Winning the War,Losing the Peace: Amnesty and the Challenges of Post-Conflict Peace-Building in the Niger Delta,Nigeria

Introduction

In one of the boldest demonstrations to peace-building in the troubled Niger Delta region, Nigerian President Musa Yar’Adua (2007–2010) granted an unconditional amnesty to Niger Delta militants on 25 June 2009. For over a decade before the amnesty declaration the region had been the epicentre of a low intensity conflict owing largely to the insurgency waged by militant youths against the Nigerian state and the counter-insurgency by security agents deployed by the state to protect geo-strategic oil resources. The Niger Delta is home to over 30 million people and accounts for over 75% of Nigeria’s oil production with over 600 oilfields, 5,284 oil wells, 10 export terminals, 275 flow stations and is the take-off point of over 7,000 kilometres of pipelines across the country (Aghedo, 2011; Ibaba, 2009).

Peace engineering in the Niger Delta is as old as its multi-layered conflict – ethnic, developmental, governance, and so forth. For example, the Willink’s Commission that was constituted in 1958 to ascertain the causes of and remedies for ethnic minorities’ fear of marginalization had proposed the establishment of a Niger Delta Development Board to ensure peace and minimize the environmental challenges in the region. Despite several failed past efforts at peace-building, the current amnesty programme was applauded by scores of observers and analysts as the best panacea for the protracted Niger Delta conflict and the surest instrumentality for bringing about the development of the region. Indeed, immediately after his election in 2007, Musa Yar’Adua had promised to come up with a blueprint for the development of the Niger Delta in order to ensure a permanent solution to the protracted conflict in the area. The amnesty programme was a follow-up of this policy statement.

Despite appreciable benefits, the amnesty programme and its corollary disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) programmes have been characterized by several political, economic, social, and security challenges which have seriously undermined their effectiveness and made conflict to be more of a continuum in post-amnesty Niger Delta. There is no clear end as violence and insecurity remain a feature of everyday life. What has been achieved so far is only a ‘peace of the graveyard’ in which continuous violent hostility between militants and state security operatives has subsided (winning the war) but sustainable peace has remained elusive (losing the peace). What is responsible for this situation in which there is no war and yet there is no peace? This article presents a mapping of the progress and challenges of contemporary post-conflict peace-building in the Niger Delta using the amnesty programme as a case study.

The article is divided into seven sections for analytical convenience: immediately following this introductory section is the second segment on the conceptual and theoretical framework. The third part interrogates the ‘loss of peace’ in the Niger Delta. The fourth division examines the peace-building strategies for the troubled region. The fifth portion unravels the challenges confronting this latest peace-building effort. The sixth segment provides some explanations why sustainable peace remains elusive in the Delta, despite several efforts at peace-building. The seventh section concludes with some recommendations.

Conceptual and Analytical Discourse

The term amnesty, as deployed here, refers to pardon from punishment for criminal offenses hitherto committed against the state. Ikelegbe (2010: 7) notes that amnesty ‘indemnifies affected persons in terms of safety and protection from punitive actions, retributions and associated losses’. By the terms of the pardon charges against the persons are dropped. Indeed, section 175 of the 1999 constitution grants power to the president to pardon any person convicted of crime if s/he so wishes (Federal Government of Nigeria, 2009). While some people seek to be amnestied, to others amnesty is granted. However, international law forbids the granting of the pardon to perpetrators of crimes against humanity. Amnesty comes with a price. Gibson (2002: 541) notes that one important cost of amnesty is that ‘expectations of retribution are unsatisfied. To the extent that amnesty contributes to unrequited expectations for justice, a justice deficit may be created for the new authorities, with the possibility that the new regime and its institutions will be deprived of life-giving legitimacy’.

Peace-building is a slippery and complex concept and therefore susceptible to different interpretations by scholars and analysts (Aghedo, 2011). Peace-building has been defined as ‘a means of preventing outbreak, recurrence or continuation of armed conflicts’ (Hassan, 2009: 119). It denotes the absence of ‘conflicts, violence, war, and the conditions that warrant, induce and sustain them such as poverty, injustice, oppression, repression, exclusion, deprivation and discrimination’ (Ikelegbe, 2010: 6). Therefore it goes beyond the mere establishment of physical security to encompass such issues as development and human security. It involves both medium- and long-term socio-economic and political development and genuine interrogation and resolution of the grievances that led to conflict in the first instance as well as a commitment to sustainable development.

The DDR is a crucial element of post-conflict peace-building in most environments whether at the state or inter-state levels. It is usually occasioned by a negotiated settlement, ceasefire or peace agreement. Disarmament, which is the first phase of any DDR programme, involves the surrender of weapons and ammunitions by ex-combatants at designated centres. Being a form of weapon control strategy, disarmament involves the mopping up and management of small arms, light and heavy weapons in post-conflict zones. The success of most disarmament exercises is measured by the quantity of surrendered arms in relation to estimated stockpiles (Babiker and Ozerdem, 2003).

Demobilization is the second phase of the programme. Demobilization is usually the first step in the transition from a combat to a civilian life. According to Ikelegbe (2010: 13), it involves the ‘dismantling of organized institutions of violence and military units such as the disbandment of non-state fighting forces and paramilitary forces’. It also involves the assemblage, camping or cantonment of ex-fighters as well as pre- and post-discharge orientations and registration of former insurgents. Aside ex-combatants, demobilization also applies to the military. Here it entails the reduction of military forces to a manageable size, usually after a war.

At the reintegration phase, ex-combatants are joined with other social groups in society. They are integrated into productive economic engagements and peaceful livelihoods, including the provision of land for agriculture, skills for private entrepreneurship and public sector employment, and so forth. Apart from building infrastructure in post-conflict settings, peace engineering efforts must also be geared towards economic renewal especially ‘transforming the looting and pillaging economy into a peace economy’ (Fischer, 2004: 377).

The ex-combatants must be integrated in such a way that ensures economic independence and self-employment. To guarantee long-term economic survival, the ex-combatants are given necessary training, skills and education. Sometimes they are also supported with micro-credits to ease integration into sustainable livelihoods. Apart from economic empowerment, reintegration sometimes takes the form of social and psychological support. Socially, ex-fighters are trained on how to adjust their behavioural patterns to those of the communities into which they are reintegrated. Psychologically, some ex-combatants suffering from trauma as a result of abuse or atrocities are given training and counselling to ensure quick recovery. Reintegration is a crucial and delicate element of peace-building. It is a long-term and continuous process.

As noted by Ojeleye (2011), DDR programmes are based on four main assumptions. First, DDR is a vital component of ensuring sustainable post-conflict peace and the building of a stable political environment. Second, it provides a platform for long-term development which itself prevents re-occurrence of conflict. Third, the DDR programmes also specify how to meaningfully engage ex-fighters and meet their needs in order to prevent them from relapse into violence or resort to the use of weapons. Fourth, the DDR process takes cognizance of the fact that former combatants are a security risk if their needs are not met or if the ex-fighters are not adequately catered for. Ojeleye (2011: 141) notes that ‘a properly planned and managed DDR process is therefore important not only for rebuilding a post-conflict society and bolstering development, but also for ensuring internal and regional stability and security’.

The DDR programmes usually take place in four settings: first, where there is no functioning central government or authority; second, where there is no clear victor or winner in a civil war; third, where there is an undisputable winner in a crisis and the victor exercises governmental power, as it was in Nigeria after the civil war (1967–1970); and, fourth, in peace time when a government is faced with low-level resistance or insurgency, such as the case of the Niger Delta (Aghedo, 2011; de Vries and Wiegink, 2011). The various phases of DDR must be well planned, organized, timed, adequately funded and implemented if they are to achieve the set goals of bringing about a sustainable reintegration, enduring peace and development. The pre-conflict grievances of fighters must be taken into account during the DDR process which must involve equity, fairness, transparency, justice and guarantee of security so that ex-combatants would feel safe to hand in their weapons and cooperate fully (Utas, 2005).

According to Ropers (2004: 256), for a DDR programme to be successful, it must embrace dialogue of all concerned before, during and after negotiation. He quoted the popular saying to buttress the crucial role of dialogue in peace-building: ‘As long as you are talking, you cannot be shooting’. However, despite DDR’s widespread appeal (including to the United Nations [UN]) and the relative success of its utility in Sierra Leone and elsewhere, the application of the framework in some other contexts is problematic as the Niger Delta experience shows.

The Loss of Peace in the Niger Delta

The Niger Delta conflict has raged on in one form or the other since the 1960s. The character and dynamics of the conflict have been well captured in the literature (Eberlien, 2006; Ikelegbe, 2010; Peel, 2009). Isumonah (2005: 173) argues that these agitations included ‘petitions in the early 1960s; Isaac Adaka Boro’s revolt of 1967; and protests since the 1990s involving mass demonstrations, sabotage, violent attacks on personnel and equipment of oil companies, hostage taking, etc’. However, the 1990s onwards marked a turning point in highlighting problems of environmental governance, economic marginalization, and failing corporate social responsibility in the Niger Delta. In 1998, militants from the Niger Delta, especially the region’s largest ethnic group the Ijaw, initiated ‘Operation Climate Change’ which led to a violent conflict between the militants and the Nigerian armed forces.

At the heart of the conflict are issues of resource distribution and environmental insecurity emanating from oil exploitation. Nigeria’s proven reserves mostly located in the Niger Delta currently stand at 35 billion barrels. Despite being the bearer of the nation’s rich mineral wealth, the region is one of the poorest and least developed parts of the country. The majority of its inhabitants lack basic amenities such as the provision of electricity, potable water, and health facilities. The region’s inhabitants relate this poverty amidst wealth to marginalization by the majority ethnic groups whose leaders dominate political power and privatize oil largesse. The lopsided nature of Nigerian federal practice has always been a huge source of conflict in the country in general and in the Niger Delta in particular (Suberu, 2006).

Apart from the politics associated with oil rents distribution, the people suffer enormous negative externalities engendered by oil extraction and production including oil spills and gas flaring which destroy local livelihoods and engender food insecurity (Ojo, 2010). This has not been helped by the acute land shortage in the region. Aside being a riverine area and one of the largest wetlands in the world, much of the land has been degraded as a result of oil extraction. A huge part of what is left is also taken over by the oil companies because of the enormous land needed for oil exploration, production, transportation and storage activities. This land crisis has been further exacerbated by the 1979 Land Use Act which vested the ownership of all land in the state to hold in trust for the people (Fagbohun, 2010).

While some of the militant groups were ideologically-driven – for example, the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) and to some extent the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) – several others were ostensibly propelled by greed even though they stressed grievance in their narratives. The latter groups perpetrated various acts of criminality including kidnapping and abduction of people especially expatriates for whom they demanded huge ransoms before release. They also engaged in massive theft of oil (known locally as oil bunkering), armed robbery, political thuggery and other crimes. At the time, Nigeria’s waters became one of the most dangerous in the world and the country ranked first in global pirate attacks until 2008 when it was overtaken by Somalia (Osumah and Aghedo, 2011; Watts, 2007).

These crimes resulted in a huge loss to the state in both political and economic terms. Nigeria was seen globally as a huge risk country and many oil companies had to evacuate their special staff to avoid kidnap as over 300 foreigners were abducted for ransom between 2006 and 2009 (Peel, 2009). The activities of militants also cut Nigeria’s oil production by as much as 25%. Between January and September 2008 alone, the country lost an estimated USD$20,720,842,000 in oil revenues to militant activities (Newswatch, 2009). This also drastically reduced Nigeria’s oil exporting capacity, leading to a rise in the global price of oil. According to the United States (US) State Department’s coordinator for International Energy Affairs, ‘if Nigeria was to produce oil at capacity, it would play a major role in helping to lower and stabilize world oil prices’ (Ploch, 2012: 17).

The state response to militant agitations was brutally repressive, especially from 2004 when a Joint Task Force (JTF) of military and police operatives was set up to restore order. Gross human rights violations and extra-judicial murder became rife as evidenced by the execution of MOSOP leader Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight of his Ogoni kinsmen in November 1995 by the Abacha military junta. Though several committees were set up to ascertain ways of finding a permanent solution to the Niger Delta conflict, most of the recommendations of such committees were never implemented. Some of them included Sir Henry Willink’s Commission of 1958; the River Basin Development Authority 1970; the Belgore Commission of 1992; Maj. Gen. Popoola Committee of 1998; Lt. General Alexander Ogomudia Special Security Committee of 2002; the Presidential Committee on Peace and Reconciliation headed by Major General A. Mohammed (rtd) of 2003; the Standing Committee on Good Governance and Corporate Responsibility headed by Dr. Edmond Daukoru of 2004; the Presidential Standing Committee on the Niger Delta headed by Governor James Ibori of 2004; the Presidential Committee on the Niger Delta, headed by President Olusegun Obasanjo of 2007; and the Technical Committees on Niger Delta Development, headed by Ledum Mitee of 2008 which recommended 25% minimum derivation to the oil-producing states and more federal government development interventions (Aghedo and Osumah, 2009).

Efforts at Peace Restoration

Apart from development commissions, some disarmament programmes have also been launched in Nigeria’s oil frontier. Between 1997 and 1999 the Delta State government initiated a disarmament programme aimed at ensuring peaceful co-existence amongst the warring Ijaw, Itsekiri and Urhobo ethnic groups. Cash, short-term loans, employment, training, and jobs were provided to militant youths of the ethnic factions in order for them to give up their weapons. But ‘these initiatives failed to significantly reduce the number of arms in circulation or to yield measurable reductions in violence’ (African Development Report, 2008/2009: 37). Similarly, the Bayelsa State government initiated a peace accord with core militants in the state by granting them amnesty in 2007. The accord broke down because it was hijacked by politicians, triggering an escalation of conflict.

In July 2004, the Rivers State government also launched a disarmament programme to stem the tide of violence orchestrated by militant groups in the state. The ‘arms for cash’ deal proved abortive, making President Obasanjo to intervene in October 2004. Tom Ateke and Asari Dokubo, leaders of the Niger Delta Vigilante Service and Niger Delta People Volunteer Force, respectively masterminded the violence. Both were invited by Obasanjo and a peace agreement was signed on 1 October 2004 by the two rival rebel leaders. The government granted them and their 4,000 plus foot soldiers amnesty and promised to provide them with employment. By the peace deal, the Rivers State government paid N250,000 each for over 3,000 old guns surrendered, even though the price of a new gun at the time was only N125,000. The weapons were publicly destroyed and a thanksgiving service was held in church, followed by a public embrace by the two militant leaders (African Development Report, 2008/2009; Eso, 2009).

However, the reintegration phase of the amnesty was poorly implemented. The authorities had promised the militants 4,000 jobs, yet training was only provided for 2,000 youths most of whom were not employed. This led to disenchantment and resurgence to violent militancy as early as November 2004. Hundreds of lives were lost, many communities sacked, and over 20,000 people were internally displaced by the groups, especially the ‘Ateke Boys’. It was later revealed that the killing squads were bankrolled by state elite and traditional rulers in their quest for political dominance and oil bunkering routes (Eso, 2009; Watts, 2007).

As a result of the carnage, the new Rivers State government set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in 2007 to investigate the atrocities. The commission, which was headed by Justice Kayode Eso, had 215 memoranda filed before it. After an examination of the memoranda, testimonies and evidences submitted, the commission attributed the conflicts to poor governance, violent politics, and cultism amongst others, which the chairman of the commission noted were interwoven. The commission blamed the remote cause of the conflict on the neglect of the areas and the immediate causes on political struggle by power elite who employed insurgents to devastate opponents and their constituencies. According to Justice Eso, ‘a place like Okuru-Ama was completely razed to the ground with the government of the day looking the other way’ (Eso, 2009: 96).

From this overview, it is obvious that peace-building is not new in the Niger Delta as both the state and federal governments have been making efforts to resolve the conflict in the region, though most of the peace efforts were poorly implemented, largely used as political instruments for elite economic agendas. However, the ongoing amnesty programme being executed by the federal government is the most audacious and comprehensive attempt yet to ensure sustainable peace in the region. But how can the programme mitigate the challenges confronting it?

The Amnesty Programme

On 25 June 2009 President Musa Yar’Adua granted an unconditional amnesty to Niger Delta militants. The fighters were expected to take advantage of a 60-day window (6 August to 4 October 2009) to surrender their arms and ammunition and sign the amnesty register as evidence of their acceptance of the peace deal. The declaration of amnesty was applauded by large segments of people and groups, including the international community that pledged its support for the programme. Securing the peace in the Niger Delta has been a Herculean task. As noted earlier, several peace-building efforts aimed at resolving the violent agitations in the Niger Delta have failed. It was therefore somewhat of a gamble when President Musa Yar’Adua offered state pardon to the insurgents in a nation-wide broadcast, noting:

The offer of amnesty is predicated on the willingness and readiness of the militants to give up all illegal arms in their possession, completely renounce militancy in all its ramifications unconditionally, and depose to an undertaking to this effect. It is my fervent hope that all militants in the Niger Delta will take advantage of this amnesty and come out to join in the quest for the transformation of our dear nation. (Federal Government of Nigeria, 2009)

A Presidential Amnesty Implementation Committee (PAIC), headed by retired Major General Godwin Abe, was set up to oversee the amnesty and DDR phases of the programme. Four sub-committees were also established to assist the PAIC in order to ensure the effectiveness and efficiency of the programme. The sub-committees are the disarmament, rehabilitation and reintegration sub-committee, the oil and gas assets protection sub-committee (with the Minister of Environment as chairman), the environmental clean-up and remediation sub-committee (with the Minister of Environment as chairman), and the infrastructural development sub-committee (with the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs as chairman).

Designated depots were set up in the six Niger Delta states of Edo, Delta, Rivers, Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom and Cross River for militants to surrender their arms and ammunition. At the centres, the ex-fighters were documented and fingerprinted. By the terms of the amnesty, all offences committed before were forgiven unconditionally. However, after the 4 October 2009 deadline, further offences would be visited with the full weight of the law. Initially, the fighters were skeptical about the amnesty. Many of them thought the government wanted to trick them out of the creeks for prosecution. Local politicians were used to convince the fighters that the government gesture was sincere. In a demonstration of its sincerity, the federal government entered into a nolle prosequi (no case) with Henry Okah, leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) on 13 July 2009 and he was released from detention. He had been standing trial on a 62-count charge of gun-running and incitement of soldiers to riot, among others (Akpan, 2010).

By the deadline, a total number of 20,192 ex-fighters had surrendered their weapons. The state’s gesture was extended to an additional 6,166 ex-militants in November 2010 by President Goodluck Jonathan after persistent agitations against their initial exclusion from the programme, bringing the total number of those amnestied to 26,358 (Aghedo, 2011; Akpan, 2010). As is typical with most DDR programmes, the amnesty was expected to prepare militants who accepted the presidential pardon for reintegration into society. Sustainable peace would pave the way for three things: first, and immediate, was the stoppage of disruptions to oil production; second, to lead to an increase in government rents or income; and third, create the possibility for the economic growth and development of the Niger Delta, especially anchored on infrastructural development.

The ex-militants were accommodated in their various states initially before they were sent in batches to the Obubra Post-Amnesty Transformational Training Camp in Cross River State for the rehabilitation and reintegration phases of the amnesty package. It was hoped that, at the end of the programme, many of the ex-fighters would be gainfully employed either in existing firms or would be in self-employment. The federal government stated clearly that there would be no cash for arms surrendered. However, it provided a feeding budget of N1,500 per day and additional N20,000 per month, making a total of N65,000 per month for each ex-militant. This was expected to last for a minimum of three months – the period slated for disarmament and demobilization. In 2011, the amnesty programme was allocated N99 billion, rapidly up from N2.9 billion in 2009 and N28 billion in 2010. In all, over N200 billion would have been spent on the programme by the end of 2012 (El-Rufai, 2012).

The amnesty programme is significant for several reasons. Apart from the drastic reduction in wanton loss of lives, the intensity of violence in the region has also reduced. The peace deal has also led to youth empowerment. So far, over 16,336 ex-combatants have been demobilized. While some are undergoing training in Nigeria, hundreds of ex-militants have been sent to Malaysia, Russia, South Africa, Britain, and so on, for education and skills acquisition to facilitate their reintegration into society. And the relative peace engendered by the programme has upped Nigeria’s oil production from an average of one million barrels of crude oil and condensate per day in 2008 to an average of 2.6 million barrels as of July 2012. Increased oil production means more rents for Nigeria’s petro-state. Between June and December 2011 alone, industry experts estimated that Nigeria earned as much as N4.5 trillion (about USD$30 billion) from oil supply (Okere, 2011).

But sadly much of the peace dividends emanating from the amnesty programme are being eroded by the emergence of Boko Haram terrorism which has thrown the country into an even more violent insecurity today (Aghedo and Osumah, 2012). Apart from Boko Haram, the resurgence of conflicts and violent attacks on state and oil installations such as the Independence Day bombing in Abuja on 1 October 2010 and several others since by the MEND means that the amnesty programme is facing some challenges.

Challenges of Post-Conflict Peace-Building

Any effort, such as the amnesty programme, aimed at bringing peace to the troubled Niger Delta region is desirable and praiseworthy. More so, the region is of a huge importance to the survival of the Nigerian state which depends almost solely on oil rents. Peace-building in the Niger Delta is also vital for many other nations including the United States which depends a great deal on Nigeria for its energy supply. However, the hope that the programme would bring about sustainable peace and energy security in the region is faltering by the day owing to the numerous challenges confronting it. A discussion of some of these challenges is apt here.

The programme is enmeshed in a legitimacy crisis because it was largely imposed on the client group – the militants and several other stakeholders, hence the widespread notion in the region that ‘the amnesty came from the blue’. Being not the result of dialogue or negotiation, the ex-militants and their supporters hardly see the programme as their own. This feeling is not helped by inadequate facilities at most ex-militant rehabilitation centres owing to poor planning, making many to see the programme as an afterthought. For example, at the Aluu Leadership Training Centre in Rivers State, the centre could only accommodate a maximum of 1,000 ex-fighters out of over 3,000 invited. The poor conditions at the rehabilitation centre coupled with inadequate accommodation led to various protests, after which the ex-militants were asked to return to their former camps and homes until the centre was put in order. ‘General’ Nico Martins, a leader of a group of militants in Akwa Ibom, put the frustration of the ex-militants succinctly thus:

They promised us skills acquisition, training, quality education for as many that wanted to go back to school. But now nothing has happened. We did not request for any assistance from the government from the creeks where we were before the amnesty programme. We are suffering and roaming the streets. There is no accommodation, and they have driven us out of the camps for about two months now. (The Guardian, 2010a: 13)

Poor management also manifests in the form of corruption and embezzlement of funds. The enormous take-off budget of N50 billion was allegedly mismanaged by officials. For example, 80% of the N50 billion was allocated to consultants and contractors rather than the beneficiaries, while 20% was set aside to establish businesses (The Guardian, 2010b). Apart from the corruption of some officials of the amnesty programme, many ex-militant leaders also tamper with the salaries of their ex-foot soldiers. According to ex-militant Kurotimi Poki:

When our N65,000 salary comes, our commanders would cut the money. Sometimes, it is just N10,000 that would get to us. So the government should stop this by paying our money directly to us. The government pays our salaries into their [commanders] accounts and then they pay us by hand these peanuts. (Eno-Abasi, 2011: 12)

This inadequate remuneration arising from salary cut is further compounded by the ostentatious lifestyle the ex-militants had cultivated. At the pre-amnesty era, the average militant was getting a minimum allowance of about N100,000 monthly with a lot of other perks for supporting the ‘struggle’ in the creek. A lot of undergraduates who put in two months returned to school with about N200,000. Militant leaders were said to have received millions of Naira monthly mostly from oil bunkering, ransom kidnapping and patronage from politicians (Akpan, 2010). To ex-militants, the N65,000 stipend is therefore paltry and unattractive. A militant laughed at the absurdity of becoming a pipeline welder after reintegration: ‘me? You no dey serious!’ (you are not serious), he quipped (Anayochukwu, 2009: 24). Also, determining the job or business that would be suitable and attractive enough to suit their status and income profile to keep them away from crime or ‘backsliding’ is a huge challenge indeed.

To further exacerbate this, the stipends are hardly paid when due, leading to incessant protests which affect several members of the public negatively. In November 2009, for example, some ex-militants who were camped at the Aluu Rehabilitation Camp near the University of Port Harcourt went on the rampage to protest the non-payment of their allowances. In the course of the protest, the ex-militants allegedly vented their anger upon innocent members of the public, damaging vehicles, looting properties and, most heinous of all, raping some female students of the university, forcing both staff and students to vacate the campus for safety. These challenges have thrown the amnesty programme into crisis with attendant security implications.

Security Implications of the Challenges

As noted by Collier and Hoeffler (2008: 461), ‘post-conflict societies face two distinctive challenges: economic recovery and risk reduction’. This now seems the case in the Niger Delta as many amnestied militants relapse into violence. A re-enactment of the ‘bad old days’ was witnessed in May and June 2011 when members of the JTF engaged renegade ‘General’ John Togo and his foot soldiers in a bloody gun battle which left several people dead and many others wounded and internally displaced. The militant leader and his foot soldiers said discrimination had forced them to abandon the amnesty programme and return to the creeks to continue the ‘struggle’:

The death of Yar’Adua is a big blow to us as it adversely affected the success of the post-amnesty programme. Fellow Niger Deltans turned the good dream of the late president Musa Yar’Adua into a private business to enrich themselves and politicized it. They operate divide and rule system among key agitators while others like us were neglected, begging for survival. (Amaize, 2010: A8)

In a new wave of violence the MEND, which initially announced a ceasefire to assess the workability of the amnesty programme, claimed responsibility for the bombings in Warri on 15 March 2010 as well as the 1 October 2010 Independence Day bomb attacks in Abuja where several people died. Similar attacks had been targeted at the Atlas Cove Jetty in Lagos and other strategic oil installations in the Niger Delta in the last two years.

The resurgence of militancy has also led to an upsurge in various criminalities including armed robbery and ransom kidnapping. For instance, on 4 November 2011, ‘about 100 suspected former militants allegedly carried out a robbery operation’ along Otor Udu Road in Delta State. Thirteen of them were arrested, according to the State Police Command’s spokesman (Ogwuda, 2010: 11). Kidnapping for ransom remains rife in the region despite the government’s claim to the contrary. In one fell swoop in 2010, 19 persons comprising 12 Nigerians, two Americans, a Canadian, two French and two Indonesians were kidnapped. The hostages, who work for Exxon Mobil, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) and Julius Berger Construction Company were seized at different locations in the region between 4 and 10 November 2010 (Gbemudu, 2010). In recent years, ransom kidnapping has become one of the quickest means for many unemployed youths to become millionaires in Nigeria (Osumah and Aghedo, 2011).

The rate of crude oil theft has also increased dramatically in the region. According to Royal Dutch Shell, as much as 140,000 barrels valued conservatively at USD$16 million are stolen daily. Shell’s corporate media relations manager said that, while some criminals bore holes into oil pipelines to steal the products, some tap the products directly from wellheads leading to spill incidents and production disruptions (Okpara, 2012: 20). The JTF spokesman confirmed that over 6,000 illegal refineries were destroyed by the security outfit and over 150 oil thieves arrested in 2011 alone (Okere, 2011). Some ex-militants have also been arrested for sea piracy. According to the Malaysia-based International Maritime Bureau, Nigeria’s 853-kilometre coastline remains a high-risk area as a result of incessant sea piracy. The bureau puts the number of post-amnesty attacks at over 40 cases and about 50 cases of attacks on fishing trawlers in January 2010 alone, resulting in 10 deaths and provoking a strike by the Nigerian Trawlers Owners Association. This has led to higher shipping costs and insurance premiums for Nigeria-bound ships (The Punch, 2010).

Making Sense of the Fragile Peace

The initial hope that the amnesty programme would bring about sustainable peace in the Niger Delta is faltering by the day as security and development continue to elude the region. Several explanations could be adduced for the fragile peace. First, the programme was out of the blue. It was handed down by the federal government without consultation with the client group (the militants), the supposed beneficiaries. Even host communities where the ex-militants would eventually be reintegrated were not consulted in planning the amnesty programme, despite the crucial role of dialogue and consultation in the DDR process as explained earlier. As a result, the government lacked adequate data on the militant groups in terms of camp size, membership strength, education level of members, their training and skills acquisition needs. This lack of data has undermined effective implementation of the peace deal.

Second, the programme has become terribly corrupted. The non-availability of specific data has given room for corrupt practices such as the inclusion of non-militants in the payroll of ex-fighters by those implementing the programme. For shady deals, the amount budgeted for the accommodation of the ex-fighters was so outrageously high that many people believed that the revenues were meant to be embezzled: ‘The amount of money allocated for only accommodation amounting to N6.730 billion is indeed a ridiculous figure as this figure alone can build all the destroyed towns in Niger Delta’ (The Guardian, 2010b: 13). Corruption has also fuelled insecurity by leading to a bloody conflict between some former warlords and their foot soldiers. For example, ex-MEND field commander, Soboma George, was murdered by his former ‘boys’ for allegedly shortchanging them.

Third, many local politicians have hijacked the programme by recruiting and arming ex-militants as thugs to steal ballot boxes, harass political opponents and, most often, assassinate rivals. Like other elections, the 2011 elections in the Niger Delta, especially in Bayelsa State, was characterized by insecurity, forcing the federal government to issue a stern warning to local power elite who engage in ‘do-or-die’ politics (Akpan, 2010). MEND’s former commander Mr Victor Ben Ebikabowei (alias Boyloaf) once publicly admitted that most violent incidences and bomb blasts in the post-amnesty era in the Niger Delta are ‘politically motivated’ (The Guardian, 2010a: 64). Nigerian politics is afflicted by the ‘winner takes all’ syndrome, making the premium on power high and obsessive. Thus many politicians engage in zero-sum competition, employing any means possible to acquire public positions which are lucrative because of pervasive corruption.

However, the collusion between state officials and militants has been on for years. As revealed by Watts (2007), some ethnic militias in the Delta, specifically the Niger Delta Vigilante and the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force, were bankrolled by machine politicians in Rivers State and several members of the Nigerian security forces, prominent politicians and international criminal syndicate have been involved in oil bunkering in the Niger Delta. Therefore ‘the very idea of an impermeable membrane separating or opposing two discrete entities – government and rebels – breaks down immediately’ (Watts, 2007: 650). Such collusion undermines sustainable peace-building which calls for transparent implementation.

Fourth, some groups which suffered damage and trauma during the conflict were excluded from the programme, regardless of the need for a comprehensive and inclusive approach when implementing a DDR programme. Women who lost children, husbands and breadwinners in the conflict were excluded from the amnesty. Also, many children who were orphaned during the low-intensity conflict and cannot now get proper education and adequate care have been shut out of the peace deal. The marginalization of these groups is unjust and does not aid peace-building. A strong feeling of injustice by these victims can re-ignite violent conflict. In Sierra Leone, both regional and international agreements and declarations reached a ‘consensus on the need to include women in all aspects of the decision-making and peace process’ (Cheo, 2009: 175).

Fifth, and related to the marginalization of vulnerable groups, despite the centrality of justice to any peace-building process, this ingredient has not been factored into the Niger Delta amnesty deal. For example, JTF members and even militant warlords who perpetrated several human rights abuses including gang rape and extra-judicial killings were not brought to book as part of peace restoration. The absence of justice in the peace process heightens impunity and fuels criminality. Such absence also infuriates relatives of victims of such human rights violations, forcing them to take the law into their hands in order to avenge the abuses inflicted on them or their loved ones.

Sixth, despite government’s acclaimed thorough mopping or removal of arms from the militants, the region remains awash with small arms and light weapons emanating from diverse sources including politicians, security agents, local manufacturers, and buyers of illegal crude in the high seas (Duquet, 2009). A large cache of these arms are in the wrong hands: armed robbers, political thugs, street urchins, gangsters, new militants, and ex-fighters. This is obvious from daily media reports of killings by ‘unidentified gun men’ in the region and from observation of the protests of ex-militants. When ex-militants protested in Bayelsa and Rivers states recently, they fired sporadic gun shots into the air, dramatizing in broad daylight that they are still in possession of the so-called ‘type-writers of the illiterate’. The cheap availability of firearms in the post-conflict era makes security and sustainable peace-building elusive.

Lastly, and perhaps more importantly, there has not been genuine commitment by the government to address the age-long grievances in the region despite the centrality of this to peace-building. The region remains in squalor with most riverine communities lacking access to drinkable water, roads, electricity supply, healthcare facilities and other public utilities. The leadership of MEND often cites government insincerity to develop the area as its core reason for not accepting the amnesty programme. Even Rivers State governor, Chibuike Amaechi, recently urged the federal government to show more commitment to the resolution of the crisis. According to him, already some of the ex-militants are crying foul on the suspicion that the government is reneging on its promises to them. And some of them have openly confessed that they have their plan B, which is returning to the creeks and resuming militancy (Kelvin, 2010).

Even though the need to secure the environment has been a core demand of Niger Delta inhabitants for years, today most transnational companies in the area remain insensitive to the environment in their operations, thereby destroying local livelihood strategies and fuelling violence. In December 2011, a technical hitch sparked off a massive spill from Shell’s 200,000 barrels per day Bonga Facility. The spill affected over 200 communities in four oil-producing states, ravaging farmlands and fishing ponds (Odiegwu, 2012). Similarly, on 16 January 2012 there was a fire explosion aboard a drilling rig in Chevron’s Funiwa Field 10 kilometres offshore, causing intensive damage to biodiversity and marine life as well as ‘steaming temperatures and acidification of the waters and oil’ (The Punch, 2012: 8). However, sources of some spills are controversial. While admitting culpability in environmental degradation, Shell alleged that 11,806 barrels were spilled from its facilities in 118 separate incidents in 2011 as a result of sabotage (Anucha, 2012). Since the 1960s, the Niger Delta has been a ‘pollution haven’. Between 1976 and 1978 alone, a total of 5,724 incidents of oil spills were recorded, resulting in a loss of over 2.5 million barrels of oil into the environment. The country has about 183 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves, making it the seventh richest in the world. Yet it flares the second largest gas globally, accounting for 12.5% of global gas flaring only just behind Russia (Addeh, 2012; Ojo, 2010). Environmental insecurity is perpetrated with impunity because of lax regulatory laws.

Conclusion

The granting of amnesty to Niger Delta militants was a bold and commendable step towards securing the peace in the volatile region. But the manner in which the programme and its corollary DDR processes have been implemented leaves much to be desired. A full and proper implementation of the DDR programme would have been a more effective peace-building and long-term stability tool. Owing to the numerous social, economic and political challenges that characterize the amnesty programme and their attendant security implications, there is a strong need for the programme to be seriously overhauled, expanded, and de-politicized.

Daunting as the challenges confronting peace-building are in the Niger Delta, they are not insurmountable if the conflict entrepreneurs who stand in the way of sustainable peace because of their greed and huge benefits from the illegal political economy oil are identified and brought to book – no matter their social status. Also, there is urgent need for the region to be combed of new militant camps and illegal firearms. Added to these, the grievances of those who have suffered enormous physical and psychological damage (e.g. women and children who lost breadwinners) need to be re-examined and the people compensated despite the fact that they are not militants.

The composition of the Presidential Amnesty Committee needs to be broadened for optimal effectiveness. There is a plethora of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and civil society groups which have been at the forefront of the Niger Delta struggle for decades, such as Environmental Rights Action (ERA). Such groups should be involved in strategizing sustainable peace, development and environmental security in the region. The vital role of such civil society organizations in peace-building and conflict management cannot be overstressed. Civil society groups are familiar with the terrain; they work directly with the people, and are abreast with the yearnings and aspirations of the locals.

The ex-militants should be given long-term skills and economic empowerment to prevent relapse into criminality. The centrality of youth empowerment to sustainable peace in the Delta region cannot be over-emphasized. Sending ex-militants abroad for training with little or no hope of employment when they return is simply postponing the evil day. There is need for infrastructural development of the region. Also, the state has to muster the political will to ensure compliance with its oil-related laws in order to guarantee environmental security, not the present ‘quick fixes’ which only produce a fragile ‘peace of the graveyard’.