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Delta Militants: Deconstructing Obasanjo’s Fresh Agenda For Bigger Crisis By Senior Fyneface
To President Olusegun Obasanjo and his government, insulting the battered and grossly neglected people of the oil producing Niger Delta region has become a pastime engaged to enjoy themselves. How else can any sensible person describe the federal Government’s move to employ and arm “organized youth groups” of the region to protect oil facilities so that Government can continue to have an unhindered access to crude oil flow from the region.
Until when the almighty God forced a very top official of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to divulge the top secret operation, nobody in the entire region would have suspected that President Olusegun Obasanjo had such idea. The Federal Government is making arrangements to employ the services of organised youth groups or rather to raise another cantonment of militants across the Niger Delta to secure oil and gas workers and installations against attacks from existing militant group who maintained they are fighting for the rights of the people of the region.
Rather than being “part of the strategic moves by the Government to redress the insecurity in the oil-rich region” as claimed, it is obviously part of the clandestine moves to cause more confusion and killing of the people of the Niger Delta region.
It is an outright mischief and straight- forward insult on the people of the area for the Presidency to claim that “some youth organisations have approached the Federal Government to help secure oil workers and equipment to wade off attacks by few selfish individuals who masquerade as freedom fighters and militants to enrich their pockets”.
The only explanation the government official has for this stupid initiative is that “the measure will provide employment for the teeming unemployed youths of the area and make militancy less attractive as the government believes it is unemployment that primarily breeds militancy”. Yes! It is unemployment and neglect that breed militancy but the employment we want in the region is not in guerilla warfare but in oil companies and government.
And to use Dr Edmund Dakoru’s name, a patriotic son of the region, to legitimize this evil plot was another mischief and even a bigger insult to the people of the area. Hear the mischief makers: "The honourable minister of state for petroleum is favourably disposed to the idea of using the organised youth groups to guard oil workers and barges across the creeks, the most dangerous spots in the Niger Delta region. He has actually endorsed the idea of using the youth organisations against the militants and modalities are being worked out”.
It is greatly baffling that Dr Dakoru did not even bother to dissociate his name from such evil plot or maybe the junior minister is not aware of the dire consequences of being a part of such arrangements. The minister should not allow the President to use him to fight his people because the people will always win especially our young and determined freedom fighters and right activists.
Though the Government claimed that the aim of the collaboration with youth organizations is simply to guard oil workers and facilities and not to replace the Joint Task force (JTF), code-named ‘Operation Restore Hope’ operating in the area. What a contradiction! In the two parallel military groups (JTF and Obasanjo’s new militants), who is going to be in charge of command? Who takes orders from whom? Who will determine when and when not to use force against the “original militants”? Who would be doing the definition and identification of militants- the JTF or Obasanjo’s Niger Delta Vigilante?
What better way else to describe the Government’s proclamation that the activities of the new vigilante groups will be “just a partnership to complement the efforts of the JTF security outfit if not as outright deceit and mischief”? The Government would have simply said that it has passed a vote of no confidence on its joint security operatives of the “Operation Restore Hope” in the Niger Delta simply because in most cases the JTF officers exercise restraints in killing innocent women and children the flash points in the region.
Remarkably, the Government was quick to cover its genuine intention in setting up the youth vigilante groups by acknowledging that “No youth organisation or groups in the country have the capacity or military might to replace or perform the tedious tasks of the Joint Task Force". If they don’t have such mights, why employ them to boss the military officers already onground as peace keepers in the region?
How can you raise another army of militants to fight the existing ones if not that you want to cause confusion and chaos in the entire region? The people of the Niger Delta should be wiser to debunk the actual game plan which is to create so much in-fighting and blood shedding among the youths of the region while the Fderal Government goes about unchallenged siphoning the oil and gas from the region without investing a kobo except in buying arms and ammunitions to the two sides of the warring youth. If raising another batch of militants is the Federal Government’s only idea to to restore in the region, the President and his people should go bury their heads in shame because the Niger Delta people cannot fall anymore into the divide and rule trap of the Government.
“Aside the provision of employment, the government hinges its decision to invite the youths on the ground that as part of the region’s local population, the Niger Delta youths are in a better position to monitor, detect and report suspicious movements of persons around the creeks more promptly than security agencies”, shame to Government for accepting failure and incapacitation to listen and address the genuine concerns and agitations of the Niger Delta people.
The following declaration of the evil genius at the Presidency would clearly show the Niger Delta people the real motive of raising another crop of dissident youth groups in the region: “These groups can intermingle with the people of the area to monitor and detect when the militants are about to take oil workers hostage or destroy oil facilities.
"It is only an insider that can effectively monitor, detect and report appropriately, suspicious movement of persons around the creeks. The local people know the members of the militants and can easily foil their plans with the support of the JTF.
“The organised youth groups will patrol NNPC multi-product and crude oil pipelines and also assist the Joint Task Force in escorting oil workers and equipment across the creeks”.
So without the assistance of “loyal militants” the Joint Task Force team of well-trained officers and men of the Nigerian Army, Navy, Airforce, Marine Police, SSS and DMI operatives and in some cases mobile policemen, cannot escort oil workers and equipment across the creek or carry out effective surveillance of oil installations? President Obasanjo and the NNPC should answer this crucial question.
Infact the President should simply take the advice of the former commander of the JTF who was retired for suggesting that the best approach to solving the insurgency in the Niger Delta is not the military option but to listen to the peoples’ complaints and take honest steps to begin to address those concerns which are honestly justified.
What can the Obasanjo-led Government point at in the entire region and proudly say we have achieved this as part of our effort to ameliorate the suffering of the people of the area and thus pacify the restive youths who remain the worst affected age group bearing the brunt of oil and gas production that fuels corruption at the national level? Nothing! And I mean nothing.
The President should be reminded again that it was the resentment against the Abuja-controlled government rather than direct resentment towards the oil industry that bred militancy in the first instance. The truth be told, whether or not anybody likes it, such resentments will continue to breed even deadlier genuine militancy unless the underlying issues are frontally tackled.
President Obasanjo’s option of raising parallel militant groups to fight each other in the Niger Delta did not come as a surprise though. His erstwhile godson, Chief Peter Odili, the “Ogbuagu 1 of Orashi Kingdom” did the same experiment between the resource control activist, Alhaji Mujahi Asari Dokubo and Commander Ateke Tom. When it became obvious that the Rivers state governor could no longer control Dokubo Asari, a man he used heavily between the 1999 election and events preceding the 2003 general elections, he raised an alternative warlord whom he heavily armed and put on a war path with Dokubo Asari. This was how the Okrika warlord, Commander Ateke was raisedbut today he has become a big problem not only to Odili and his government, but to the entire residents of Port Harcourt and environs.
Speaking from the experience in Rivers state, he problem with such arrangements is that it will work to produce the desired result only for a while before it backfires. Today in Rivers state, Ateke is the most wanted militant who has been alleged to be directly responsible for the recent spate of hostage taking involving expatriates an allegation that is completely deceitful because it tried to shift attention from the actual reason why both the federal and Rivers state governments want him dead at all cost. Now all the government people Ateke killed hundreds of people to install now want him dead simply because he has threatened to expose his roles in the event preceding the 2003 general elections in the state and the Port Harcourt violent cult war that claimed over 5000 lives of innocent youths of the Niger Delta.
It would be a wise counsel for President Obasanjo and his men at the NNPC and DPR to learn from the terrible Rivers state experience of raising one killer group to check another. If they refuse to learn, the entire country would be worse off for it. This is the truth and nothing but the truth. #
SENIOR FYNEFACE, ELELEWON STREET GRA II PORT HARCOURT, RIVERS STATE.
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