Triangulation, Emotional Reactivity, and Violence in the Niger Delta

Abstract

The Niger Delta conflict, for many years, was blamed on myriad forces, including greed, economic exploitation, pollution and ecological damage, resource appropriation and distribution disputes, ethno-religious antagonisms, poverty, unemployment, large-scale infrastructural deficits, corruption, militarization of oil producing communities and election processes, sociopolitical marginalization, cultism, and weapons proliferation. While all of these issues are important, they are not nearly as important as the deliberate roles played by high-level social, economic, and political interests who activated violence as a means to secure economic advantage from the delta's oil industry. This study shines the light on this small, exclusive, and very powerful group whose actions triggered off the violence and yet are at the center of efforts to institute peace including the current disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) program. I argue that unless the contributions of these powerful interests are carefully teased out and the structures they have built to advantage themselves from the conflict are dismantled, peace will remain elusive in the Niger Delta.

The Niger Delta Amnesty Program

“…This is not surprising; many ex-combatants have detailed the very treacherous conditions under which combatants lived in the swamps of the Niger Delta during the peak stages of the violence (Okonofua, 2013). The mean conditions of the camps and the uncertainties involved in their violent campaigns against a brutal Nigerian Army must exert a huge toll on combatants and their families.…”

“…Moreover, 99% of this study's respondents admitted that their organizations only submitted a fraction of their arms, which means that the militias continue to maintain the ability to engage in armed violence despite participating in the NDAP and receiving all of the benefits of participation, including monthly reintegration stipends and huge oil pipeline security contracts from the state. If this is analyzed in relation to the fact that the NDAP deliberately routes the payment of reintegration allowances or stipends through the militias (Okonofua, 2011(Okonofua, , 2013, effectively rendering the demobilization aspects of the program defective from the start, then, the weakness of the NDAP in terms of its ability to entrench long-term peace should become glaring.…”

“…The Niger Delta region, the heart of Nigeria's oil production activities, is one of the most diverse regions in the world in terms of human, animal, and plant life (Okonofua, 2013). The region covers a distance of about 270 miles along the Atlantic Coast and stretches for about 120 miles inland, and is described as the largest wetland in Africa and the second largest in the world after the Mississippi.…”

“…Since 1956 when oil was first discovered in commercial quantities in Oloibiri, a small rural community in Bayelsa state, an estimated US$1 trillion has been generated from oil exports not including the many billions generated clandestinely from the illegal trade in stolen crude (Okonofua, 2013). Yet, the region is one of the most polluted in the world with daily oil spills, the size of the Exxon-Valdez oil disaster in the United States as well as effluent deliberately discharged into the environment, polluting the delta's ecology and killing fauna, fish species, and land animals and dramatically reducing the region's limited stock of arable land.…”

“…Unlike the past resistance that was led by intellectuals like the late Kenule Saro-Wiwa, the Ogoni playwright and activist who was judicially murdered by the Sani Abacha military junta, and which targeted the state, oil majors, and the broader system of mercantile capitalism, the new resistance is led by cult gangs in alliance with politicians and target the state, oil majors, rival cult gangs, and anyone who poses a threat to their clandestine interests. Irrespective of who the target of the new resistance is, the armed struggle produced, within relatively brief compass, countless deaths as well as unquantifiable economic and social losses (Okonofua, 2011(Okonofua, , 2013.…”