When the Movement for the emancipation of the Niger Delta, MEND and other groups emerged in the Niger Delta a few years ago and declared their resolve to pick up arms against the continuing destruction of their environment by the oil companies and Nigeria’s rulers who cream off the wealth that accrue from oil exploitation with nothing but misery to show for it for the inhabitants of the Niger Delta, many people believed that they represented the logical outcome from Sani Abacha’s extra-judicial murder of Mr. Ken Saro-Wiwa who positioned himself to fight the same cause through non-violent means.
Many other people, including this writer, went as far as arguing supportively of their chosen strong arm repertoire. The rationale being that a regime that made itself impervious to non-violent engagement should hold itself responsible for engendering the emergence of groups that embraced the inverse repertoire of violent resistance.
Ever since, so much water has gushed through the creeks and estuaries of the Niger Delta into the Atlantic Ocean, while MEND and each of those groups and their leaders have fallen practically for everything unbecoming of the cause they claim they are fighting for. Today, all the other groups except MEND have varnished into oblivion. The world has watched with dismay as MEND—particularly—and its leaders associate themselves with all sorts of acts that boarder on brigandage more than on liberation. They have been involved in kidnappings, ransoming, etc. Their leaders and those that claim to be their leaders have been associated with oil bunkering, gun running, and acts that have confounded many people including this writer. Each day dawns with another act by MEND, its leaders or rank and file that put credence to one notion: MEND is the brain child of individuals who are motivated by selfishness. One of their leaders was held in Angola where he was rumored to have gone to negotiate the purchase of an oil tanker. The questions about that are, what for? What would the leader of a liberation struggle be doing with an oil tanker? Their leaders and rank and file have been involved amnesty negotiations and deals with Abuja. They have even announced support for Mr. Goodluck Jonathan to bolster his pathetic position in the faceless power struggle going on in Umaru Yar’Adua’s contraption called government. Come to think of it, right-thinking people are aware that Mr. Jonathan is not worth the support of a serious liberation group. They have an unsavory pattern to their modus operandi. Each time after MEND and its leaders have compromised themselves, which has been time and time again, they took a brief time’s breather, and then came up with one more act of brigandage that they announced through an e-mail message signed by a ghost. It has gone on and on.
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It’s high time that MEND sits up or caps out. Blowing up oil installations and kidnapping of oil workers for ransom money do not a liberation struggle make! MEND and its leaders must stop muddling up an already muddled situation and cause in the Niger Delta and Nigeria any further. The issues involved are clear: Nigeria needs restructuring, the nationalities that constitute Nigeria must be factored into the political economy on the basis of their identity, and governance in Niger must be purposeful. MEND’s continuing alienation of global public opinion, which it must cultivate, must stop. It needs to redefine itself and adjust itself accordingly. Otherwise, it has positioned itself and its leaders for an unpalatable ending someday, soon.
Postscript—the Mass Protests in Abuja and London this Week
This writer is thrilled that there are protests planned in Abuja and London this week over Umaru Yar’Adua’s abdication and brigandage that goes on in Abuja in the name of government. If the intention is to show case sporadic one-shot media events that will frizzle away and clear the ground for the looting and recklessness that goes on all over Nigeria to continue, then the organizers of the protests might as well think twice. Preparations must include sustaining the protests until the demands that the organizers of the protests have outlined are met.
● E. C. Ejiogu, PhD is a political sociologist.
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