Chaos reigns on the overcrowded streets. Foreign workers risk kidnapping, ransom, and death. A corrupt and fledgling government attempts to maintain control while well-armed militias gain more and more control each passing day, threatening America’s vital fossil fuel interests in the region.
The setting for this turmoil is not Baghdad or Basra or Mosul in Iraq, but Nigeria’s southern urban center of Port Harcourt and the surrounding jungle and river tributaries of the Niger Delta. As petroleum-exporting nations such as Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and Iran have continued on a dangerous path toward further instability, the United States and other Western nations have looked more and more toward African sources for fossil fuels.
Ethnic and tribal unrest in Nigeria, which has been independent from British rule for only 46 years, escalated in the 1990’s as politicians in the nation’s centrally-located capital of Abuja and business interests in the southwestern metropolis of Lagos failed to control uprisings and independence movements in the south-central Niger Delta region. Olusẹgun Ọbasanjọ, a new president inaugurated in 1999, has failed to restore order to the region and instead has continued the legacy of corruption and graft which has shackled the nation from progress. The amount looted from oil revenues in Nigeria often eclipses all western aid to the entire continent in any given year.
The Delta region produces almost all of Nigeria’s fossil fuel exports, providing nearly 80 percent of government export revenue. Despite this, the region’s 30 million inhabitants, residing in one of the most densely populated regions in the world, see very little return to their area. Corruption and corporate neglect have led to a crumbling infrastructure, climbing infant mortality, a lack of healthcare or educational resources, and a bitter taste in the mouths of many Delta inhabitants.
Environmental problems have also compounded these previous shortcomings. Approximately 2.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas extracted with petroleum by drilling is burned off or flared each day, equaling almost half the natural gas used by the continent every year. This constant emission of noxious gasses and carbon dioxide along with the usual environmental side effects of massive drilling operations within and off of the coast from a densely populated area has further exacerbated local discontent.
The Delta also consists of approximately 20 different ethnic groups, most of which are minorities within Nigeria. The largest minority in the Delta, the Ijaw people, have traditionally made their livelihood from the land, through agriculture (of yams, rice, plantains) and fishing (of clams, oysters, and various fish). This traditional way of life has also been threatened by mounting environmental pollution and the faltering infrastructure.
Into this troubled setting comes the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND). The well-armed and secretive militant group, whose members are mostly of Ijaw ethnicity, hides in the jungles of the region and patrols the vast river tributaries on high-powered speed boats. The membership and goals of MEND often overlap with the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force (NDPVF), a more established and more ethnically-congruent Ijaw group with desires of an independent Delta nation. MEND members often use aliases and pseudonyms, communicate with government leaders and the media anonymously through e-mail, and rarely allow outside visitors into their operational headquarters.
MEND has made a name for itself in two ways. It is one of the most well-funded militia groups in the world. The group raises capital by stealing fossil fuel set for export and selling it on the black market, often to Eastern European and former Soviet-bloc nations. MEND members have also raided western oil outfits, like those of Chevron-Texaco and Royal Dutch Shell, and kidnapped workers for ransom. While these corporations and their national governments deny paying any amount for their national’s freedom, some local leaders in Port Harcourt have told western media outlets that each kidnap-victim could draw almost $1 million for the militants.
These sources of funding have allowed MEND and their sympathizers to purchase brand new, state-of-the-art, automatic machine guns and even some anti-aircraft weapons. Funds has also been used to bolster local support through “constituent services” such as improving local infrastructure and health facilities, in a fashion similar to Hamas militants in the Palestinian territories, though on a smaller scale. The group has also purchased oil barges to aid in the transportation of stolen petroleum.
Unemployment as well as resentment has plagued the region, making handouts and rhetoric from militants more palatable for locals. George Omubo, an educated but unemployed inhabitant of Port Harcourt, told the Daily Telegraph in February that he had little trust in his elected officials and that “we [those in the Delta] are all left behind while the rest of the Nigeria lives off our oil.”
Political candidates have also allied themselves with certain local armed militias in exchange for protection and votes during the last two national elections, making this April’s national vote less likely to result in real reform. MEND’s funds are often used to buy off local leaders and even national politicians, weakening the government’s ability to implement substantial change.
A recent escalation in violence along with heightened rhetoric by MEND leaders has many western governments on alert and the world oil markets worried once again. The group’s leader, using the pseudonym “Major-General Tamuno Godswill,” has outlined MEND’s expanded intentions of removing all western oil interests from the Delta, actively taking over the region, and a willingness to employ “total war” to obtain these goals. An increase in the number of hostages taken by MEND along with the recent bombing of a police station in Port Harcourt by the militias or a copy-cat group have raised tensions even further.
A power vacuum in the Delta, caused by the removal of Nigerian central control, could even lead to a potential opening for Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, according to Chege Mbitiru of the Associated Press, who may be unable to resist “fish[ing] in troubled waters.”
The United States has taken a seat on the sidelines and watched this train wreck-in-the-making for too long. Part of the global War on Terror involves securing a wide range of energy sources from outside of the turbulent areas in the Middle East. In today’s world, intervention should hinge on national interest and not global policing in areas which lack strategic importance (like the Darfur region of the Sudan).
To begin with, the United States should take the lead in supporting the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, spearheaded by British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Nigeria and Ghana are the only two African nations which have produced EITI reports thus far, although the entire system’s framework is not yet in place. The EITI involves public reporting of natural resource-derived revenues by governments and corporations along with independent auditing of payments and revenues and a reconciliation of payments by an independent administrator. This effort should help to increase transparency and reduce graft if it is carried out to its full potential. Unilateral and multilateral aid to petroleum-exporting regions should also hinge on the requirement of openness. This initiative should help to divert more oil-derived resources back into the Delta region for infrastructure and other investment.
The U.S. government should also encourage a decrease in interference by national governments on multinational fossil fuel corporations. These corporations should also be given expanded rights concerning the hiring, training, and abilities of their private security personnel, so that western interests, workers, and property can be properly secured and defended against militia attacks. In exchange, these corporations should voluntarily reinvest more oil revenues into the local economy through infrastructure improvements and environmental clean-up, removing the legs from under MEND and other militant groups and building goodwill in the region.
Other strategic tactics could include increasing oil exports from African nations with fewer internal conflicts, such as Angola, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, and Côte d'Ivoire. While these areas are not problem-free by any means, they could act as alternative sources for fossil fuels while economic diversification along with the remedies discussed previously are implemented in Nigeria.
Along with these changes, a more assertive course of action should also be implemented in the Delta region. The United States, along with the United Nations, should encourage the deployment of security forces and troops from the African Union and grant those forces expanded jurisdiction in the region. African Union forces should also work closely with the private security forces of Royal Dutch Shell and other corporations in the Delta to ensure stability of the fossil fuel supply for export and work to curtail MEND’s theft of oil for black-market sale.
Finally, intelligence operations within Nigeria should be increased to the point where the United States could successfully isolate MEND and its copy-cat groups of resources and their precious mobility. This intelligence could also be used to plan strategic bombing raids of MEND compounds in the Delta’s jungles. While this could result in a further escalation, such a scenario is already likely even without any foreign intervention. Rooting out militia members, their resources, and their bases of operation from the air could speed the process of reestablishing security and stability in the region while diminishing the risk of U.S. and African Union casualties.
The Bush administration and other world leaders have ignored this critical corner of the world for too long. Further inaction could lead to further destabilization and the evacuation of western drilling operations, a result which would serve no party but chaos.
If stability is to return to the Niger Delta, no choice is left but decisive action.
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