Skip to main content

Gov. Amaechi and The Ogoni Military Project

December 3, 2009

The rulers of the Nigerian State have made controversy a craft and function of governance. A society that has no direction can make any fancy its policy drive. A society where our rulers take advantage of the amenability of the subjects, not citizens and govern any how, life here can be a twist of controversy. The great English logician, humanist and philosopher, Bertrand Russel (1872-1970), warned us, “The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way”. The latest in the string Hon. Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi’s controversial projects is the planned relocation of Bori camp (Port Harcourt camp) to the Ogoni territory.


The waterfront demolition controversy is still shuddering our minds with fury. Our urban poor in Port Harcourt, Rivers State capital are losing their homes to powerful business interests in Port Harcourt. Hon. Amaechi, the Governor of the oil-rich Rivers State had drawn another controversial battle line, and this time around, the battle field is the Ogoni land. The recent flare-up by the governor in Bori, the headquarters of the Khana Local Government Area of Rivers State amongst other controversies, during his town hall meeting was the proposal to relocate Bori camp to Ogoni land; this is as controversial as the Port Harcourt waterfronts wrecking.

As part of Hon. Amaechi’s self-vaunted “Greater Port Harcourt Project”, the military men and women who occupy the wide expanse of land on the northern side of Port Harcourt called Bori or Port Harcourt camp, had been allegedly induced with mountainous offer of pedro-naira, to quit the land housing Bori camp. The soldiers need the Rivers State windfall, the Bori camp area is also coming under some intense urban pressures and our wild politicians and contractors also want more money from site contracts and scams. Ogoniland has become an instant viable site; the governor has commissioned surveyors from the Rivers State Ministry of Lands and Survey to use aerial method of surveying to provide the site with precise coordinates of the targeted Ogoni area.

Communities such as Koloma and other rural villages in the Tai Local Government Area of Ogoni will be engulfed by the military camp site project. Whether in civilized or savaged society like ours military men and women are not good neighbours. The Elele people of Amaechi’s Ikwere group and the Obinze folks of the Igbo stock have their bitter tales to tell about leaving closer to military camps, the local Obinze people in the Owerri West Local Government Area of Imo State where the 34 field Artillery Brigade (former Ike Nwachukwu Barracks) and the Elele natives in the Ikwerre Local Government Area of Rivers State where the Isaac Adaka Boro Barrack is located, are very angry villagers. When I was researching for this piece, I was told of several cases of soldiers not keeping to their boundaries and encroaching on lands that they never acquired legally, there were stories of stealing more lands, rape and harassment of women and creating general atmosphere of terror dominate the above landscape. The tales of the Obinze and Elele people are just the same. Even those in other parts of Nigeria where military facilities are sited have their unsweetened accounts to give us.

Militarization, guns and arming had exposed our lives to more perils than ever. A time has come when we should be moving towards downsizing of armies, downsizing of the instrument of violence. All over the world the people’s movement against military barracks, guns, and camps is growing rapidly. From “the land of the Immortals” – Okinawa to Pyeongtaek, the anti-military movement is sweeping. Okinawa used to be a sovereign state called Ryukyu but after the World War II, the United States of America (USA) coerced them into Japan. “The land of the Immortals” as it is affectionately called has over 1.2 million residents. This traditional and indigenous people are as furious as the Obinze and Elele people of Nigeria. A massive movement led by Okinawan women, youths, activists, parliamentarians, university teachers had sprung up, to agitate for the removal of US huge military infrastructure from their land. The aura of US militarism around the Okinawa area is threatening development. In September 1995, a 12-year-old poor Okinawa girl was mercilessly raped by US soldiers at the Okinawa base.

The Presbyterian Church and other civil society groups (CSOs) in Pyeongtaek, are spearheading the movement against the conspiracy between the South Korean government and the US authorities who are determined to seize massive lands belonging to the poor rice farmers of the Pyeongteak region, a metropolis in the Gyeonggi, South Korea. It was the government of George Bush Jnr, Who launched the US military expansion policy around Pyeongtaek area. Several South Korean villages will be affected by the military expansionist project. Over 800 Pyeontaek rice farmers had been subtly evicted, to give their lands up to the military project. A greater number of the rich farmers had succumbed to the army of occupation, accepted compensation and quit their fertile lands. The South Korean government is intimidating the remaining 200 Pyeongtaek rice farmers who want justice and respect for their rights.

Away from our Okinawa and Pyeongtaek communities, the Poor Ogoni villagers are already paying a heavy price for the establishment of a squadron of MOPOL No. 56, at Saakpenwa, the headquarters of Tai Local Government Area of the state. On daily basis, poor people are harassed, molested and money extorted from them by the squadron officials. We can’t hide under national security to destroy our lives. No same people or community will want a military cantonment of that dimension, however if the governor is so interested in the relocation of Bori military camp, he should do well to shift it to his Ubima village community where agricultural lands sprawl endlessly, which of late, is home to key state development projects and will host the Rivers State University of Science and Technology (RSUST) that will be relocated to the place in few days.                

Ogoni land is already under stress. The people are predominantly farmers and fisher folks. The available land mass is not enough for the increasing population pressures from within. The consequences of a military base like Bori camp in Ogoni land won’t be a good tale. The Ogoni country can’t afford another round of land expropriation, occupation, rape, violence, extra-judicial killings, harassment and other evils associated with keeping a military cantonment either temporarily or permanently. Ogonis wouldn’t be happy having soldiers who kill their people, rape their girls, wives and mothers, and looted their properties and desecrated their land during the various wasting operations as neighbours.


Naagbanton writes from Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria.

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content1'); });

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('comments'); });

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content2'); });