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. Ibadan Journal of Peace & Development Page | 43 Ibadan Journal of Peace & Development Vol.2 No.1 February 2013 44 Ibadan Journal of Peace and Development 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 Ibadan Journal of Peace & Development Page | 44 Ibadan Journal of Peace & Development Vol.2 No.1 February 2013 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 Ibadan Journal of Peace & Development Page | 45 Ibadan Journal of Peace & Development Vol.2 No.1 February 2013 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 Ibadan Journal of Peace & Development Page | 46 Ibadan Journal of Peace & Development Vol.2 No.1 February 2013 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