KIDNAPPING IN NIGERIA IMPLICATIONS FOR NATIONAL SECURITY
Chapter Two
Literature Review
2.1 Conceptual Framework
2.1.1 Concepts of Kidnapping
Kidnapping by nature is an acquisitive crime of a very high violent crime standing which is an offense against the value system of a society. Okonkwo (1980) opined that kidnapping is broadly inclusive in assault. He construed the nature of kidnapping in his comment as involving;
Any person who unlawfully imprison, and take him out of Nigeria, without his consent, or unlawfully imprison any person within Nigeria in such a manner as to prevent him from applying to a court for his release or from discovering to any other person the place where he is imprisoned, or in such a manner as to prevent any person entitled to have access to him from discovering the place where he is imprisoned.
From the line of thought of Okonkwo one would observe as Ugwu (2010) avowed that, there is a dehumanizing tendency involved in the crime of kidnapping as it often leads to the death of the victim. The view of Ugwu is essentially true because as the kidnapping crime is carried out in our country is usually beyond ransom taking, since death is usually a resultant consequence for those who cannot or whose people could not meet up with the often exorbitant amount called out for as ransom even after a disgracing bargain or negotiation.
Kidnapping as Schmalleger (1997) noted, as a criminal offense has “corpus delict” of a crime that is “body of a crime” because the needed element are present to establish the act as a crime. Yet, kidnapping is not a situational crime, as it has in sufficient proportion “mens rea and actus reas” the two essential element of a criminal act. Okonkwo (1980) comented on these two concepts when he opined that “mens rea” on one hand is the intention to commit a crime in other words the state of mind that accompanies a criminal act. While “actus reus” on the other hand means, the guilty act which is a necessary first feature of every crime in violation of the law.
Bryne and Taxman (2006) quipped that kidnapping is a choice, not an unavoidable response to hopeless environment. Farabee (2005) in support of this position threw more light, when he discarded the pervasive belief that kidnappers essentially have no choice but to resort to crime, as conveying a profoundly destructive expectation to them and to future criminals. Farebee concludes that this mode of thinking or orientation undermine the criminal’s perceived ability to control their own destinies.
By its very nature therefore, kidnapping causes a disruption of order and decline of public security. No wonder, Ugwu (2010) opined that, the tactics employed to address the problem are not adequate in yielding the desired result and fruit. He concludes that the more the police strategize to track the kidnappers down, the more the criminals unleash their terror on the people (p.4). Terrorism as a violent act is intrinsically tied to kidnapping. Ugwu (Oral Interview, 2011) disclosed that, one have to be terrorized first of all before one succumbs to a kidnapping encounter. With Ugwu’s view it is glaring that a synergy exists between kidnapping and terrorism since it takes a measure of the latter to compel a person to fall victim to the former.
2.1.2 Concept of Terrorism
Terrorism is not new, and even though it has been used since the beginning of recorded history, it can be relatively hard to define. Conceptualizing Terrorism One critical analytical problem in the discussion of the Niger Delta crisis is the dilemma of finding an appropriate word or concept to describe the menace and its perpetrators. Numbers of words have featured prominently in the literatures, magazines and newspapers (Osaghae 1995; Suberu 1996, 2001; Adejumobi and Aderemi 2002; Ogundiya and Amzat 2006; Ikporukpo 2007) describing the perpetrators of the crisis as- terrorists, criminals, ethnic militias, rebels, freedom fighters, insurgents, revolutionaries, and political agitators. In this context, the conceptualization will be based on the tactic and strategy employed in the political struggle. Therefore, Niger Delta crisis is conceived as political acts. Political acts can make sense only when linked to collective grievances. Whether they are acts of terror or of resistance, there is need to recognize a feature common to political acts- they appeal for popular support and are difficult to sustain in the absence of it (Mandani 2004). In essence, the perpetrators are not criminals but terrorists. Then what is terrorism?
A central feature of terrorism is the difficulty of defining its amorphous concept (Heng 2002). The United State Department defines terrorism as ‘premeditated, politically motivated violence against non-combatant targets by sub-national or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience”. The problem with this definition is that, due to the level of sophistication of ammunitions in the hand of terrorist, terror acts may be directed at both combatants and noncombatants as we have seen in the September 11 attacks against the United States (Ogundiya and Amzat 2006). For the purpose of this paper, “the threat of terrorism is itself terrorism” (Pillar cited in Heng 2002: 229). Therefore, political terrorism may be conceived “as the threat and or use of extra normal forms of political violence in varying degrees, with the objectives of achieving certain political objectives/goals. Such goals constitute the long range and short term objectives
that the group or movements seek to obtain (Shultz 1978). It is more a phenomenon or method of political violence than a clear set of adversaries (Heng 2002: 229).Terrorist violence communicates a political message; usually a message of political change (Crenshaw 1981: 379). It may be an expression of dissatisfaction with the current political arrangement. In Nigeria, the political message, at least from the “Niger Deltans” to the Nigerian state, is simply that the current fiscal federalism or arrangement is not the best for the society. Another conceptual problem is that terrorism is seen as criminality, whereas the two differ.
The distinction between political terror and crime is that the former makes an open bid for public support. Unlike “criminal” the “terrorist” is not easily deterred by punishment. Mandani (2004: 229) writes “whatever we may think of their methods, terrorist have not only a need to be heard but, more often than not, a cause to champion”. The cause of the agitator seen as domestic terrorist in this work is the liberation of the Niger Delta region from the morass of economic deprivation and/or marginalization and environmental devastating activities of the Multinational oil companies. The methods employed include: bombing of oil installations, kidnapping, hostage taking, and incendiary attack and so on - approaches known to be common with terrorist organizations across the world. The goal of the militia could be summed up as total control of the resources of the Niger Delta by the people of the Niger Delta and for the development of the Niger Delta. Another feature is that it is domestic in as much as it does not transcend the boundary of Nigeria.
2.2.2 Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis and Niger Delta Crisis
The frustration-aggression theory is associated with works of John Dollard et al (1939), the core assumption of which is that “aggression is always a consequence of frustration” (1939:1). The authors argued that individuals are motivated to achieve life ambitions and fulfil destiny, but when these expectations are thwarted, frustration sets in. In their line of thought, the occurrence of aggressive behaviour presupposes the existence of frustration; and that “the existence of frustration always leads to some form of aggression” (Dollard et al., 1939:
By the way, it is important to note that the existence of frustration does not always lead to aggression, given that frustration may have other consequences other than aggression. However, the argument may have failed to differentiate between instigation to aggression and the real incidence of aggression, but this paper acknowledges that frustration generates inquiries to various types of consequences, which may include instigation to certain kind of aggression. Aggression may develop as a consequence of having been exposed to an extremely frustrating condition sufficient to provoke the experience of hopelessness.
Simplistic analysis of the reasons for hostility in the region - that the Ijaws are at odds with Urhobos, the Igbos with the Itsekiris, etc- has distracted attention from what many consider the major problem. It is true that schism exists among the region’s various ethnic groups, but frustration occasioned as a result of a sense of despair and deprivation, environmental and developmental issues, transnational oil companies that neglect the ethos of corporate social responsibility are more like it. (Osaghae, E.1997). While this paper recognizes that the competition between the West and the emergent powers of the East in the struggle for energy resources and spheres of influence in global affairs can be considered factors too, we argue that the response of Niger Delta youths to the Nigerian state’s neglect and apathy of oil multinationals in the region radicalized them into violent militancy.
2.3 Niger Delta Militants and History of Kidnapping and Hostage Taking in Nigeria.
Oil has not only promoted international conflicts but also local ones (Nore and Turner 1981; Saro Wiwa 1992; Naanen 1995; Osaghae 1995; Ikporupo 2002; Monica 2004). As Ikporupo (1996: 159) observed, “since the great gold rush, which informed and characterized the voyages of discovery and expedition in the new world (the Americas), no natural resource has attracted so much attention and generated so much boom and yet so much conflict as petroleum”. In a similar vein, Monica (Cited in SpinWatch 2004) writes: Since oil was discovered in the wake of the industrial revolution in the 18th century, as a veritable source of energy, man’s appreciation, and value rating and demand for this product have reached a worrisome level. This unbridled appetite for the black gold, competing with human blood for first position in man’s needs have led to wars as many nations are outdoing one another for the control, protection and acquisition of oil generating territories.
Evidences of conflicts in and around the oil producing regions of the world including Nigeria authenticate this remark. In Nigeria, at the centre of most of these conflicts however, is not the competition among the stakeholders but also the environmentally degrading activities and nonchalant attitudes of the multinational oil companies and discontent with what the agitators consider as the obnoxious, archaic laws/Decrees which put the oil producing communities at a disadvantaged position. Such laws prevent the oil communities from total control; of the resource generated from their land. Examples of such laws among others are: Petroleum Act (51), 1969: This act vests control and ownership of all petroleum resources in the hands of the Federal Government (enacted in the heat of the civil war by the federal authorities); Offshore Oil Revenue Act (9), 1971: This act vests on the Federal Government exclusive rights over the continental shelf of the coastal areas; • The Land Use Act, 1978; Entrenched in the Constitution of Nigeria transferred the ownership of all lands from individuals and communities to the state governors. Other demands and grievances of Nigeria’s oil bearing areas relates to the disposition of land rents; the application of derivation principle to the allocation of federally collected mineral revenues; the appropriate institutional and fiscal responses to the ecological problems of the oil producing areas; the responsibility of the oil prospecting companies to the oil producing communities and the appropriate arrangements for securing the integrity and autonomy of the oil producing communities within the present federal structure (Suberu 1996: 27)
In the case of the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria four factors are responsible for the state of affairs between the oil and gas prospecting companies and their host communities. These include environmental factors, government attitude and policies, attitude and policies of the multinationals, and the realities of change fuelled by globalization. Among these, environmental impacts of the oil exploration are perhaps very important. These includes the indiscriminate destruction of marine life by explosives used in seismic surveys; the pollution of water, land and vegetation by seepages and spills from oil wells, tankers and exposed high pressure pipelines; and the devastation of crops and trees by the intense heat resulting from gas flaring. These have not only rendered the region inhospitable but also significantly hamper human development. This is indeed the root of the crisis. However, the crisis in the Niger Delta can be better understood as a long drawn historical process. This could be divided into five important historical phases – the colonial or pre-independence period which terminated in 1959, the early secession/Isaac Boro phase 1960-1970; the early civil society phase 1970-1985; the consultation, advocacy and mobilization/ Saro Wiwa phase 1986-1995; the confrontation/ post Saro Wiwa Phase 1996 to date.
The “judicial murder” of Ken Saro Wiwa not only created a leadership vacuum but also a consciousness in the people that support for any group or leaders of any group claiming to be their representative, liberator or freedom fighter is sacrosanct and unflinching. This has been responsible for the further proliferation of militant ethnic groupings. As at now, there are over 150 of such groups claiming to be the voice of the people of the oil communities. Few of these are: the Supreme Egbesu Assembly (SEA), Niger Delta Volunteer Force, (NDVF) led by Asari Dokubo; Movement for the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB); The Chicoco Movement formed in August 1997, on a joined rally at Aleibiri; Egbesu Boys of Africa (EBA) formed in 1998, Consists of Ijaw/warri ethnic groups; Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) formed on January 1, 1999; Isoko National Youth Movement (INYM); Itsekiri Nationality Patriots; Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) formerly headed by Late Ken Saro-wiwa
; Movement for the Survival of Ijaw Ethnic Nationality (MOSIEN); Movement for the
Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND); Movement for Reparation to Ogbia (Oloibiri)
(MORETO); Egi Women’s Movement; Niger Delta Vigilante (NDV), led by Ateke Tom; and Federated Niger Delta Ijaw communities, led by Oboko Bello.
The proliferation of ethnic groupings has further created security management problem. The brief historical analysis indicates that the Niger Delta crisis is a product of the struggle for the control and allocation of the petroleum resources of the Niger Delta and a fight against the environmentally degrading activities of the oil companies.
2.4 Implications of Niger Delta Militants activities in Nigeria
One of the most dreaded fallouts of Niger Delta Militants acts of terrorism, kidnapping and hostage-taking and killing is the fear that the feeling of hatred it has so far fueled may ultimately endanger the polity and the unity of the Nigerian state.
2.4.1 National Security
A year before the events of September 11th 2001, the US Department of State in its annual encyclopaedia of ‘global terrorism’ identified the Niger Delta – the geographical heart of oil production in Nigeria – as a breeding ground for militant and “impoverished ethnic groups” for whom terrorist acts (abduction, hostage taking, kidnapping and extrajudicial killings) were legion. A CIA report published a year earlier (2000), warned of the catalytic effects of “environmental stresses” in the oil-rich southern Delta on deepening “political tensions” at a time when Nigeria – currently the 6th largest producer of petroleum - was providing almost 14% of US petroleum consumption.
Throughout the last decade or so Nigeria has supplied around 8-10% on average of US oil imports and within a decade, as the deep-water fields are exploited (and as new reserves are discovered), Nigeria could be producing annually far in excess of Venezuela or Kuwait. Nigeria had, of course, become an archetypal “oil nation:” by the 1970’s. Oil revenues currently provides for 80% of government revenues, 95% of export receipts, and 90% of foreign exchange earnings. The geo-political significance of Nigerian oil to the US, particularly against the backdrop of rising prices, tight markets and political instability in the Gulf, Indonesia and parts of Latin America, is widely understood. Even before September 11th, the Petroleum Finance Company (PFC) presented to the US Congressional International Relations Committee Sub-Committee on Africa a report of the strategic and growing security significance of West African oil whose high quality reserves and low cost output – coupled with massive new deep water discoveries – required, in the view of PFC, serious attention, and substantial foreign investment. In the wake of the Al-Qaeda attacks and the Gulf War, Nigeria and West African producers have emerged as “the new Gulf oil states” (Servant, Le Monde diplomatique, January 13th 2003). By January 2002 the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies provided a forum for the Bush administration to declare that African oil is “a priority for US national security” (http://www.iasps.org). In the last year, the ugly footprint of Africa’s black gold – in Gabon, Sao Tome, Angola, and Equatorial Guinea – are rarely off the front pages. Oil and blood, as Jon Anderson (2000) put it in the New Yorker, And all this haunted by the spectre of terror; the “nightmare” as the New York Times noted (October 14th 2001: III, p.1) of “sympathizers of Osama Bin Laden sinking three oil tankers in the Straits of Hormuz”.
The mythos of oil and oil-wealth has been of course central to the history of modern industrial capitalism. But in Nigeria, as elsewhere in, the discovery of oil, and annual oil revenues of $40 billion currently, has ushered in a miserable, undisciplined, decrepit, and corrupt form of ‘petro-capitalism’. After a half century of oil production from which almost $300 billion in oil revenues have flowed directly into the Federal exchequer (and perhaps fifty billion promptly flowed out only to ‘disappear’ overseas), Nigerian per capita income stands at $290 per year. For the majority of Nigerians, living standards are no better now than at independence in 1960. A repugnant culture of excessive venality and profiteering among the political class - the Department of State has an entire website devoted to so-called 419 fraud cases - confers upon Nigeria the dubious honor of sitting atop Transparency International’s ranking of most corrupt states.
Paradoxically, oil-producing states in the federation have benefited the least from oil wealth.
Devastated by the ecological costs of oil spillage and the highest gas flaring rates in the world, the Niger Delta is a political tinderbox. A generation of militant ‘restive’ youth, deep political frustrations among oil producing communities, and pre-electoral thuggery all combine to prosper in the rich soil of political marginalization. The massive election rigging across the Delta in the April 2003 elections simply confirmed the worst for the millions of Nigerians who have suffered from decades of neglect. It was the great Polish journalist, Kapucinksi, who noted in his meditation on oil-rich Iran: “Oil creates the illusion of a completely changed life, life without work, life for free....The concept of oil expresses perfectly the eternal human dream of wealth achieved through lucky accident...In this sense oil is a fairy tale and like every fairy tale a bit of a lie” (1982: 35).
It is this lie that currently confronts West African oil producers, and the Nigerian Niger-Delta.
It is, then, perhaps no accident that the Middle East historian Robert Vitalis (2001) has recently suggested that the rapid, complete and irreversible rise of American dominance in Saudi Arabia can shed much light on why “the Niger Delta is currently in crisis”. And indeed it is. Since March 12th 2003, mounting communal violence accounting for at least fifty deaths, and the leveling of eight communities in and around the Warri petroleum complex , has prompted all the major oil companies to withdraw staff, to close down operations and reduce output by over 750,000 barrels per day (almost half of national output). President Obasanjo has dispatched large troop deployments to the oil-producing creeks prompting Ijaw militants, incensed over illegal oil bunkering in which the security forces were implicated and indiscriminate military action, to threaten the detonation of eleven captured oil installations. The strikes on the off-shore oil platforms
– a long festering sore that rarely reaches the media – were quickly resolved but
nobody seriously expects that the deeper problems within the oil sector will go away.
Relatively new to delta politics, however, are a series of assassinations, the most shocking being the killing of Chief Marshall Harry, a senior member of the main opposition party and leading campaigner for greater resource allocation to the oil producing Niger Delta. Fallout from the Harry assassination has already become a source of tension in his native oil producing state of Rivers were supporters of the main opposition party, the ANPP and another opposition grouping of activists and politicians, the Rivers Democratic Movement, have linked the ruling party to the assassination. With good reason, the business–as-usual character of the gubernatorial election victories across the oil-producing states, has led some to believe that the Rubicon has been crossed.
2.4.2. Economic implications
The federal government has revealed that the country lost N8.7b daily as a result of the conflict in the Niger Delta region before the amnesty period. That means if there was peace in Niger Delta then, the Nigerian Government would have made almost a double of that figure, N17.5 Billion! In a month that will translate to N522 Billion and in 12 months (1 year) it will amount to N6.264 Trillion!
Since 1998, the Niger Delta has seen a rise in the incidence of hostage taking of oil and oil related multinational company staff (both foreign and local) sabotage of company property; pipeline vandalisation; bombing of oil installations; kidnapping for ransom, sea piracy and robbery on the waterways. It was reported in the Financial Standard of January, 2006 that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation recorded 1,306 cases of line breaks (majority of which took place in the Niger Delta) of petroleum products pipeline across the country in 2005 (Ibiyemi 2006: 3). This figure is considered too high when compared with 88 cases recorded in 2003. It also represents an increase of 40.5 percent over the 929 cases recorded by the corporation in 2004. The situation is worse now. There is no passing day without a reported case of kidnap, hostage taking or pipeline destruction in the Niger Delta. Balogun (2006) observed that:
Kidnap and hostage taking particularly of foreign oil workers, by militants in the oil-rich
Niger Delta region of Nigeria is assuming an alarming rate. Before youths militants became daring in 2006, they had limited their exuberance to just disrupting operations of oil producing companies, blowing up oil pipelines and invading oil fields with the aim of collecting ransom.
Today, people in the Niger Delta live in perpetual fear. More worrisome is the fact that the legitimacy and the survival of the Nigerian state is under considerable threat. It is important to note that this table only shows a few incidents of acts of terror in the Niger Delta region. Indeed, kidnappings in Nigeria’s oil-producing Niger Delta have become an almost daily occurrence. For instance, nearly 100 foreign oil workers have been kidnapped in the first quarter of 2007. MEND the most active and violent militant group have been responsible for most of the destruction of oil facilities and the kidnap of oil workers. In short, the Niger Delta region could be said to be in a state of war- a war of low intensity between the militants and multinational oil companies on the one hand and the militants and the Nigerian state on the other hand. More worrisome is the fact that the terrorists are now confidently inching closer into the metropolis with the threat to make the attacks national. With a more sophisticated weapon, the terrorist not only intimidate foreign citizens but also the Nigerian security agencies. Irrefutably in the Niger Delta Region today, the fear of the militants is the beginning of wisdom.
MEND in its non-compromising stance vowed to cripple the nation’s economy. Truly, the damage youth restiveness has done to the Nigerian economy is huge. Shell, for example produced only 700,000 barrels per day from August to December 1998 falling short of its production quota of 830,000 barrels per day in July 1998 (SPDC Report, May 1999:2). The confrontation has also had its toll on human lives. In 1999 for instance, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that the Ogoni rebellion resulted in deaths and destruction of the community, producing refugees estimated to be 5,400 (Ejobowah 2000). In another instance, in a military operation in December 30 and 31 1998, about 26 civilians were killed and about 200 wounded (Ejobowah 2000). On the other hand 80 soldiers were reported missing. The effects of the confrontation on the economy have been enormous. The oil industry is estimated to have lost 117 working days in 1997. In the first eight months of 1998 Shell, the largest oil company lost about 11 billion barrels of crude oil estimated at $3.2 billion (Ejobowah 2000). Appreciating the damaging effect on the economy, General Abdusalam Abubakar in 1999 budget speech to the nation as cited in the Guardian newspapers of January 2, 1999, confessed; “… the temporary closure of wells in the Niger Delta led to a sharp reduction in government foreign exchange earnings”, resulting in the non-realization of “the budgeted 1998 revenue of N216.336 billion from oil. The situation has gone worse since then. In a period of seven months in 2006 (between February and September) the Business Day of September 4, 2006 reported that the country lost about 12 billion US dollars to the Niger Delta militants. By May 2007, it is estimated that militant activities and protest have reduced oil production from a total capacity of 3million barrels per day to about 2million barrels. At an average of 65 dollars a barrel, this loss translates to $65 million per day.
2.5. The Major Niger Delta Militant Groups
A lot of splinters militant groups exist in the Niger Delta, but in this study I will list and describe the few that are officially recognized and identified the government:
Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) – Emerging in late 2005, MEND established its presence by kidnapping four foreign oil workers and articulated a set of demands that included increased political participation, a greater share of the profits derived from local oil and gas, socioeconomic development, and the reduced militarization of the region. Although it is the Delta’s highest profile militant group, MEND remains misunderstood by most outside observers. Rather than a single entity with clear political goals, MEND has evolved into a conglomeration of distinct militant groups with constantly shifting alliances and loyalties. These shifts are more often dictated by personal interests and rivalries rather than by coherent political differences. In some cases, different groups merge under the MEND banner for a single operation before parting ways afterwards. Although many commentators in both the international and Nigerian press refer to arms dealer and oil bunkerer Henry Okah (aka Jomo Gbomo) as the group’s leader, MEND has no clear hierarchical structure and no single individual in direct control of its subsidiary groups, which include:
1. Federated Niger Delta Ijaw Communities (FNDIC) – Operating under the MEND umbrella, and sometimes referred to as Western MEND, the FDNIC was founded in Delta State where militants organize along more rigid ethnic lines than in Bayelsa or Rivers. The group called for Ijaw self determination in the Warri area and openly opposed both the oil industry and the Nigerian government. Led politically by Oboko Bello and militarily by former oil industry employee turned criminal Tom Polo, the FNDIC built a heavily fortified complex in the region’s creeks. Although it engages in the same criminal activities as other MEND factions, it has remained at least nominally committed to the political goals of the Ijaw community. The FDNIC leadership is believed to receive political patronage from Delta State Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan. [Tomas Malina, 2009]
2. “General” Boyloaf – Operating under the MEND umbrella in Bayelsa State, Boyloaf’s organization is sometimes referred to as Central MEND. The pseudonym of militant leader Victor Ben, Boyloaf has the closest ties of any Delta militant to Henry Okah, who often issues statements to the press on behalf of Central MEND. Boyloaf is believed to receive political patronage from Bayelsa State Governor Timipre Sylva. [Tomas Malina, 2009]
3. Outlaws – Operating under the MEND umbrella in Rivers State, Outlaws were formed by the NDV’s (see below) former number two, Soboma George. The Outlaws leadership is believed to receive political patronage from Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi. [Stratfor, 2010]
4. Niger Delta Strike Force (NDSF) – Operating under the MEND umbrella in Rivers State, the NDSF is sometimes referred to as Eastern MEND. The NDSF was formed in 2005 by Farah Dagogo, a former independent commander of a separate militant organization. Initially the NDSF developed a close partnership with the Outlaw’s Soboma George. By 2008, however, the two groups had become sworn enemies while remaining nominally linked through their association with MEND.
Other groups include:
Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force (NDPVF) – Founded by Mujahid Dokubo-Asari and operating mostly in Rivers State, the NDVP broke from the more politically mainstream activist Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) in 2004 and threatened an all-out war on the oil industry. The threat of guerilla operations aimed at the disruption of oil production caused a spike in global oil prices to a then-high of $50 a barrel. Asari’s arrest in 2005 by the Nigerian government on treason charges played a key role in the formation of MEND, though his release in 2007 did not lead to the NDPVF joining the umbrella organization. Asari openly admits to funding his group through the sale of stolen oil, claiming that he is just taking back what has been stolen from the Ijaw people. [Stratfor, 2010] Members of the Reformed NDPVF participate in the Joint Revolutionary Council (JRC) along with members of MEND and a group known as the Martyrs Brigade.
Niger Delta Vigilantes (NDV) – Formed in Rivers state in 2003 by Ateke Tom, a bitter rival of NDPVF leader Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, the NDV battled other groups over control of oil bunkering territory. Tom accepted a government amnesty in late 2009 and agreed to surrender arms. Tom is believed to receive political patronage from Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi. [Emma Amaize, 2010]
People’s Liberation Force (PLF) – Led by Egbiri Papa, also known as Soboma Jackrich. Sometimes allied with Dagogo’s NDSF. Niger Delta Survival Movement (NDSM) – Formerly under the MEND umbrella, the NDSM broke ranks in February 2010, claiming that MEND had become corrupt and had lost its founding vision [Emma Amaize, 2010].
2.6 Niger Delta Region: Geo-political History
Long before now, there existed certain level of confusion in the definitive location of the Niger Delta (Ukaogo 2000). This is so because the region is heterogeneous, multicultural, and ethnically diverse. The Niger Delta covers an area of about 70,000km extending eastward of longitude 430 degree east to the Nigeria- Cameroon border and bounded by the Atlantic Ocean. The Delta lies within some 22 major estuaries that are linked locally by a complicated network of mangrove creeks, rich in wetlands, biodiversity, oil and gas as well as human resources (Anyaegbunan 2000: 140). The Niger Delta can be geologically, carthologically, hydrologically or geo-politically defined (Nwachukwu 2000: 105). This research perceives the Niger Delta from a geo-political point of view. A geo-political definition of the region include those states of Nigeria that border the coastal waters of the Atlantic. The Niger Delta comprises the nine (9) oil producing states in Nigeria.
2.2 Theoretical Framework
2.2.1 Iron Law of Responsibility
What this research will achieve in the theoretical concept of the iron law of responsibility. This law states that in a long run, those who do not use power in ways that society considers responsible will tend to lose it.
The implication of this theoretical constant is that those multinationals organization that are blind towards the provision of infrastructure and social amenities to the host communities will eventually have opposition at a long run.
A typical example is the agitation of the Niger – Delta situation which has affected the production of crude oil by multinational companies operating the region, which SHELL is a Victim. There are so many social threats in the region like kidnapping, pipe lines destruction, militant killing among others.
The Niger Delta Situation
Education is not the cause of unemployment per se but the skill required in the relevant areas. The reason for this is that individuals in the past make the opinions and attitudes to the world of work and the vocation they intend to take up in the future. This dictates the discipline they intend to pursue to be skilled. The right of choice of vocations by individuals is now violated by parents most especially by mothers without measuring the ability of their choice with capability of those for whom they decide for. Individuals come out and get dissatisfied with the jobs available because they do not have the skills in the relevant areas; hence there is lack of job satisfaction.
Oladiti (1990) describes job satisfaction as the extent to which a person is satisfied by the content and the environment of work. Job dissatisfaction is the extent to which a person is displeased or frustrated by inadequate working conditions and tedious job content. What exists in the Niger Delta is job dissatisfaction because the youths want to work in the areas for which they have no skill. There is therefore lack of basic skill for employment and the youths are not ready to take challenging jobs. In the area, three classes can be identified, the political elite who use their affluent life style to cause terrorism and kidnapping. There are those in absolute poverty who are unemployed and have no income or resource to maintain minimum healthy living. There are also those in primary poverty whose minimum income or resources in enough for physical maintenance or health. These last two groups of classes see the affluence of the political class who may not be better than them educationally but use state resource to their satisfaction. At the context of national development, the core-periphery model can be applied to the region. The golden egg which makes the area a core is the oil exploration and exploitation. The oil and gas found in the region are propulsive forms capable of generating large scale employment. The hinterland of the Niger Delta or the rest of Nigeria is the periphery to the core. The model refers to the spatial division of Nigeria into an economic relationship. The core is oil-gas rich area of Nigeria and the periphery are the areas articulated to the need of the core area.
No special criteria have been used to define poverty nor is there data to buttress the level of poverty. However, the paper adopts the inadequate supply of money, inadequate educational opportunities and inequality as measures of poverty. Equally budget standards can be applied to the definition. The adoption of budget standards presumes that the adoption of N 10,000.00 minimum national monthly wage would be applicable. The use of these budget standards assumes that those who are employed would earn this amount. For those unemployed this minimum wage is a mirage and makes the absolute poverty applicable.
The inability of indigenes to be appointed is because of lack of relevant skills due to inadequate educational opportunities. For example if vacancy exists for a petroleum engineer and an electrical engineer surfaces, he stands unappointable because his skills is not in the relevant area. Similarly youths may be unwilling to take up jobs whose income cannot commensurate with the political class. Most people now look for easy means of making money, just as they perceive of the political class.
Acts of terrorism, insurrections and kidnapping have become synonymous with the Niger Delta youths because of connivance with some political groups which they see as alternative to means of livelihood and a route out of the poverty syndrome. By August 2007 relatives of politicians had fallen victims of kidnapping. For example the mother of Celestine Omehia, River State Governor was kidnapped. Madam Hansel a.k.a. Mama Yenogoa, mother of Speaker, Bayelsa State was kidnapped and a N50million ransom was demanded, Margaret Hill was also kidnapped (Odume, 2007). Mr. Odili’s nephew to former Governor of River State, Peter Odili was kidnapped and a ransom of N50 million demanded (Guardian, 2008) etc. recently, N 4 million was demanded for a kidnapped victim but was later found dead a day after N 2 million was paid for his release. A relative of a member of River State House of Assembly was kidnapped in River State and a ransom of N 440 million demanded was not fully met, it was partially met but not publicized. To the youths involved in this act of terrorism, it is a profitable “employment”.
2.3 Empirical Review
Ukanda (2010) investigated on the positive roles of religion in the violent crime of kidnapping and attempts to proffer solutions that would be both enduring and peace sustaining in Abia State. It adopts a historical research methodology and utilized both primary and secondary sources of data collection. While the primary source of data collection was gotten through oral interview from knowledgeable individuals from around the state, on the research subject. The secondary sources include among others national dailies, journals and textbooks relevant to the topic. The level of moral degeneration and erosion of communal values, mass unemployment and poverty, poor security which encouraged proliferation of small arms and light weapons, and the agitation for amnesty by some Abia youths were underlying factors which led to the crime of kidnapping in the state. Running through all these causative factors were notions of economic injustice and deprivation. The effects were multidimensional—psychological, political, economic, security—affecting people at individual, communal, and societal levels. The positive roles of religion—especially the church as an organized social system with grass-root relevance—was observed as a restorative justice mechanism and structure that can help abate kidnapping through interventions aimed at prevention, detection, punishment of kidnappers, and care for kidnapped victims.
Vincent (2012) investigated on the attempts to discern the palpable causes of anti-oil protests in the Niger-Delta region of Nigeria. The study is necessitated by the need to situate the crisis in the Niger-Delta region in historical perspective. In line with this, what appears to be the federal government response to the crisis are isolated and discussed. It is found that one of the issues causing disaffection in the region is breach of promises and dashed hopes from the government and the oil companies operating there. Our conclusion emphasizes the need for consensus building as well as participatory approach to conflict resolution in the region. In the last three decades, the Niger Delta region, the centre of Nigeria’s oil wealth has been the scene of protest, sometimes violent, against the repressive tendencies of the Nigerian state on the one hand and against the recklessness, exploitative and environmentally unfriendly activities of oil Multinationals on the other hand. The violence has taken terror dimensions. Such violent agitations have claimed thousands of lives, other thousands displaced and inestimable properties have been destroyed rendering the region one of the most dangerous zones to live in Nigeria today. The research looked at the genesis of the crisis, the threats it poses to human and national security and the policies that have been adopted by the Nigerian state to curtail and control the crisis. A total of 200 questionnaires were distributed among the respondents identified for the study within the FCT. The study shows that the genesis of the terrorism, kidnapping and hostage taking going on in the Niger Delta region was caused by poverty, unemployment and long years of economic deprivation. Also respondent believe the government has the political will and ability to resolve the issue and that the establishment of the NDDC, Niger Delta development Master Plan and the Amnesty programme offered the militant will help tackle the insecurity in the Niger Delta. Respondents are also of the opinion that JTF has performed very well in tackling the terrorism going on there. We then concluded that government should continue to pursue the development and reclamation of degraded land in the Niger Delta region due to oil exploration and address the grievances of the region.