President Umaru Yar’adua must be commended for his efforts and definite initiatives so far towards addressing the issue of security and peaceful resolution of the Niger Delta conflict. However, by his approach, all his efforts so far would come to naught in terms of producing desired and quantifiable results.
Reasons: the blanket amnesty he offered to both genuine militants and criminals disrupting oil operations amongst other heinous crimes in the Niger Delta was ill-advised, ill -conceived and terribly flawed.
The amnesty offer to militants (as a generic term) in the Niger Delta meant different things to different people. Majority of the real people of the area who see it as a panacea for constructive engagement and peaceful resolution of the obvious issues in the region received it as a welcomed development. Some politicians and self-acclaimed elder statesmen see it as an opportunity to save both themselves and these “militants” who also served to protect their interests- political and business relations. Mischief makers both within and outside the region see it as an opportunity to make money from the confusion or rather the attempt to address the confusion.
Interestingly, majority of the targeted militants themselves see it as a decoy to disarm, cage and deal with them, but the most interesting aspect is how President Yar’adua himself and the federal government see the initiative.
To the President whatever initiative that can bring peace and security to the troubled Niger Delta even if it entails sealing an MOU with the devil himself would be acceptable so long as government has unhindered access to pump the abundant oil and gas resources from the region to fund its lusts and corruption.
This mindset was publicly expressed by President Yar’adua when he said, “I will welcome any leader, in fact I make bold to say that it will be a great pleasure for me to personally accept the first militant leader who takes advantage of this amnesty, to encourage others to do so; so that they can have confidence that we are sincere and honest in granting of this amnesty.”
Though MEND outrightly rubbished the initiative as a political gimmick, it could be said that the mindset of some of the gangs had been clearly expressed to mean that they are ready to hand in their weapons and those of their boys if the conditions for the amnesty are acceptable to them.
The last sentence above is where President Yar’adua’s real dilemma lies- the terms of the amnesty. The conditions for the amnesty were supposed to have been released on Thursday June 25, 2009. But there was nothing tangible that could be described as conditions in the Presidential address rather it was a vacuous and crafty political pronouncement that did not specific any single thing in real terms.
First, who are the militants and who are the criminals among the existing groups and even among the many not very organize one-man warlords scattered across the region? Who is going to do the classification and sorting- local community people or elder statesmen who have interests in the entire confusion? Is it going to be by the Federal Government that has established its insincerity and deceitfulness in the minds of the entire people of the region or state governments most of which are either sponsors/ patrons or sworn enemies of the warlords?
This is the most critical part of the entire initiative because if not handle well, in few months from now, the situation will get back to where we are or even worse as many more groups will obviously emerge.
Majority of the recognized warlords (and even unrecognized ones) could best be described as outright criminals, thieves and kidnappers of children and aged men and women from their own respective communities. They don’t have an iota of a defined course they are fighting. They have been simply involved in coercions for cash drive whether from oil companies and their facilities, politicians, villagers and ordinary innocent expatriates and Niger deltans even those that were supposed to be their kinsmen.
Already, there seems to be a fracture in what was wrongly perceived as a unified militant coalition. Some of the groups have offered to surrender but on the condition that their names be expunged from “all government’s criminal records.” That clearly means that some of these people posing as militants actually know that they have genuine criminal records which could be prosecuted by genuine application of the rule of law.
If President Yar’adua agrees to expunge the names of established criminals from records as part of his amnesty, where then is the President rule of law enchantment? What is going to be scope of such ‘delete’ application? Is the Presidential kind heart going to be extended to other criminals (civil and financial) and militants already in prison for whatever offense?
President Yar’adua’s second dilemma is the issue of arms- for -money swap? He has made it clear that the concept of arms for money would not be entertained in any form. Good as it sounded on the surface, every sincere Nigerian knows that the President was not serious in this stance because big money must exchange hands whether you are buying back the arms or doling out money while they still keep their weapons except the government does not want to woo back these militants majority of whom controls huge monies from crude oil theft and hostage batter business.
From all indications, government has decided to settle repentant “militants”, as reported in the media, with over N50 billion. The question is: if you are not buying back their arms as part of the mitigation measures, of what propose is the promised billions of naira- to bribe them while they still keep their arms or to enable them go on exile while hiding their arms in the swamp or even bringing them into mainland Nigeria?
Also, the talk of voluntary surrender of arms by repentant militants sounded like kiddies play. From the last Rivers state experience, such initiative cannot work at all because the government does not actually know the exact arms and ammunitions at the disposals of any of the militant groups. Supposing the militants submits useless and old weapons in their arsenal to receive amnesty while still keeping the sophisticated and good ones or even acquire new and more sophisticated ones how would Government know?
Another dilemma is the issue of the list of those prominent Nigerians that have sponsored and benefited from the activities of militants and criminals in the Niger Delta region. The President has publicly acknowledged custody of the Tompolo’s ‘diary’. At this point, he cannot claim to be sincere in all his initiatives to proffer lasting peace and security in the Niger Delta when “clearly identified” culprits outside the gangs are freely moving around and still calling the shots both in government and in the wider society. Except the president would now tell Nigerians that his earlier claim that the JTF captured the sponsors’ list or rather a “diary of business transactions” from Tompolo’s Camp 5 was a mere hoax. If the president tows this line, that may be a confirmation of MEND’s earlier allegation that the purported list which the group described as a list of “scapegoats” was generated by commanders of the JTF and official of the federal government and was being dangled as blackmail bait. So there is a credibility issue here.
Nigerians would want the identified sponsors and beneficiaries unmasked and even prosecuted as part of the solution to the problem of the region except the Presidential amnesty also covers this category of criminals.
Another spot of concern and an obvious dilemma to the government is the presence and fate of the JTF operation in the region. There have been strong calls for an immediate pull out of all military presence from the region or at worst a ceasefire in the ongoing operations by the JTF to flush out the militants from their bases.
The issue is: pulling out the military or even a ceasefire now would amount to defeat of the Nigerian Forces by the militants as it is already being claimed by some of the groups. This will be demoralizing to the security agencies who may find other ways to express their displeasure with the government. It will also boost the moral of the unrepentant militants who may assume that they have the capability to engage and stand the federal forces and this is where the big problem lies.
However, continued military operations with its attendant hardship including casualties of innocent people of the Niger Delta in the name of uprooting militants from their strongholds is no longer an option because of its implications on the rights of the non-militant members of those communities and the entire region.
So what should the President do in this quagmire? (To be continued).
IFEANYI IZEZE IS AN ABUJA-BASED CONSULTANT ON POLTICAL STRATEGY AND CRISIS COMMUNICATION ([email protected])
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content1'); });
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('comments'); });
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content2'); });