Merchants of Destruction – Frank Ofili

The militant group, Niger Delta Avengers (NDA), has reportedly rebuffed offer of dialogue with the Federal Government. It has also gone ahead to blow up yet another oil installation belonging to Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) on Thursday June 9 2016. The facility is located at Ogidigben, Warri South West Local Area of Delta State. Before these two incidents other oil facilities had been blown up by the militants at Forcados, Escravos, Ogbe-Ijaw and other locations in the creeks of Delta State.

One interesting thing about the merchant of destruction known as Niger Delta Avengers is that its activities so far have been limited to Warri axis in the delta region and its immediate neighbouring environment in Bayelsa State. I shall return to this shortly.

Besides rebuffing the soft landing offered to it by the government, the group is also demanding the sovereign state of Niger Delta Republic, in addition to ownership of the sole right to determine which oil installation gets bombed.

In a recent tweet, it warned that no other group beside it has the authority to blow up oil installations. This last bit is as curious as it is suggestive. Is there perhaps some sort of power play among the militant groups in the Niger Delta region? It is not clear.

What is clear however is that its older cousin, the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND), has reportedly condemned the activities of the NDA. In a statement released last Wednesday, the group not only commended the Buhari administration for the Ogoni Clean-up project which was kick-started last week by Vice Presient Prof Yemi Osinbajo, but also went ahead to lampoon the NDA for carrying out activities which pose grave danger to the environment. It pleaded with NDA to shun further attacks on oil pipelines in the region and embrace the channel of dialogue initiated by the Federal Government

Into the mix of all these has also emerged an entirely new militant group hitherto unheard of. The new group calls itself Ultimate Warriors of Niger Delta (UWND). It has threatened to continue to attack oil and gas installations across the Niger Delta region unless the Nigerian government agreed to award 60 per cent oil blocs to the people of the region.

I shall return to this new twist presently, but first let me address the Niger Delta Avengers rejection of negotiation with the Federal Government. The rejection may perhaps be the weakest link in its strategy and may prove, in the long run, to be its undoing.

The centrality of dialogue in contemporary management of conflict cannot be over-emphasized, unless of course you have designs inimical to lives and property and capability to overrun the enemy and dictate peace terms – an unlikely possibility in this case. You cannot say you want better deal for your people and still go ahead to do things that would hurt them more. This is the point of view from which MEND and all men of goodwill are advising the NDA to embrace the offer of dialogue by the Buhari administration. Since its point has been made, it is time to move to negotiation.

There is better chance of success with dialogue than with guns, especially if you are dealing with a sovereign state. In the colonial days, many African states (Nigeria inclusive) achieved self-rule without firing a gun. It was done through peaceful agitation.

Peaceful campaign anchored on dialogue gives you sympathy; dialogue gives you support; dialogue gives you access to the power centres of the world where your case would be given a sympathetic ear. Fortunately or unfortunately, this is what NDA has rejected.

NDA has consistently claimed that Niger Delta region had been short-changed over the years through uneven distribution of development and allocation of oil blocks. In a recent statement posted on its website, the group listed numerous lucrative oil blocks allegedly owned by non-Niger Deltans. What it however failed, or perhaps conveniently  refused, to admit is the fact that their own sons and daughters have been complicit in the neglect of the region.

At various times people from the region have occupied powerful government positions including, Group Managing Director of NNPC, Minister of Petroleum Resources, Vice President of the country, Acting President of the country and President and Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic. At no time did these people deem it fit to address the alleged short-changing of the region.

It is safe therefore to conclude that their own sons and daughters were the people who showed the short-changers the way. So if the NDA are avenging anything, they should start with their sons and daughters who held the touch for the invaders.

Also, if multi-national oil corporations operating in the region were guilty of having despoiled their land and polluted their environment, the NDA are now doing worse. In the end, who is to blame?

But the NDA does not speak for the whole of Niger Delta region. It is at best a group of people of Ijaw ethnic nationality. The greater majority of Niger Delta do not support their activities.

By rejecting Federal Government’s offer of dialogue, the NDA may be pushing its luck too far and perhaps over-stretching the patience threshold of the government.  It ought to understand that no government would fold its arms in the face of threats and wanton destruction of public property, especially where such destruction targets the economic main-stay of the country. At some point in time, the government is bound to respond and such response is sure to be decidedly deadly.

The seeming unwillingness of government to respond in like manner should not be taken for granted. Neither should the capacity and resilience of Nigerians be under-estimated. Time and again, Nigeria has demonstrated her capacity to overcome if push comes to shove. No person, or group of persons, have successfully held the country to ransom.

Nigerians would surely show the stuff they are made of if the NDA continues with its current course of action. As all things Nigeria usually turn out to be, a combination of factors may set in to work against the group if it does not back-pedal.

Perhaps the orchestrators of the bombings have sensed this, hence they have been craftily doing everything possible to distance Tompolo from their activities. But Nigerians are not fooled. Two things give the NDA away as the unseen hands of Tompolo.

The first is that the bombings so far have been limited to Tompolo’s stronghold, which is Warri South Local Government Area of Delta State. Added to this is the fact that only an ex-militant in the mould of Tompolo, Tom Ateke or Asari Dokubo would have the resources, the network and organising ability to carry out these campaigns. But Ateke has no subsisting reason to want to engage the Federal Government, and Dokubo is unlikely to leave his territory in Rivers State to operate in Delta State.

Of course there is the possibility that the NDA and UWND are splinter groups from MEND and Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force (NDPVF) who, seeing as Dokubo, Ateke and Tompolo have become extremely wealthy through militancy, want to toe the same line. But it is highly unlikely such a splinter group would afford the resources so far deployed in the ongoing bombings. Besides, such a group is not likely to want to confront an ex-general in Buhari who has so far deployed his experience in the war against Boko Haram.

That leaves Tompolo, backed perhaps, by aggrieved corrupt politicians who are presently being investigated. Tompolo has an axe to grind with the government. He along with former NIMASA boss, Patrick Akpobolokemi and Kingsley Kuku are facing investigation and prosecution. Tompolo’s assets were recently frozen and a bench warrant issued for his arrest after he repeatedly refused to appear before the court. Since then he has gone underground and has been engaging the government in a battle of wits. From all indications,  NDA is his tool for fighting back. But it remains to be seen how far he and his cohorts can go.

A sustained attack on oil installations will no doubt hurt Nigeria’s economic fortunes badly, as it is already doing,  but it will also have a countervailing effect on the militant group one way another. In the face of a common enemy, Nigerians are known to put their political differences aside to unite against the foe. We saw it happen when June 12 1993 election was annulled by Babangida’s military junta. Pressure forced IBB to vacate office. We saw  it happen with Occupy Nigeria 2012; and we saw it happen again, although in reverse mode with the recent call to strike action by Nigeria Labour Congress to protest withdrawal of fuel subsidy.

NDA has proven itself to be enemy of all Nigerians.  Its activities are threats to national security, especially at this time. Its brand of terrorism is unlike Boko Haram which posed no serious threat to the national economy. My knowledge of social psychology tells me that it is this essential difference that would galvanize the country against it, because everybody’s survival is threatened.

If the militant group insists on no dialogue, push will eventually come to shove and the resilience and ingenuity of Nigerians would be unleashed and made manifest. The result would be an economy less depended on oil; an economy in which the north and middle belt would constitute the agricultural hub, the south east the commercial capital and south west the industrial giant. The soft under-belly of the economy has been exposed as it were, and with disappearance of oil revenue, Nigeria would be forced to seek alternative sources of revenue (and there are many). This will likely jump-start something close to an economic miracle as Nigeria struggles to face the prospect of life without oil. No doubt it will be tough in the short run but in the long run it will be better for the country.

Finally, as Nigeria’s economy crumble on account of the activities of NDA, a sort of Stockholm syndrome is likely to develop from the rank and file of the militants as they themselves are not insulated from the larger economy.

These  permutations of course are based on the unlikely possibility that the Nigerian Armed Forces are unable to crush the militants.