Niger Delta crisis: Time to change gear

There is little doubt that the Niger Delta crisis has assumed a dimension that demands a change in perception and response from all stake holders. Having reached a stage in which it offers no stake holder – whether state actors or private interests any positive dividend, it is time to sing a new song. That is why the recent initiative of the Acting Inspector General of Police Ibrahim Kpotun Idris to broker peace between key members of the political class in the region, remains most commendable as it points to the new direction to follow.
 The IGP Idris had within the week initiated a peace building process that brought the Minister of Transportation and former two-term governor of Rivers State, Honourable Chibuike Amaechi  and incumbent governor of that state Chief Nyesom Wike, to the negotiating  table. The immediate purpose of the IGP’s mission was to hammer out a peace deal that will facilitate the conduct of election re-run to fill three vacant Senatorial seats and some House of Representatives slots. Presently, Rivers State has had no Senator in the National Assembly since the Appeal Court in December 2015 sacked the trio of George Sekibo, Olaka Wogu and Osinaka Ideozo along with a complement of members of the House of Representatives from the state. Their absence from the National Assembly since then has had a telling effect on the affairs of Rivers State.
 The initiative of the IGP stands against the backdrop of the prevailing state of anarchy in Rivers State as well as much of the Niger Delta region. In respect of that dispensation the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had demanded concrete security guarantee from the state government before it can conduct the rerun poll. Incidentally the poll was to be conducted last Saturday July 23rd 2016, but was postponed again – this time indefinitely and ostensibly as a result of an instance of arson at an INEC office in the state. The onus therefore now lies on governor Nyesom Wike as the chief security officer of the state to ensure the conduct of the rerun poll.
Yet while the outstanding poll in Rivers State may remain the main reason for bringing these political leaders to the negotiating table, the need for lasting peace in the entire Niger Delta region far outweighs the objective of transient electoral gains. For beyond the reservations of the INEC, the regular residents of many communities in the region – urban or rural notwithstanding, no more sleep with two eyes closed. Armed robbery in brazen fashion, kidnappings in broad daylight and other equally heinous crimes have become the order of the day. According to reports by victims of kidnap, the assailants even mount check points at strategic portions of highways and conduct stop-and-search operations on passing vehicles in order to harvest victims among the passengers, who they take away for various purposes; the young women for sex slavery and the elderly ladies and rich looking men for ransom.
For captives that have their ATM cards on them, it is additional problem as their captors help themselves to their accounts, in addition to whatever ransom demand the criminals may make for the release of the victim; that is if they even release the victim alive at the end of the day. There was an incident in which a lady was kidnapped by criminals, who knocked at her door late in the night as she and her family were cooking in preparation for guests that would join them for a family occasion the next morning. Thinking that the late visitors were around to assist in the preparations she opened her door, only to end up in the den of the devils.
 The incidence of rape, theft and muggings to name a few, has become routine. There was another instance during which a lady whose abode had no toilet facility was headed to the local refuse dump with a plastic bag containing her baby’s faeces, when a smart pick-pocket snatched it from her and ran away thinking it was booty. The lady ran back home to get over the incident when the criminal soon came to terms with his misfortune, and traced her house where he smeared her door with the stuff. This is the contemporary state of affairs in the Niger Delta.
 Added to the fore going is the more politically exposed syndrome of oil bunkering and armed militancy by several groups in the region, many of whom are for now faceless. The signature of their operations have been the worrisome armed resistance to the government, in respect of which they have been degrading the nation’s invaluable oil and gas infrastructure through bombings as well as theft of crude oil. In the enterprise of oil theft, they have as partners, other Nigerians from different parts of the country.
As has been confirmed severally, the crisis in the region stems from the failure of past and present remediation options employed in error by various state actors at different times. For instance, the federal government had always favoured a blitzkrieg approach of crushing the agitators from the region and that has never worked, as the option broaches the political compact linking the region with the rest of the country.
As experience has shown, the politics of managing crisis in oil producing areas of the world is often as slippery as oil itself. Valid lessons on the futility of any consideration favouring the forceful seizure of oil at the detriment of host communities, are replete in many scenarios including the experience of the Western powers during the 1973 global oil crisis when the ‘almighty’ United States dared to deploy force to seize Arab oil wells following a melt-down of diplomatic relations. The US failed in its efforts to browbeat the Arab nations who resolved to punish the west by unanimously raising the price of oil overnight by 70% from $3.00 to $5.11, thereby changing the world economy ever after. Even closer home, during the Nigerian Civil War, the preferences and loyalties of the Western countries in the conflict were dictated solely by who they considered to be in control of the nation’s oil resources.
In that context the consensus is piercingly stringent that the federal government’s response to the Niger Delta crisis which features in the main, high profile anti-insurgency measures has achieved little other than avoidable, widespread collateral damage in terms of hurting and be-grudging the innocent Niger Deltans, while hardening the resolve of the belligerents and their sponsors, whose interests are served by the prevailing anomie.
Meanwhile there is no gainsaying that state actors in the political class from the region comprising the local government apparatchik, members of the State Houses of Assembly, the state governors, the members of the House of Representatives as well as Senators from that region, are yet to acquit themselves of the burden of failing their agitating constituents, with respect to quality and effectual advocacy of the cause of the region. The agitators in the region do not find these actors credible enough to act as voices any more. This contention is accentuated by the expressed reluctance of the agitating militants to engage any of the state actors in their negotiation with the federal government, leading to the most recent demand that President Muhamadu Buhari should be directly involved in talks with them. After all, as they may be thinking, late President Umaru Yar Adua did so.
 It is therefore time to change strategy if the goal in the Niger Delta region is not to throw away the baby with the bath water. It is also in this regard that the initiative of IGP Ibrahim Kpotun Idris to define a direct role for the state actors in the region deserves the support of all. who love the country. While he may have started with the most significant state actors in Rivers State being Amaechi and Wike, the initiative should be extended to other areas of the region to achieve best results.
 More pointedly with the new collaboration that is being built between the Nigeria Police and the Nigeria Army, in respect of which the Chief of Army Staff, Lt General Tukur Burutai himself acknowledges the Police as the primary internal security agency in the county, the situation may be better resolved with a police-led peace building process. That fits into the style of IGP Ibrahim Kpotun Idris and the relief of peaceniks in the region.