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T H I S D AY • MONDAY, APRIL 25, 2016
POLITICS/ THE MONDAY DISCOURSE T H E R E S U R R E C T I O N O F M I L I TA N C Y to the waterside by the boys as the helicopter was raining fire over the camp. “We thought that this will stop the soldiers, but they continued shooting at every body. They took off – Filipinos and all. We were on the ship with nowhere to go. The soldiers entered the camp, after about one hour or so, the shooting stopped. They brought some of the Filipinos out of the forest where they had run to. Some of them had gunshot injuries.” The surprise attack on Camp 5 met little or no resistance, which proved to the military that the invisibility of Tompolo was media hype like the weapons of mass destruction attributed to Saddam Hussein by the Americans. However, it was a bloodbath along the Escravos River on the fateful day as no less than 200 persons including men, women and children were killed. Camp 5 was laid to ruin with no living thing left alive. The military invaded the camp in 14 gunboats aided by four helicopter gunships in an operation which military spokesman, Col. Rabe Abubakar called “condone, search and rescue mission.” It was a one way battle. The militants had no chance. It was like using a sledge hammer to kill a fly. To a visitor to the infamous Camp Five located barely five nautical miles from the Escravos Export Oil Terminal and Tank Farm, it is just another community in the Niger Delta. Located on the bank of the Escravos river on the only navigable side of the over one kilometre wide river, a situation that made all users of the river to the Warri port at the mercy of the lords at Camp 5, who determine who passes at any time to and from the Warri port, including war ships belonging to the Nigerian Navy! Before 1999, Camp 5 was actually a camp built and operated by the Bilfinger+Berger Oil and Gas Company (B+B), a subsidiary of Julius Berger Nigeria Plc. The camp was used to house both the expatriate and Nigerian senior staff of the company. Camp five was built with houses in five row, besides the utility buildings, which houses two massive 5000 kva generators, water treatment plants and the beautiful camp club house which helps the oil workers to let off steam in the deep mangrove forest. B+B was then working on the Odidi Integrated Gas Project, when the Warri Crisis began. At the beginning, things were working smoothly until the area became too hot for the comfort of the expatriate oil workers and they decided to demobilize and move out of the area completely. But this was at a time Tompolo was gaining notoriety as a militant leader in the area. He asked the company officials to move out in peace but leaving everything in the camp as it was. The shocked officials of the company, some of whom had experienced a dose of the ruthlessness of the militants quickly left. Tompolo and his men moved in. They retained the original name of the camp and soon expanded it as his army grows. Because it was at an open area, a situation which made his bunkering operation exposed to everyone that plies the river. Tompolo moved that operation to the Iroko Camp. Today, Camp 5 is no more. The camp which has hosted a serving Vice President, some governors and a large number of government officials both at the federal and state level has been levelled and turned to rubbles under the mighty boots of the Nigerian Armed Forces. Fast Forwards 2016 Now, Tompolo is on the run, a fugitive from the long arms of the law as he has been declared wanted by the federal government. The activities of the militants have also forced oil companies operating in the area, especially Chevron and Shell to begin the immediate closure of their oil production activities in the Niger Delta. With the new situation, the nation has continued to lose over 250,000 barrels of oil production per day, a situation which forced some of the oil companies to declare Force Majeure on oil supply from Nigeria. Many people in the region consider the president’s statement recently in China to bombard the region and treat suspected crude oil vandals like Boko Haram terrorists as a denigration of the supposed Niger Delta struggle and an indication that the federal government considers oil more important than the lives of people of the region. That aside, the spike in pipeline vandalism and associated crimes, just a few days after the federal government filed charges against Tompolo, may not be a mere coincidence. Analysts opine that whoever is sabotaging the pipelines is doing so to get the federal government to make more concessions to the ex-militants, as a result of the intention of government to wind down the amnesty
Former Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan inspects Camp 5 after the 2009 invasion by the military
An imposing view of Camp 5 from the gate
programme and its decision to prosecute known leaders of the struggle, who have breached the law. But leader of the Ijaw Peoples Development initiative, Comrade Austin Ozobo, who was actively involved in the struggle leading to the granting of amnesty to the youths of the region, disagreed. Ozobo believes that if nothing else, the deprivation, hunger and what he described as a total neglect of the oil-producing region is responsible for the increasing destruction of crude oil platforms in the Niger Delta. Reminded that the neglect and lack of development have always been there, even when President Goodluck Jonathan was in Aso Rock, which fuelled rumours that the boys went back to the creeks because their ‘brother’ was defeated in the last election, the IPDI leader noted that the suffering in the region has never been as bad as what obtains today. “It is out of joblessness, frustration, the poor treatment and total neglect of the region. We produce the national cake but there’s nothing to show for it. The grievances are growing and that’s the cause of the sabotage that you see around. You wouldn’t hear about any of our youths or intellectuals mentioned when they discuss the oil sector. People are not happy, so they don’t feel a sense of loss when they destroy these platforms,” Ozobo said. According to the ex-agitator, the youths bombed the facilities because they are not benefitting from the oil in their land. “Until the government develops an enabling environment and engages the youths of the region, nothing will work. “Abacha killed Ken Saro Wiwa thinking it will end the trouble; ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo demolished Odi, it didn’t work; They caged Asari (Dokubo), it didn’t work; they killed John Togo, it didn’t work and now the next target is Tompolo and it will not work,” he fumed. On whether the prosecution of Tompolo will increase the tempo of vandalism, Ozobo said, “The so-called prosecution of Tompolo is not responsible (for the fresh armed struggle). Even if they kill him today, the trouble and
struggle will continue,” he concluded. Dr. Godwin Uyi Ojo, Executive Director, Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth, Nigeria (ERA/FoEN), a group of environmentalists advocating a better deal for the poor people in the region, also aligns with Ozobo. “First and foremost, the poverty level in Nigeria and indeed in the region is very high, though beyond that, pipelines vandalism is economic sabotage. Oil companies should stop criminalising local people, when they make demands. The amnesty programme was never going to be the solution. The surveillance contracts, instead of being given to the youths of the area, were given to militants. “These poor people have been subjected to years of degradation and injustices. The PIB should address this. The amnesty programme was faulty from the beginning. It was to reward the armed rather than the majority of the people. Entrepreneurs of violence were the major beneficiaries. It was just a stopgap; it did not and will not solve the problem.” Spokesman of the of the Joint Taskforce, Operation Pulo Shield, the security outfit constituted by the federal government to deal with the issue of pipeline vandalism and associated crimes in the region, Col. Isa Ado, told THISDAY he wasn’t willing to speak on the renewed activities of militants in the region. “I just came to town after an assignment. I am not in a position right now to speak on the fight against insurgency in the Niger Delta,” he said. But whatever the reasons for the fresh hostilities in the region, from where almost all the revenues for running the country comes, pundits opine that deploying military force in the area which has not worked in the past, will still not work this time. Tokenism, which the amnesty programme is believed to represent, will also not solve the problem, not even supporting another politician from the region to become president will as has been shown by the defeated immediate past government. It is widely held that only a systematic, well thought out and a meticulously implemented development plan will reduce the growing
tension in the strife-torn area, easily Nigeria’s goose that lays the golden egg. According to a close aide of Tompolo, the camp of the embattled ex-MEND leader has continued to deny any involvement in the perceived renewed pipeline vandalism or the specific reason for the development. “We do not know the reason there is an apparent resurgence of militancy in parts of the Niger Delta. In fact, we are not aware of any trouble in the Niger Delta region. All we clamour for is peace and tranquility, which will bring about growth and development to our dear country.” Another former militant leader and selfstyled ‘General’ said the new challenges might not be unconnected with the “shabby treatment of ex-militants by the federal government through the Amnesty Programme despite everything we have done to cooperate with them for security in the Niger Delta.” He claimed that amnesty office has not paid those on the payroll of ex-militants even though President Buhari had stated his desire not to abandon the amnesty programme instituted by the administration of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua, which many believed had created a relatively peaceful atmosphere in the oil-rich region. The ex-militant leader stressed that he had been finding it “difficult to control my boys, who are under me under this amnesty thing because the amnesty office has not been doing very well; they’re not ready to give us the monthly stipend.” Another aspect of this discourse that could not be wisely ignored is the persistent complaints from non-violent agitators in the Niger-Delta about the priority attention the government has given to the “repented” violent agitators. It would appear that the national security agencies in the region have been cautious in dealing with seeming resurgence of militancy amid threats by the federal government to adopt tougher measures against pipeline vandalism by setting up a special security outfit on pipeline protection and deploying “more sophisticated weapons” in the oil-rich region. It is, perhaps, noteworthy that some influential individuals and businessmen as officials of the Delta State Government were prevented from joining the entourage of the Minister of Defence and service chiefs, who visited Delta after the pipelines blown up with explosives in January. The point of attack was at Egwa 11 located in Warri South-West Local Government Area of Delta State. The Minister of Defence, retired BrigadierGeneral Mansur Mohammed Dan-Ali, was accompanied on the January 18, 2016 visit by the Chief of Defence Staff, Major-General Abayomi Gabriel Olonishakin, Chief of Naval Staff, Rear Admiral Ete Ekwe Ibas and other senior military personnel. This is apparently in the light of the claims and counter-claims by certain individuals vis-à-vis the allegations made by Tompolo even before the bombing of the strategic oil pipelines. Thus, the defence authorities are ostensibly wary about the integrity and innocence of some of influential personalities and businessmen even though they were enjoying close relationship with the security personnel, including those attached to the joint security task force, code-named Operation Pulo Shield.
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