Ibadan Journal of Peace & Development Vol.2 No.1 February 2013
MEND AND ITS PREDECESSORS
Faleti A. Stephen*
Introduction
Every conflict has three key elements: „actors‟, „context‟, and „issues‟. These three elements determine, to a large extent, the trajectory of a conflict and the outcomes that become manifest as it progresses from the level of mere annoyance, to open protest and, eventually, crisis The issue defines who the actors, who stand opposed on the basis of their positions, interests and ultimately „needs are; while the context determines the emergence and the endurance of the issues as well as the conflict- waging dispositions of the actors involved, In most cases, a change in one of the elements listed above will trigger a change in the others rut this is not a given. For instance, social or political transformations leading to structural changes in a politic: system may change the context of a conflict in such a way that what used to be an issue ceases to be or becomes altered in some fundamental way. In. such cases, conflict actors who have invested their energy in ensuring that this issue is addressed in one way or the other are left with no choice than to alter their conflict- waging behaviour to mirror the change(s) in the context, within which the conflict previously constituted an issue. Where a change in context does not procure a similar transformation in actors, the chances are that the issues have either not been transformed by the character of the new context, or that the same or a new set of actors have identified other issues that have been provoked into existence by a new context. The fluidity of these three elements explains why conflict transformation is difficult and has proved to be such an onerous task in the context of the Niger Delta region of Nigeria.
* Dr. Faleti A. Stephen is a Research Fellow in Peace & Conflict Studies Programme, Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan.
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Background: Protest and Insurgency in the Niger Delta
Oil and gas are the mainstay of Nigeria‟s economy and they contribute an approximate 40% of GDP, about 90% of total earnings, and about 80% of the gross national income of the Nigerian state. Despite its strategic importance, the Niger Delta region, where these commodities are domiciled, is plagued by the absence of development, a level of poverty higher than the national average, and massive environmental pollution that is directly traceable to oil and gas exploration, which disempower those who rely on land and water resources for their livelihood. For a very long time, vast revenues accruing to the nation from oil and gas made tremendous development impact elsewhere but barely touched the pervasive poverty in the Delta area. Rather than trigger development and enrich the lives of the inhabitants of the region, oil wealth appeared to have deepened the marginalization and penury of the region and its people. One of the key issues raised in the Willink Commission Report of 1957 was the need to pay special attention to minority groups and the development of their region as a way of alleviating their fears bordering on domination by the majority ethnic groups. After the discovery of oil in commercial quantity in Oloibiri, expectations of better life for oil-bearing communities did not materialize and, before long, agitations calling attention to this anomaly began. The first was the brief insurgency waged by Major Isaac Adaka Boro from February 23 to March 6,1966, when he led the Niger Delta Volunteer Service (NDVS) to confront the Nigerian state in an armed insurrection The insurrection was quickly suppressed but, clearly, the Nigerian state learnt no lessons from that experience. From 1990, a second round of agitations that internationalized the demands of the people of Niger Delta for development attention and redress of environmental pollution by transnational oil companies began in Ogoni land. The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOPI articulated the grievances of the people via the instrumentality of the Ogoni Bill of Rights‟ drafted in August 1990, and emphasized peaceful but sustained resistance to environmental degradation and its impact on the people and
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Faleti A. Stephen 45 the environment. The peaceful protests were swiftly and brutally suppressed by the Rivers State Internal Security Task Force. With time, events were manipulated to en s ore that the Ogoni protest imploded on itself as in-fighting among Ogoni leaders brought about dire consequences and, ultimately, the decapitation of the leadership of MOSOP by the military junta headed by General Abacha in November 1995. Agitations in other local communities that mirrored the Ogoni example by picketing and blocking access to flow-stations and other oil extraction facilities similarly attracted 'scorched earth7 responses from the security forces. The anger that stemmed from this led to the di -aiding of other 'Bills‟, 'Charters‟ and „Declarations‟ like the Izon People‟s Charter (October 1992), Akaka Declaration of the Egi People, the Oron Bill of Rights, the Warri Accord, Resolutions of the First Urhobo Economic Summit and the Charter of Demar ids of the Ogbia People (MORETO) inNovember 1992. In essence, the primitive approach deepened the angst of the people and intensified their resort to different forms of confrontational strategies such as occupation of flow stations, disruption of exploration activities, abduction of oil workers, and vandalization of oil pipelines. However, it is arguable that the Kaiama Declaration of December 11, 1998 increased the ante of protests and defined the context within which arms :d insurrection eventually emerged. On 11 December 1998, Ijaw youths drawn from over five hundred communities from over 40 clans that make up the Ijaw nation and representing 25 representative organisations converged on the ancient town of Kaiama in Bayelsa State to deliberate on the befit way to ensure the continuous survival of their ethnic nationality in Nigeria. They noted, among other things, that the division of the Southern Protectorate into East and West by the British colonial administration in 1939 led to the balkanization of a hitherto territorially contiguous and culturally homogeneous Ijaw people into political and administrative units that turned them into minorities who suffer socio-political, economic, cultural and psychological deprivations in Ondo, Edo, Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers and Akwa lbom States; and that a
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46 Ibadan Journal of Peace and Development number of state legislations. Land Use Decree (1978), the Petroleum Decrees (1969 and 1991), the Lands Decree No. 52 of 1993, and the National Inland Waterways Authority Decree No. 13(1997), all served to deny the Ijaw people of their natural rights to ownership and control of their land and resources. Noting that all these depredations have been compounded by the Nigerian state, which had neglected, suppressed and marginalised Ijaws, and uncontrolled exploration and exploitation of crude oil and natural gas by foreign oil companies which had devastated the environment of the delta beyond repair, the conference resolved that beginning from the 30th of December, 1998 there should be an immediate withdrawal of all military forces stationed across the delta, and that all oil companies should stop exploration and exploitation activities, dismantle their facilities and withdraw staff and contractors from the Ijaw area. Warning that any oil company that employs the services of the armed forces to „protect‟ its operations will be viewed as an enemy of the Ijaw people, they set up the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) to coordinate what they temied „the struggle of Ijaw peoples for self-determination and justice‟. The resolve to resort to self-help stemmed from the failure of the Nigerian government to frontally address the catalogue of grievances articulated in the Ogoni Bill of Rights which more or less encapsulated the vexing issues of environmental degradation and lack of development in the entire Niger Delta region. Although the „Kaiama Declaration‟ and the demand for „resource control and self-determination‟ were meant to signal the beginning of protests patterned along those earlier employed by the Ogoni, the Nigerian government and oil companies saw the language employed by those who drafted the „Declaration‟ as abrasive and containing veiled threats of dire consequences in the event of non-compliance. Rather than finding a way to address the underlying grievances that were writ large in the „Declaration‟, government focused solely on the brinkmanship intended, the 30th December ultimatum, and the vague resolve to pursue „self-determination‟. It responded by deploying more troops into the Niger
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Faleti A. Stephen 47 Delta region to asphyxiate the horizontally and vertically mushrooming agitations and to safeguard what it has often termed its „strategic installations‟. Nigerian governments, in reaction to intermittent protests and restiveness in Niger Delta communities, employed largely repressive strategies. Military -and civilian regimes alike deployed security contingents which cracked down viciously on protesting communities, killed and imprisoned community and protest leaders, sacked entire communities, and laid siege to the region as a whole as a way of stifling the protests. These created the belief that non-violent tactics have their limitations and sounded the nunc dimittis of peaceful agitations that heralded the proliferation of an tied militia groups across the length and breadth of the Delta. It is important to note here that in addition to the adversarial approach adopted by the Nigerian government, a number of factors, especially several inter-ethnic as well as inter- and intra-community conflicts (Andoni-Ogoni, Ijaw-Ilaje, Ijaw-Itse kiri, Eleme-Okrika), not forgetting political mobilisation of youths during electoral contests—all of which involved armed violence— led to the proliferation of aims and munitions in the region. These weapons were deployed in pursuit of the resolutions reached in Kaiama. After oil theft became fashionable, international buyers readily funnelled heavier and more sophisticated weapons into the region in exchange for stolen oil; and by the end of2004, for example, it was estimated that the 1 to 3 million small and light am is (S ALW) in Nigeria were deployed predominantly in the Niger Delta. Citing a number of sources, Amnesty International estimated in 2005 that each of the 1,600 communities in the Niger Delta may have caches of between 20 and 100 sophisticated weapons some of which were transferred from Eastern Europe through neighbouring West African countries, while others were supplied by soldiers who returned from ECOWAS peace- keeping missions in Sierra Leone and Liberia. This represented a sizeable chunk of the more than eight million illicit weapons that ECOWAS estimated had proliferated in the region by 2005. This
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48 Ibadan Journal of Peace and Development weaponised context market i the effective beginning of the violent phase of armed resistance to structural deprivations in the region
MEND’S Predecessors The militia groups in the Niger Delta were mostly forced into existence by the confrontational and often brutal response of the Nigerian State demands that structural, economic, socio-political and environmental deprivations experienced by the people of the region should be redressed by government and transnational oil companies. This is after non-violent activism by community- based activist groups like the Movement for Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), Ijaw National Council (INC), the Ijaw-Youth Council (IYC), Urhobo Youth Movement (UYOMO), Ikwerre Youth Movement (IYM), and the Movement for the Survival of the Ijaw Ethnic Nationality in the Niger Delta (MOS1END) had failed to make any appreciable impact. The militant formations that began to confront the Nigerian state and its security apparatus were many and their agenda sometimes difficult understand. Asuni cites an Academic Associates Peaceworks (AAPW) study commissioned by the Delta State government in2007 which identified forty-eight militant groups with more than 25,000 members and a vas arsenal of more than 10.000 assorted weapons in Delta State alone S estimated that there may be up to 60,000 militants in the Niger Delta as a whole. Another study estimated that there were about 120 militia groups in the Niger Delta region. The reason for the proliferation of militant formations in the Niger has been the subject of several debates and studies in Nigeria and beyond. While some have pointed to the outpouring of an avalanche of long-drawn grievances that have been catalogued earlier, others, while admitting centrality of grievance as tire triggering factor, point to greed evinced in the actions of several criminal cartels, local militias, career politicians and even high-ranking security officials who jointly and severally cashed in on the
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Faleti A. Stephen 49 confusion and exploited it for personal gain. In most cases, what passed for spirited and acerbic criticism of government‟s actions and inactions was no more than veneer of activism that occluded criminal acts and barely concealed the narrow economic agendas of a few individuals. It therefore became difficult to identify groups that were genuinely agitating for the improvement of the human security condition of their ethnic group in particular or the Niger Delta in general, and those who were only interested in exploiting it for self-serving ends. However, Ibaba provides a useful categorization of the various groups as „private‟, „ethnic‟ and „pan-ethnic‟. According to him., „private groups‟ included the Niger Delta People‟s Volunteer Force (NDPVF), Adaka Marines, Martyrs Brigade, Niger Delta Volunteers, Niger Delta Militant Force Squad (NDMFS), and Niger Delta Coastal Guerillas (NDCG); „ethnic‟ militia groups included The Meinbutus, Arogbo Freedom Fighters, Iduwini Volunteer Force (IVF) and Egbesu Boys of Africa; and „pan-ethnic militias included the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND), The Coalition for Militant Action in the Niger Delta (COMA), and the Niger Delta Peoples Salvation Front (NDPSF). The limitation of Ibaba‟s profiling rested on the fact that there were several other groups that were not captured in his stud} but which played very prominent roles in the armed insurrection and violence in the Delta included Ateke Tom's „Niger Delta Volunteers‟ (NITV), Soboma George‟s 'Outlaws‟, Farah Dagogo‟s Niger Delta Strike Force, the Tompolo and Oboko Bello-led Federation ofNiger Delta Ijaw Cornn amities (FNDIC), Niger Delta Freedom Fighters (NDFF), South-South Li: /ration Movement (SSLM), Movement for the Sovereign State of the Niger Delta (MSSND), the Niger Delta Strike Force (NDSF), the November 1895 Movement, and ELIMOTU. In addition, there were several armed gangs and cult groups including Akaso Marine, Asawana, Black Axe, Black Braziers, Buccaneers, Columbians, Cyprus Marine, D12, Deadly Underdogs, Dey Gbam, Deywell, Els gem Face, Germans, Greenlanders, Icelanders, Italians 2001, NKK, Mafia Lords, Okomera, Outlaws, Vikings. Vultures, and
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Wayingi Marine, and others, who closely collaborated with militant groups at one point or the other. In most cases, such confraternities and gangs surrendered command and control and operated under the banner of the main militant groups but kept their separate leadership structures intact. Before the advent of MEND, the various „private‟ and „ethnic‟ militia groups pursued their individual agendum without coordination and without recourse to others who shared or had sympathy for their cause. Such activities sometimes resulted in reprisals against all groups. For example, confrontations between youth groups and government agents led to the leveling of the entire Odi community in November 1999, the destruction of Odioma community in 2005 and a 3-day siege on Okerenkoko, each of which resulted in the death of several militants and extensive collateral damage.
MEND’S Formation While acting alone, none of the militia groups could match the firepower of federal agents and were usually repeatedly outgunned; leaders of the militant groups explored a new approach to resisting an unyielding Nigerian state and continuing their lucrative trade in stolen crude which fetched them as much as US$2.67 million daily at a point in April 2003 when the average oil price at the New York Mercantile Exchange was US$26.7 per barrel, namely: unifying and coordinating their efforts under a single body. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, or MEND, came into the limelight in January 2006. In view of its ultra-secretive nature and the absence of a clear leadership and structure that is readily discernible in other militia groups in the region, some analysts drew conclusions that sometimes left more questions than answers but generally reflected confusion over its identity, structure and leadership. In her submission to the US Council of Foreign Relations, Asuni traced the emergence of MEND to an agreement between Chief Government Ekpomukpolo (akaTompolo) of FNDIC, other senior militants, elements of the NDPVF, and some cult groups to join forces and harmonise their bunkering operations for mutual
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Faleti A. Stephen 51 protection and economic benefits. In view of an absence of structure, some opined that MEND is stricto sensu „more of an “idea” than an organization‟; while some others described the group as „mostly an Ijaw movement which defends and advocates the interests of the Ijaw people ‟1 and a coalition (umbrella body) of militant groups. Others tied the formation of MEND with the outlawing of the NDPVF and the arrest of Asari. The reasons for this identity conflict appear to be well captured in Asuni‟s submission to the US Council on Foreign Relations in which she noted that: MEND is a constantly changing mass of groups, some of them criminally motivated, others politically and ideologically driven. It is difficult to distinguish between them. Some started life on the university campuses before spilling onto the streets and engaging in criminal activity. Other groups set out to genuinely address the grievances of the Niger Delta people, enraged by decades of environmental pollution, economic underdevelopment and political marginalization. In an interview with ThisDay newspaper, Dokubo noted that the problem of identification existed because the organisation was a decoy put up by Niger Delta militants to protect themselves, and that there was no such organization in real life: There is no organization known as MEND. Let any officer of MEND stand up. When I was arrested and I got into prison... Federated Niger Delta Ijaw Communities (FNDIC) and Niger Delta Peoples Volunteers Force and other organizations met at Okerenkenko. I was in prison and they said we cannot go with any other name or other leaders will be arrested and they decided that we should get another organization.
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Despite Asari‟s rebuttal, there is no denying that MEND actually came into being and claimed responsibility for the actions of militant groups in. different parts of the Niger Delta including kidnapping and hostage taking, attacks on oil facilities, and on government security agents. In the area of leadership, the confusion is just as deep. Individuals such as Asari Dokubo, Brutus Ebipadei, Major-General Godswill Tamuno. Chief Government Ekpomukpolo (Tompolo) and Dagogo Farah have all been described as leaders at one point or the other. A 10 May, 2007 report by BBC News which described Jomo Gbomo as the „founding leader of the militant group‟ and „Bayelsa State faction leader‟ possibly did so based on an electronic mail message in which Jomo Gbomo retorted that “I am the overall leader of all militant groups in the Niger Delta. Thai has never been in dispute.' It is noteworthy that the arrest and detention or Okah in September 2007 spurred renewed attacks on oil company infrastructure and workers and threats by MEND to extend its campaign beyond the Niger Delta region and bomb major public infrastructure and non-oil sector infrastructure. Apart from the toga of a liberation movement which the word „emancipation‟ in its name suggests it is clear that its agenda was never at variance with those espoused by other militant groups that emerged earlier in time, namely: opposition to environmental despoliation, insistence on remediation and payment of compensation to impacted communities, and immediate attention to underdevelopment in the Niger Delta region. In spite of its „emancipation‟ agenda, it never specifically called for the Niger Delta to secede from Nigeria as did Asari Dokubo‟s NDPVF and John Togo‟s NDLF. While it shares a number of characteristics with such groups in employing, for example, armed violence and strategies such as the taking of hostages, occasional attacks on security personnel, sabotaging or destruction of oil installations, and engaging in illegal oil bunkering, it also appears to be different in a number of respects. For instance, unlike groups such as the Ijaw Youth Congress and the Niger Delta Vigilantes, which
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Faleti A, Stephen 53 were organized at the village or clan level and the Niger Delta People‟s Volunteer Force (NDPVF), which was more or less a cone man show' and others such as the Coalition for Militant Action in the Niger Delta (COMA), the Niger Delta Liberation Force (NDLF) and the „Martyrs Brigade' all of which were seen as „a disparate ragtag of disillusioned youths, with powerful backers, intent on little more than petty criminality‟ that extorted money from oil and oil- servicing companies, MEND‟s leadership showed traits of good education and an understanding of tactics and strategies of insurgency and counterinsurgency. Political activism and Fragmentation Although it remained largely secretive, MEND utilises the international media and social network platforms to publicise its activities and actions against the Nigerian State and oil interests. Over time, MEN D tabled a number of demands before both the Nigerian government and oil concerns. It demanded the release of militants from prison; the augmentation of the share of oil revenue accruing to Niger Delta states to 50 percent; and, in line with the Kaiamt resolution, the withdrawal of gove nment troops from the Delta. In April 2006 , MEND demanded that Shell comply with the ruling of a Benin High Court and pay the sum of $1.5 billion awarded by the court as compensation for pollution in the Niger Delta. Aside the release of Asari Dokubo and Chief DSP Alamieyeseigha by the Yar‟Adua government on June 14, 2007 as part of a goodwill gesture that paved the way for acceptance of the Niger Delta amnesty programme, none of the other demands was met by the groups before which they were tabled. This suggests that aside countermeasures to secure the waterways and puncture the wave of attacks on oil installations which reduced oil output, the Nigerian government never appeared to take the group seriously. This attitude changed when MEND altered its previous modus operandi by moving out of the creeks of the Delta into urban areas.
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MEND exhibited both criminal and terrorist traits because it engage in kidnapping/hostage-taking of oil company personnel, it attacked security personnel, and at some point, it began to plant explosives in public places thereby deliberately putting non-combatants in harm‟s way. MEND's attacks on oil exploration and production facilities and oil company employee effectively disrupted production and export by 1.5 million barrels in 2008 Between 2006 and 2008, MEND took a total of 119 hostages and claim responsibility for more than 300 deaths in the course of attacks and more than half of the casualties were non-combatants. When it exploded car bombs in Port Harcourt, Warri, and Abuja the Nigerian capital during Nigeria‟s independence anniversary in 2010, a total of 18 persons die while scores were injured. Perhaps in a bid to further demonstrate its reach, it attacked an bombed the Atlas Cove Jetty in Tarkwa Bay, Lagos on July 11, 200 thereby inflicting a massive economic loss on the Nigerian State an effectively disrupting local oil distribution and consumption for more than _ week. More than any other, the fiscal impact of MEND‟s insurgency is the major reason why the federal government hurriedly put together an amnesty programme in 2009. This programme (coupled with series of closely. guarded in-fighting, personality rivalries and greed) f led more or less to the scuttling of the coalition because while a large number of militia leader and their followers promptly accepted the amnesty offer and disarmed, few others insisted on continuing with the insurgency either because the- underestimated the resolve of the federal government, overestimated the commitment of their comrades in arms and foot soldiers, or because the} could not counter lance the loss of the free booty that they had enjoyed for so long without hindrance. The eclipse of MEND was not only occasioned by the unexpected!} wide acceptance of the amnesty programme by several groups within its coalition but by rivalries and infighting within. Even before the amnesty programme commenced, cracks were already discernible within its ranks and a November - 007 report by Stratfor noted that „MEND was becoming
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Faleti A. Stephen 55 fragmented, decentralised and increasingly motivated by “power and greed” as opposed to its original political goals‟ and that „in view of its degraded ability to conduct large-scale attacks, it is no longer the coordinated organization it once was‟. The report noted in addition that „MEND had become a loose cooperation of criminal gangs and cult groups that sought control of trade routes and certain communities in the Niger Delta.‟ Opposition also began to mount from its own immediate constituency after it took its operations outside the creeks into the urban centres and began to hit civilian targets deliberately. MEND also lost considerable support among local communities because of its unrelenting opposition to the government of President Goodluck Jonathan, an Ijaw and symbol of the political ascendancy of Ijaws and the people of the Niger Delta. In frustration over the ease with which government was infiltrating and dividing its ranks, MEND committed more strategic blunders that further alienated it from the core of its allies and supporters and prompted the federal government to go after its leadership and to scuttle its bases of operations in the creeks. In March 2011, MEND threatened to bomb campaign rallies of President Goodluck Jonathan in Abuja, Lagos and parts of the Niger Delta in order to prevent people from attending and in June 2011, citing solidarity with the Gaddhafi regime, it threatened to attack the oil infrastructure of the Italian-owned Agip Oil Company for supporting the NATO-led bombing of Libya. Its threat to bomb the venue during the 51st Independence celebration forced a cancelation of the event in 2011.
Conclusion Like most groups that preceded it, MEND was unable to stay the course because the underlying motive for its convergence was narrow and the tough rhetoric of „emancipation‟ was, in fact, no more than a smokescreen for the personal ambitions of a few individuals. The facade of a coherent and sophisticated group that was created by the media releases of the mysterious „Jomo Gbomo‟ evaporated with the arrest and detention of
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Henry Okah who Asari Dokubo described as „a petty criminal and opportunist' who was neither the leader nor even a member of MEND but a hireling of an ex-governor of a Niger Delta state. While Asuni and other commentators corroborated this by describing Okah as an arms supplier and ally of MEND, the Nigerian security community insists Okah is MEND's leader.
Endnotes 1 Akinola, S. R., 'Restructuring the Public Sphere for Social Order in the Niger Delta through Polycentric Planning: What Lessons for Africa?' African and Asian Studies, No. 9, 2010, 55-56.
2 Ojo, 0. J. B. (2002) The Niger Delta: Managing Resources and Conflicts. Researcher Report 49, Development and Policy Centre. (DPC), Ibadan.
3.United Nations Development Programme (2006), The Niger Delta Huma" Development Report 2006; Abuja: UNDP/SPDC. 4. That same year, a peaceful youth protest against Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) at Umuechem in Rivers State on 31 October 1990 led to the destruction of the town after Anti-riot Police swooped on the town. More than 80 people were killed and about 500 houses were leveled in the course of that operation. 5 Nigeria: Crackdown in the Niger Delta. Human Rights Watch, Vol.11, No. 2(a) May 1999 "http://www.hrw.org/" pp.124-131
6The Kaiama Declaration available at: http://www.unitedijawstates.corr kaiama.html Accessed 23 December 2011.
7 According to Epelle, youths were often armed and employed as political thugs to maim, abduct, threaten and harass political opponents, were often instructed t koill recalcitrant and principled opponents and voters, rig elections and produce fake election results. See, Alafuro Ekpele (2010), "Taming the Monster: Critical Issues in Arresting the Orgy of Youth Restiveness in the Niger Delta Region r Nigeria"; in Victor Ojakorotu and Lysias Dodd Gilbert eds., Checkmating Resurgence of Oil Violence in the Niger Delta of Nigeria, Johannesburg (Chapter 2), pp. 11-27.
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8 Agboton-Johnson, CEA & Mazal, L. (2000), "Small Arms Control in Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal". Security and Peacebuilding Programme: Monitoring the Implementation of Small Arms Controls (MISAC), West Africa Series No.2.
9 Amnesty International, 'Ten years on: Injustice and violence haunt the oil Delta'; Amnesty International Report Al Index AFR 44/022/2005, 3 November 2005, p.36.
10 Mohammed Ibn Chambas, "ECOWAS seeks means to recover 8 million illicit arms in the region", IRIN News 26 March 2004, cited in Al Index AFR 44/322/2005, 3 November 2005, p.36. 11 Asuni, JB., 'Understanding the Armed Groups of the Niger Delta'. US Council of Foreign Relations Occasional Paper (September 2009), p. 3. 12 'Group Profile: Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND)' MIPT Terrorism Analysis, 20 November 2007 http://www.tkb.org/group.jsp?groupid=4692. 13 See for example, Gilbert, LD. Youth Militancy, Amnesty and Security in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria' (Paper presented at the Joint Africa Institute of South Africa/South African Association of Political Studies (AISA/SAAPS) Colloquium), Burgers Park Hotel, Pretoria— South Africa, 15-16 October 2009; Meredeth Turshen, 'The Warri Crisis, the Niger Delta, and the Nigerian State'. ACAS Bulletin, No. 68 (Fall 2004); Sesay, A., Ukeje, C„ Aina, 0., and Odebiyi, O. (eds) (2003) Ethnic Militias and the Future of Democracy in Nigeria, lle-lfe: OAU Press; 'Rivers and Blood: Guns, Oil and Power in Nigeria's Rivers State', Human Rights Watch Briefing Paper (February 2005); 'Nigeria: Delta Violence a Fight Over Oil Money', Human Rights Watch, (December 17, 2003); 'Conflicts in Addressing the Root Causes of Violence', Stakeholder Democracy Network (6th November 2006); Watts, M. 'The Rule of Oil: Petro- Politics and the Anatomy of an Insurgency' (Proceedings the International Conference on The Nigerian State, Oil Industry and the Niger Delta, organized by the Department of Political Science, Niger Delta University in Yenagoa (March 11-13); Babawale, 2001 'The Rise of Ethnic Militias, De-Legitimisation of the State, and the Threat to Nigerian Federalism'. Available at: http:// www.westafricareview.com/vol3.1/babawale.html; Paul M. Lubeck, Michael J. Watts and Ronnie Lipschutz, The Niger Delta: Oil and Turmoil in Nigeria', Center of International Policy (February 2007); International Crisis Group, "The Swamps of Insurgency: Nigeria's Delta Unrest," Africa Report 3115 (August 2006); Michael Watts, 'The Sinister Political Life of Community: Economies of Violence and Governable Spaces in the Niger Delta, Nigeria', University of Berkeley Working : No. 3 on Niger Delta Economies of Violence (2004); Victor Ojakorotu and Lysias Dodd Gilbert eds.(2010), Checkmating the Resurgence of Oil Violence in the Niger Delta of Nigeria, Johannesburg.
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14 This perception is a common theme in most of the literature on how and why militancy emerged and endures in the region.
15 Ibaba, Perspectives on Terrorism, p.24.
16 See Asuni, JB., 'Understanding the Armed Groups of the Niger Delta'; Gilbert, LD (2010), "Youth Militancy, Amnesty and Security in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria"; in Victor Ojakorotu and Lysias Dodd Gilbert eds., Checkmating the Resurgence of Oil Violence in the Niger Delta of Nigeria, Johannesburg (Chapter 4).
17According to Amnesty International, at least 17 people were reported to have been killed and two women raped when the Joint Task Force raided Odioma on 19 February 2005 ostensibly to arrest members of an armed vigilante group suspected of killing four local councillors and eight others earlier that month. The suspects escaped but, over 80 per cent of the homes in Odioma were razed by the troops. See 'Ten years on; Injustice and violence haunt the oil Delta'; Al Index AFR 44/022/ 2005, 3 November 2005, p. 4.
18 See: Asuni, JB., 'Understanding the Armed Groups of the Niger Delta'. US Council of Foreign Relations Occasional Paper (Sept. 2009), p. 17.
19See Murray, S., 'The shadowy militants in Nigeria's Delta', BBC News, 10 May 2007. http://news.bbc.co.Uk/2/hi/africa/6544097.stm.
20 See for example, Stephanie Hanson, "MEND: The Niger Delta's Umbrella Militant Group" @ http://www.cfr.org/nigeria/mend-niger-deltas-umbrella- militant-group/pl2920.
21 McGreal, C. "Delta Force", Guardian Unlimited, 10 May 2007, http:// www.guardian.co.uk/insideafrica/story/0,,2210222,00.
22BBC News," Nigeria's shadowy oil rebels", April 20,2006 @ http://news.bbc.co.uk. go/pr/fr/- /2/hi/africa/4732210.
23 Junger, S., 'Blood Oil', Vanity Fair, February 2007 http://www.vanityfairj politics/features/2007/02/junger200702?printable=true¤tPage=all.
24 Asuni, JB., 'Understanding the Armed Groups of the Niger Delta'; p.3.
25 Ojeifo, S., "Asari Dokubo Slams Yar'Adua Over Obasanjo", 2007 http://allafrica.com/
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26 'Militant group demands Republic of Niger Delta'; Vanguard, July 12,2011 http://www.vanguardngr.com/2011/37/militant-group-demands-republic-of-niger- delta/
27 Asuni, 'Understanding the Armed Groups of the Niger Delta', p. 3.
28 Marquardt, E., 'Mujahid Dokubo-Asari:The Niger Delta's Ijaw Leader', Terrorism Monitor, Vol. 5, No. 15, 2 August 2007.
29 Ibaba Samuel Ibaba, Terrorism in Liberation Struggles: Interrogating the Engagement Tactics of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta; Perspectives on Terrorism Volume 5, Issues 3-4 (September 2011), p. 19.
30 Chris Ajaero, 'Nigeria's Lost Trillions', Newswatch Magazine, May 4, 2009, p. 21.
31 Report of the Niger Delta Technical Committee (2008); Cited in Ibaba, Perspectives on Terrorism, pp. 26-7.
32 According to the report of the Technical Committee on the Niger Delta (TCND), $27.2 billion was lost to sabotage by militants in 2006; $18.8 billion in 2007, and $20.7 within the first nine months of 2008. The cumulative impact of these was such that by the first quarter of 2009, daily oil output had dropped from the pre-2006 figure of 2.6 million bpd to less than 2 million bpd.
33 Soon after Asari was released by the Yar Adua government, he reportedly fell out with MEND. When he later called for cooperation with the government, he was labelled "an informant and a spy for the Nigerian government".
34 Asuni noted that this was inevitable because "MEND was never a coherent entity, but rather an umbrella group that contained a constantly shifting lineup of militants. Different groups came together for particular operations before going their own ways again" and that "greed and personal rivalries played a prominent cart" in the eventual fragmentation; see Asuni, 'Understanding the Armed Groups of the Niger Delta' p. 19.
35 According to the International Crisis Group, in July 2007 Asari Dokubo entered into dialogue with the government and called upon MEND and other militants to stop taking hostages and allow the government to implement its plans to improve conditions in the Niger Delta prompting other militant groups to accuse him of selling out and acting as "an informant and a spy for the Nigerian government".
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36 'Nigeria: The Splintering of MEND' 2007, Stratfor, 16 November http:// www. stratfor.com.
37 See: Niger Delta Liberation Force calls MEND's bomb threat 'clear blackmail' Newsdiaryonline September 30, 2011.
38 See Asuni, p.19; see also 'Nigeria: The Splintering of MEND' 2007, Stratfor, 16 November http://www.stratfor.com.
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