22 Feb 2006: ISS Today: Nigeria: Nine taken Hostage by Armed Militants in Niger Delta
22 FEBRUARY 2006: NINE TAKEN HOSTAGE BY ARMED MILITANTS IN NIGERIA`S NIGER DELTA
BBC NEWS
Armed militants in Nigeria’s Niger State seized on Saturday nine foreign hostages for the second time in two months amidst rising tension in Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta, prompting President Obasanjo to call upon Joint Military Task Force (JTF) to cease further attacks on communities in the region.
The Saturday 18th hostage-taking of nine expatriate oil workers by the Militants of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) has led to disruption mainly of Shell Oil Company operations on the Forcados River in the delta. In the course of Saturday’s hostage taking, the militant group claiming to be fighting for greater control of oil wealth produced on their land, also raided a barge belonging to a U.S. oil service company, Willbros.
The Saturday’s hostage taking follows closely after the 11 January MEND kidnapping of four foreign oil workers in Bayelsa State. They were freed after 19 days following President Olusegun Obasanjo rejection of the militants’ demands for the release of Moujahid Dokubo-Asari, a delta militia leader facing treason charges, and Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, a former oil region state governor detained for corruption. According to MEND’s spokesperson, however, the decision to release the oil workers almost three weeks after they were abducted was not because of any weakness on its part, but because of respect for key stakeholders like the Ijaw Institute of Strategic Studies (Ijaw ISS) and the detained leader of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force (NDPVF), Mujahid Asari-Dokubo.
MEND’s latest attacks are seen to be in direct response to air attacks by the Nigerian military on ethnic Ijaw villages in the delta on Wednesday and Friday. Nigeria’s Daily Independent has quoted the spokesperson of the group, Cynthia Whyte as saying: “There is a new consciousness in the Niger Delta and strategic militancy has found a place in our hearts. We will stop at nothing to drive home our demands…it is our hope that the international community has by now known the grievous nature of the Niger Delta question. It is also our belief that those who have chosen to partner with the evil hegemony that lords over the Nigerian state will now recognise the need to give to Caesar that which belongs to Caesar.”
Commentary
Nigeria, whose revenues from oil have continuously increased since its discovery in Nigeria in 1950s, is Africa’s leading oil producer (1). However, oil production in Nigeria has had severe environmental and human consequences for the indigenous peoples who inhabit the areas surrounding oil extraction, as indigenous minority communities in these areas receive disproportional economic benefits.
Oil, as with other natural resources in most African countries, has often been associated with conflict, although well managed it could play an important role in enhancing economic growth and stability. The current tension in Nigeria’s Niger Delta, if left unabated, is likely to escalate into a civil war reminiscent of the Ogoni conflict, but this time between the Ijaw community and the Nigerian government. The conflict is also likely to simultaneously reduce the country’s oil exports and impact negatively on the global oil market (2).
It is evident that hostage-taking is increasingly becoming a “tool of war” as well as a source of popularity for MEND, an approach likely to exacerbate further the conflict in the delta.
The current conflict resuscitates the memory of the Ogoni conflict of 1994/95 during which Ken Saro-Wiwa, a member of the Ogoni people and president of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), an ethnic minority whose homelands in the Niger Delta, was executed along with eight other MOSOP leaders, by the Nigerian military government of General Sani Abacha. The execution provoked immediate suspension of Nigeria from the Commonwealth of Nations, which was meeting in New Zealand at the time.
Could this be a fulfilment of Ken Saro-Wiwa’s prediction during his trial: “I predict that a denouement of the riddle of the Niger delta will soon come. The agenda is being set at this trial. Whether the peaceful ways I have favoured will prevail depends on what the oppressor decides, what signals it sends out to the waiting public.” (3).
Nelson Alusala
1. See http://www.mbendi.co.za/indy/oilg/ogus/af/ng/p0005.htm
2. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4731366.stm
3. See http://www.ratical.org/corporations/KSWstmt.html
