at ameliorating the socioeconomic and environmental conditions of the region. It will be a pity for the nation if President Buhari is not able to consolidate the gains of the amnesty programme, especially against the backdrop of the current effort by his administration to implement a Marshall Plan for the rebuilding of the North East region of the country, whose cost is put at over N2 trillion.
Though the resurgence of militancy in the region coincided with the time Chief Government Ekpemupolo alias Tompolo, one of the ex-warlords, was embroiled in some brush with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over alleged corruption, the nation must avoid hasty conclusion that interprets the renewed hostility as efforts by Tompolo and his sympathisers to armtwist the Federal Government into mellowing the prosecution of the ongoing anti-corruption war as it affects the ex-warlord. It is instructive that Tompolo, has repeatedly distanced himself from the unsavoury development, describing his link to the criminality as a plan by his opponents to set him up for destruction. So, his case must be treated in isolation. There are indications of a latent implosion in the region.
The planned reduction of amnesty programme appropriation in the 2016 budget from N68 billion to N20 billion had created some disquiet in the region. One of the fallouts is the regrouping of some exmilitants that perceive themselves to be holding the short end of the stick. Last September, Operation Pulo Shield (OPS), formerly Joint Task Force (JTF) in Delta State, stumbled on one of the camps of these renegades during one of their raids. Apart from the rumoured 2016 budget cut, most of the over 150, 000 trained ex-militants have remained unemployed after such expensive training locally and abroad.
And there is also the invidious interplay of politics. Painstaking investigation of the ongoing brigandage in the region to sift the wheat from the chaffs is imperative. There is no doubt the attacks by some renegade militants in the region are a shot in the heart of the nation and a test of will for the Buhari administration, however, circumspection and not brinksmanship is what is needed now to arrest the challenge. The burden would be too much for a nation already under the weight of a sagging economy to again contend with insurgency in its strategic region. But then, we support the call for decisive action against only the real culprits, if identified.
