Nigerian Niger Delta Militancy: A Positive Fight in a Negative Direction

NIGERIAN NIGER DELTA MILITANCY; A POSITIVE FIGHT IN A NEGATIVE DIRECTION

The case of the Militants in the Niger Delta has become a terrible phenomenon dragging the government to a standstill, all possible solutions has proved abortive and the government is considering calling for external help. But how did it all started? It started somehow and they are so many, they includes:

• The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND)
• The Niger Delta people’s Volunteer force
• The Niger Delta Vigilante
• And so many other nameless factions

These organizations are been led by various leaders (or commanders if you like) which are Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, Ateke Tom and some Anonymous.

This is actually how it all started, in the early 1950’s there arose tensions between foreign oil companies (majorly SHELL) and the locals (especially the Ijaw and the Ogoni) who were actually exploited. Shell came into Nigeria first and extract crude oil from the land of these communities without proper settling, all they do is to pay the King or District head and forget about the people. Extracting crude oil from such areas pollutes the rivers around and even the land causing intense unemployment as people living in this area are strictly farmers and fishermen. As expected, Shell is suppose to provide scholarship to the children in these communities and provide job or proper settlement to these people just as is obtainable in some other countries where they operate. They just break the rules down here and when our leaders (politicians) talk, their mouth is sealed with cash, too bad! And then other oil companies joined the fleet and continue the race as the pace was set by SHELL.

Competition for oil wealth trigger more violence as the quest to regain high percentage of the wealth generated from such oil was sought for by the locals in the host communities while those in the outskirt (North) quit their own wealth generative measures which include farming and concentrated on sharing the black gold and that cause a reproduction in the number of these militias with one aim; to regain control of their wealth.

Lately, there have been changes in the reasons for their fight. As more and more group join the fight for survival without any response from the government or the companies involve, they turn to violence in other to push forward their goals. This resulted in the death of many policemen and soldiers. That was when they become a force to reckon with. Looting, Stealing and Kidnapping coupled with killings became their tools, numerous groups re-organize with the sole purpose of making money illegally in the name of fighting for relevance. Now the companies and the government are aware of them and now know that they mean “business” only that it has grown beyond fighting for a cause that was reasonable to fighting to remain relevant and kidnapping and stealing to get funds.

I only wish there was a way out, only that in no time the Afghanistan Guerillas and the Pakistani Militancy will be too small a force to compare with the Nigerian Niger-Delta Militants.