Niger Delta Avengers: A recurring decimal?

Nigeria’s oil production has almost halved because of resurgent militant attacks. After five years of relative calm, it is obvious that the monster everyone believed had been appeased with the Amnesty Programme is very much alive and has reared its ugly head again in the past few months in the form of Niger Delta Avengers.

A well-organised group that carries out its missions with precision, the NDAvengers is bold, visible and daring, even operating a website and a Twitter handle. Its first ever tweet, posted on January 30, 2016, said: “The Niger Delta Region of Nigeria is one place the world leaders have to look into.” Its second tweet, posted on February 10, was, “Bonny Soku gas line attacked”, along with a link to its website.

In the past, the solutions have included the carving of more states (Bayelsa), the setting-up of Niger Delta Development Commission (NNDC), the 13 percent derivative formula in federal allocation, the creation of the Niger Delta Ministry, and also a slightly different approach in the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP) of 2009, which has only enriched a few.

On February 15, the NDAvengers posted a tweet showing its disappointment because “A major export line in the country operated by SPDC was blown two nights ago and no one is talking about it anywhere.”

On February 19, it posted: “New N/Delta militant group blows up Forcados crude oil terminal.” On April 17, it tweeted, “Keep your threat @NDAvengers warns President Buhari”, with a link to the group’s website.

On April 22, it posted that it was “Time to take the fight to them”. On 24th of the same month, it tweeted: “Nigeria has failed us all.” On May 5, it posted, “Zero Chevron”, and on May 12, it posted a tweet with a link to its website stating, “Our warning to Chevron.” On May 25, the group posted a tweet saying, “We warned #Chevron but they didn’t listen. @NDAvengers just blows up the Escravos tank Main Electricity Feed Pipeline.”

“At 11:45pm on Thursday @NDAvengers blew up other #NNPC Gas and Crude trunkline close to Warri. Pipeline that was heavily guarded by military,” it boasted in its tweet on May 27. It also stated that “The Niger Delta Stakeholders meeting is an insult to the people of Niger Delta. What we need is a Sovereign State not pipeline contracts. To the IOC’s, Indigenous oil Companies and Nigeria Military, watch out something big is about to happen and it will shock the whole world.” It then added what is a clear irony and contrast to their operations, “Happy Children’s Day.”

Another tweet said, “The @NDAvengers high Command has rewarded some brave and courageous Soldiers of Avengers. Have (Has) been promoted to the rank of a Brig. General.” The group ended its tweets with “Something big is about to happen”.

May 31, 2016, the group said its “attention has been drawn to the arrest of 10 @NDAvengers boys by Nigeria Military. None of our Strike team has been arrested it’s all a lie. Nigeria military also lied that NDA kill soldiers. We haven’t engaged in combat with them but if they want us to kill them let them come after us.”

“The Chief of Army Staff (Major General T.Y Buratai) in his statement said NDA kill Nigeria Soldiers. It’s a big lie. The Chief Army Staff deployed personnel without amphibian training to the creeks that led to the death of about 50 soldiers. If not for the help of local fishermen the death rate should have been up to 100. He has been lying to his Commander in Chief (President Buhari) that NDA are killing soldiers. This is our stand; we have not killed any soldier. If we do, we will claim responsibility because we take pride and responsibilities in all we are doing. That’s our code. God bless the Niger Delta republic,” the group said.

In most of their posts, prominent individuals, security agencies, national and international news platforms were tagged, which shows their brazenness.

“One obvious fact that has emerged in recent times is the continued underestimation of the issues of the Niger Delta by the duo of the government and oil companies. First, the race for offshore platforms was to get away from the reach of the militants and reduce, if not eliminate completely, production shut-ins as a result of restiveness and production disruptions,” said Dozie Arinze, in a piece published by Nigeria Energy Intelligence.

And to prove that they are being underestimated, the militants went for the farthest offshore facility, the 120km deep offshore Bonga. And with renewed vigour, the militants are blowing up pipelines and all with impunity and gloating about it on social media and on its website. Its latest was carried out on June 1, 2016, and posted on its Twitter handle: “With the presence of 100 Gunboats, 4 warships and Jet Bombers NDA blew up Chevron Oil Well RMP 23 and RMP 24, 3:44am this morning. This is to show the whole world that Nigeria military is good in harassing innocent civilians. RMP 24 and RMP 23 are Chevron Swamp highest producing wells. #Boom”

Unlike after the attack of Bonga when government dispatched warships, which, according to Dozie, is the typical mindset of past governments and the product of the military era, the government has been strangely silent until on Thursday, June 2, 2016, when the presidential adviser on Amnesty Programme in the Niger Delta, Brig. General Paul Boroh (rtd), called them thieves.

He spoke to reporters in Port Harcourt on the sidelines of the flag-off of the cleanup of Ogoniland and the implementation of UNEP report.

“All ex-agitators captured in the Amnesty Programme have all dissociated themselves from the criminal activities of the Niger Delta Avengers. Amnesty office has dissociated itself from them as well. We are going to work with the security agencies to fish them to face the law,” Boroh said.

On the threat by the militant group to continue the bombing of the national assets and daring the Nigeria military, he said the Avengers are talking as if they have the wherewithal to confront the Nigeria military.

“One of the strengths of criminal gangs is propaganda. Let them continue to propagate falsehood,” he said.

The implication of previous military response, according to Dozie, is that while government thinks only of military options, the people develop military mentality in their bid to outwit each other.

Ogho Okiti, economist and CEO of Time Economics, an economics consulting firm based in Abuja, in a back-page article in BusinessDay of Wednesday, June 1, 2016, said while none of the measures have provided a permanent solution to the Niger Delta crisis, the Amnesty Programme is particularly flawed.

“First the Amnesty programme presupposes that the award of a contract, payment of ‘salaries’ or position to someone from the region or a subset of the region is synonymous and tantamount to a ‘settlement’ for the region or the community or state. This is one of the national epidemics in our politics, with the greatest devastation found in the Niger Delta. While the militants fought in the name of the Niger Delta, the programme for each individual is not a programme for the region,” Okiti said.

“Second, following the inadequacy of the notion that a settlement of one equates a settlement of all, every reward for militancy and or reward for a representative of community leaves the remainder of the people or the community worse off. So, whether we like it or not, there is a disincentive to behave well, or in fact, it is an incentive to behave wrongly,” he added.

Okiti further argued that worst of all is that the Amnesty Programme fostered a culture of dependency, both by the state (Nigeria), and the beneficiaries on the proceeds of oil.

“How? Hostilities resumed in the Niger Delta the moment the Federal Government signalled its intention to withdraw from the programme. This is a grave mistake, especially without due and extensive political and economic consultation. Practically, some measures of the Amnesty Programme outside of the inadequacies mentioned as an ‘unemployment benefit’, and such for that long becomes like a permanent arrangement that becomes disastrous if withdrawn suddenly,” he posited.

Royal Dutch Shell and Italian multinational oil giant ENI have admitted to more than 550 oil spills in the Niger Delta last year, according to an Amnesty International analysis of the company’s latest figures. By contrast, on average, there were only 10 spills a year across the whole of Europe between 1971 and 2011, says a press release by Amnesty International on June 2, 2016.

“Shell reported 204 Niger Delta spills in 2014 while ENI, which operates in a smaller area, reported a staggering 349 spills. These figures are seriously alarming. ENI has clearly lost control over its operations in the Niger Delta. And despite all its promises, Shell has made no progress on tackling oil spills,” said Audrey Gaughran, Amnesty international’s global issues director.

“In other countries, this would be a national emergency. In Nigeria it appears to be standard operating procedure for the oil industry. The human cost is horrific- people living with pollution every day of their lives,” Gaughran added.

The oil companies blame sabotage and theft for the vast majority of the spills. This claim is hotly contested by communities and NGOs and has been shown to be wrong.

ENI, which owns the Nigerian Agip Oil Company, is a smaller player in the Niger Delta than Shell and has received less attention. But the number of oil spills from its operations requires urgent action by both the Nigerian and Italian governments.

On top of the 349 spills in 2014, ENI reported more than 500 oil spills in 2013. The Nigerian regulator reported 474 oil spills from ENI operations in 2012.

“The Italian government must investigate what is happening in ENI’s Nigerian operations. These figures raise serious questions about potential negligence by the company going back many years,” said Gaughran.

“As a matter of priority all oil firms in Nigeria must urgently disclose the age and condition of their infrastructure, carry out reviews of their operating practices, and make the findings public so that communities know what is going on,” he added.

Whatever the cause, according to Nigerian law, the oil companies are responsible for containing and cleaning up spills, and returning affected areas to their prior state. However, this rarely happens. As a result, people in the Niger Delta are living with the cumulative impact of decades of pollution.

After a request in 2006 to the United Nations by the Nigeria government for a scientific investigation into the level of pollution in Ogoniland, cleanup of the Niger Delta was flagged off on June 2, 2016. The request led to a three-year landmark UNEP report in 2011 which exposed shocking levels of pollution caused by spills in the region. The report identified grossly polluted sites where oil had entered wells and underground water supplies.

The study found contamination, sometimes more than 40 years after oil was spilled: community drinking water with dangerous concentrations of benzene and other pollutants; soil contamination more than five metres deep; and evidence of oil firms dumping contaminated soil in unlined pits.

Shell has been widely blamed for not cleaning up its pollution. But in a briefing note, the company claims to have done much of the work already.

“The 15 Shell Petroleum Development Corporation (SPDC) joint ventures sites specifically mentioned in the UNEP report have been reassessed and where further remediation was required due to re-pollution incidents, such cites have been remediated and certified by regulators,” it said.

At a book launch recently in Abuja, former vice President Atiku Abubakar, while speaking on the five areas the Buhari administration pledged to face, asked for time regarding the power issue because “power supply was complex and that unless the Niger Delta issue is resolved Nigeria may not get electricity any time soon”.

Atiku advised that the Niger Delta should be handled with a stick and carrot approach.

“In 2007, before I ran for president, I met with various stakeholders on The Niger Delta issue and they came up with a policy. Part of the recommendation was that the ministry be moved to the Niger Delta and not Abuja. We have had administrations that did not do their homework on the Niger Delta,” Atiku said.

“If I had won, I would have sold 10 percent shares in the NNPC; that will give me $20 billion which would build infrastructure for the Niger Delta but we will always end up with accidental leadership. Bring peace and development to the Niger Delta, and then they will stop blowing up pipelines. Then, we will get gas and power can be stable, but until then, we will not get it,” he added.

“It is time we realize that policy direction on Niger Delta should first and foremost be about the people and not about the quantity of crude oil exported or circumventing production shut-ins without putting the people first. We should also stop measuring progress on the budgetary allocation to the region but on delivered projects and initiatives. And this requires a true synergy among the federal, state and local governments,” Arinze said in the article already quoted.

“All parties to the conflict must be carried along for meaningful resolution to be possible. And it is high time we realized that state and local governments in Niger Delta do not necessarily represent the people when it comes to resource management. Otherwise their development initiatives, going by past resource allocations, ought to be a soothing balm to their people instead of fueling the embers through arrogant display of wealth by government officials, in and out of office,” he added.

Following the military position of the present administration, Udenga Eradiri, president of the Ijaw Youth Council, urged the government to address the issues behind the Niger Delta militants instead of using military might.