The Nation (Nairobi)
January 22, 2007
By Chege Mbitiru
There is an African war the world at large pays little attention. Plausibly that's because it remains an internal affair. Well, so was, once, Darfur, Somalia ad infinitum.
This war is in the Niger Delta. The British once called it Oil Rivers and gave it a grand title: British Oil Rivers Protectorate. There was plenty of palm oil, a precious commodity then.
Officially, the delta covers 70,000 square kilometres, 7.5 per cent of Nigeria's land mass. That isn't much were it not that really good oil-petroleum-exists there and extends into the Atlantic Ocean.
On Saturday, the Vanguard newspaper in Lagos reported a national humiliation. An unidentified diplomat from the Far East said foreign missions had formed a Niger Delta Security Desk.
The envoy was diplomatic. The missions, he said, didn't want to seem wishing "to do the job of the Nigerian security apparatus." They were just "concerned about how to protect our nationals from the risk of working in a region that is gradually spinning out of control."
That's a polite way of telling the government: You aren't doing much and should chagrin President Olusegun Obasanjo. After all, democratically elected general-presidents are supposed to deal effectively with conflicts. They have civilian authority and military expertise.
Few, among them Mr Obasanjo, remember the Biafra war. As a Nigerian journalist wrote in an Associated Press dispatch last year, it occurred "before an Ethiopian famine, a Rwandan genocide or an implosion of Congo." Control of the Delta oil was one reason for the war.
Nigeria became an oil producer in 1958. It controls three percent of world reserves and is world's eighth largest oil exporter, and each year burns all gas African needs. Not much, but whenever a few hundred thousands barrels of Nigerian oil a day miss the market, petroleum prices go up a cent, whatever the currency.
Of the Delta, today the world hears much about Ijaws, close to 14 million. Thanks to the late writer, Mr Ken Sarawiwa, even a few in numbers, like the Ogoni, ring a bell. That's because, contrary to popular opinion, resources like oil belong to states, as trustees.
That's as far as it gets right. Right from the word go, Niger Delta people cried raw deal. From all accounts, Delta inhabitants are dirt poor. The same though is true elsewhere in Nigeria. The difference is Delta inhabitants see wealth sail into the Atlantic Ocean and beyond; the reality is they feel the poverty pinch more and demand more of the wealth.
It doesn't seem the federal government ever saw this reality and formulated a plausible and visible soothing policy.
So, first in the Delta came verbal demands for a big share of oil money, then sabotaging of pipelines, siphoning of fuel, kidnapping of foreign oil workers and finally gun battles-speed boats and all. Amidst all this, a multi-billion-dollar oil smuggling business for arms-reports say to and from Eastern Europe-flourished.
Groups involved in all this agitation have only changed in names. Last year, the current flag bearer, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, Mend, declared total war on petroleum companies. Nigeria lost $4.4 billions in revenue.
The government talks tough but, jointly with the petroleum companies, engage in crude tactics of paying off different groups to stop the violence. That only encourages violence entrepreneurs. Corruption and inefficiency cripple sensible programs like the Niger Delta Development Commission.
Reports politicians and officials perpetuate the violence abound. Recently authorities caught two rear admirals. Scapegoats? Reportedly, Osama bin Laden hovers. Well, he's entitled to fish in troubled waters.
In the meantime, up in the Delta some Igbos shouts Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra for a reason similar to MEND’s fighting. A union of the MEND and MASSOB isn't in the offing, but it's plausible.
Briefly, elements of a major conflict in the Delta are ripening fast. Nigerians, not just their government, need to change tactics quickly. The only option seems to be a new oil-money-use plan. Otherwise, a war, not necessary called Biafra, is looming.googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('comments'); });
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content1'); });
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content2'); });