Civil Society and Conflict Management in the Niger Delta:

Scoping Gaps for Policy and Advocacy

Okechukwu Ibeanu

CLEEN FOUNDATION
MONOGRAPH SERIES NO 2
August 2006

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 Civil Society and Conflict Management in the Niger Delta:
Scoping Gaps for Policy and Advocacy

Okechukwu Ibeanu

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First published in 2006

By:

CLEEN Foundation
1, Afolabi Aina Street
Ikeja 100281
Lagos, Nigeria

Tel: 234-1-4933195
Fax: 234-1-4935339
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.cleen.org

ISBN:

© All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, photocopying, mechanical, recording or
otherwise, without the prior approval of the CLEEN Foundation.

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 Table of Contents
List of tables

Acknowledgements

Preface

Chapter

I. Introduction -3

II. Niger Delta Conflicts: Background and Explanation -10

III. Role of Civil Society organizations in Niger Delta Conflicts -35

IV. Scoping Gaps for Policy Interventions and Advocacy -43

V. Summary and Recommendations -50

Appendices

Appendix I: Enumeration Questionnaire -58

Appendix II: Summary of field trip data -62

Appendix III: Major CSOs working on conflicts and related issues in Niger Delta -74

Appendix IV: Report of validation Workshop on the study -78

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 LIST OF TABLES

1.1: Initial list of reputable civil society organizations working on conflict -14

2.1: Estimated population of the Niger Delta -17

2.2: Shell and indigenization deregulation stages -23

2.3: Inflows and Outflows from crude and gas sales, 2003-2004 -25

2.4: Joint Venture Operations in Nigeria -25

2.5: Joint operation and production sharing contract operations in Nigeria -27

2.6: Comparative summary of joint venture production sharing contract -28

2.7: A selection of graffiti left behind at Odi by invading soldiers -3

2.8: OMPADEC monthly financial receipts (1993-1997 in Naira) -38

3.1: Year of establishment of CSO’s working on conflicts in the Niger Delta -44

3.2: Conflict focus of CSO’s in Niger Delta by their year of establishment -45

4.1: Recommended conflict programmes areas location of conflict programmes -48

4.2: Locations of conflict programmes -49

4.3: Reasons for choice of conflict programme and location -50

4.4: Summary of existing and proposed conflict projects by CSOs -50

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 ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The CLEEN Foundation wishes to express its gratitude to the following organization and
individuals for their contribution in making this publication not only a reality but also a
success. First is the British Department for International Development (DFID) for its
generous funding support for the research and publication of the report.

Secondly, we thank the lead research consultant, Professor Okechukwu Ibeanu of the
Department of Political Science, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, for his depth of
knowledge of both the Niger Delta terrain and the literature on conflicts in the region,
which are reflected in this report and for writing the report.

Thirdly, we are grateful to all the organizations and there staff that spoke to us during the
field trip, particularly Chizor Wisdom Dike, Baria Kpalap, Chris Newsom, Damkpa
Pueba, Anyakwee Nsirimovu and Dimierari Von Kemedi who not only gave their time
to be interviewed in the course of the study but also helped us in identifying many other
organizations active in conflict work in Rivers and Bayela States, the focal states of the
study. Fidellis Allen of the University of Port Harcourt assisted in the field work and
K.C. Iwuamadi of the Department of Political Science, University of Nigeria, Nsukka
carried out the data analysis.

Finally we remain proud of the role CLEEN Foundation staff played in ensuring that the
study was a success. Worthy of mention is Mrs. Isioma Kemakolam, who did the
preparations for the study and participated in the field work in spite of her 'condition' at
the time. Katja Schiller and Onyinye Onyemobi organized the validation workshop on
the findings and recommendations of the report in Port Harcourt.

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 PREFACE

In the past decade and half the Niger Delta region of Nigeria has experienced various
shades of civil based conflicts. These conflicts vary from clusters of intransigent disputes
between local communities and oil companies over environmental justice issues to ‘wars’
between armed groups and soldiers dispatched by the federal government of Nigeria to
protect delicate oil installations and staff of multinational companies operating in the
region. This has led to the death of many people and countless number of internally
displaced persons. Many of them women and children!

Several studies have been carried out by scholars and civil society organizations mapping
the conflict flashpoints and their underlying causes. There are equally on going
intervention programmes by local, national and international NGOs in the conflict area.
However, there has not been any serious attempt to map or scope the range of intention
programmes that have been or being implemented by civil society groups to manage
conflicts in the area with a view to documenting who is doing what and where; the
challenges that are faced and the gap areas that could be explored by other stakeholders
wishing to get involved. Hence, the need for the study of conflict intervention
programmes by civil society groups in the Niger Delta. The objectives of the study were
to:

• Highlight conflict intervention programs being implemented by civil society

groups in the Niger Delta.

• Document challenges faced by the actors.

• Identify gap areas that could be explored by stakeholders wishing to get involved.

• Recommend a local government area for a pilot project on community peace

building in each of the two study states

• Produce a publication that would assist civil society groups and donor agencies
active in conflict management in the Niger Delta in their work.

This publication is the outcome of the study. It is divided into five chapters and four
appendices. Chapter I, which introduces the study, highlights a noticeable change in the
perception of the popular media about the Niger Delta region from the military era when
it was portrayed as the epitome of democratic resistance by local communities and their
organizations to the present era of elected civilian government where the myth of a
Hobbesian Niger Delta full of gang wars, cult killings, kidnapping of oil workers,
hijacking of oil tankers, violent occupation of oil installations, armed robbery, election
violence an communal conflicts appear to predominate.

Chapter II provides a background to and explanation of the Niger Delta conflicts. It

argues that understanding the persistence of conflicts in the Niger Delta requires an

7
understanding of the link between politics, petroleum and conflicts in the historical
development of the oil industry in Nigeria.

Chapter III focuses on the role of civil society organizations in the Niger Delta conflicts
and identifies two phases. The first is the phase of military-authoritarian rule, which
lasted from around 1990 to the end of military rule in 1999, while the second phase,
which is the present phase, corresponds to civilian rule. The chapter argues that it is
important to distinguish between the two phases because the role, objectives and
strategies of civil society organizations in the conflicts in the Delta differ markedly
between the two phases.

Chapter IV is on gaps for policy and advocacy and states that while CSOs interviewed for
the study recognize the need to identify gaps in their current work on conflicts, many of
them emphasize the need to consolidate their ongoing work. A general challenge that
they identified in this regard is a dearth of funds. Many of them pointed out that their
projects have become hostages to constant changes in donor interests and funding
strategies.

Chapter V concludes the study and offers recommendations. It argues that a striking thing
about the Niger Delta conflict is the range of issues on which cooperation among
communities, civil society, oil companies and government is possible, but which are not
pursued, the reason being that stakeholders are talking at rather than to each other. The
chapter recommends that future conflict intervention programmes in the delta should
focus on strengthening channels of communication and exchange of views among the
principal parties in the conflicts and that pilot programme should start with the Nembe
community in Bayelsa State and Okrika in Rivers State, which are in dire need of such
intervention efforts.

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 I

INTRODUCTION

The myth of a Hobbesian Niger Delta

There persists today a myth of a Hobbesian Niger Delta.1 Gang wars, cult killings,
kidnapping of oil workers, hijacking of oil tankers, violent occupation of oil installations,
armed robbery, election violence and communal conflicts are the raw materials for this
mythology of the Niger Delta. This myth, in turn, feeds into stereotypes of a Niger Delta
that is peopled by groups that are prone to conflict, criminality and violence. Yet,
paradoxically, under military rule the Niger Delta was portrayed as the epitome of
democratic resistance by local communities and their organizations. Why this change in
portrayal of the Niger Delta? The explanation lies in the changing discourses of rights in
the Niger Delta from popular discourses of rights to the rhetoric of rights. While popular
discourses of rights, which were dominant during military rule, emphasized questions of
democratic rights, protection of community livelihoods and environmental remediation,
the rhetoric of rights is dominated by the misappropriation of the original idea of resource
control, emphasis on stability of the petroleum industry and political order.2

The twilight of military rule between 1998 and 1999 saw the emergence of a coalition of
motley factions of the ruling class, most of them created by the military. It was this
coalition that inherited power in 1999. Expectedly, the politics of control of oil revenues,
which marked out the era of military rule, has remained the cornerstone of the politics of
this coalition, and the rhetoric of rights is the idiom of that politics.3 These factions of the
ruling class (erroneously called the political class4) orchestrate two distinct forms of
rhetoric of rights in the Niger Delta as they angle for control of the vast petroleum and
gas revenues from the Region. In other words, they have polarized along two opposing
lines, each articulating a separate rhetoric of rights. Roughly, on one side of the divide are

1
From the 17th Century English political philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, who conceived a pre-social contract state of
nature in which life was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”. This is the general way that the Niger Delta is
often portrayed in government circles, international business community and sections of the mass media and
academia.
2
Clearly, politicians appropriated the resource control discourse as initially propounded by Ijaw youths in
the Kaiama Declaration. The discourse of the Kaiama Declaration has been bastardized as the rhetoric of
resource control.
3
I have elsewhere characterized this ensemble as the militariat. For an elaborate discussion of the rule of the militariat
in Nigeria and its consequences for the Niger Delta see my essay ‘Insurgent civil society and democracy in Nigeria:
Ogoni encounters with the state, 1990-1998’ http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/civsoc/final/nigeria/Nga8.doc.
4
See Okechukwu Ibeanu ‘The rhetoric of rights: understanding the changing discourses of rights in the Niger
Delta’, ACAS Bulletin, 2004. The concept of political class, which has become quite popular in academic and
popular writings in Nigeria since the country returned to civil rule lacks scientific depth. It is used in a descriptive
way to distinguish between politicians and military rulers, thus blurring the internal unity of the ruling class and
emphasizing the minor differences among its fractions. Moreover, it does not problematize the socio-economic basis
of class formation and class action, and we do not know the relationship between the political class and the military,
or between them and the popular classes. In the end, the class struggle is banished from analysis and, therefore, the
political class, paradoxically, has no politics.

9
the Federal government and non-Niger Delta States and politicians, while on the other
side are Niger Delta State governments and politicians.

There are two dimensions of the opposing forms of the rhetoric of rights. First, there is
the rhetoric of resource control. In putting forward this rhetoric, governments of Niger
Delta States, particularly Delta and Bayelsa States, insist that Niger Delta peoples
through their State governments have a right to larger shares of oil revenues. Since 1999
they have been pushing for an increase in revenue to the Niger Delta from the 13% of
resources derived from each State to 50%.5 In response, the federal side initially reacted
by seeking to seize all revenues from offshore oil production by excluding such revenues
from the calculation of the 13% derivation. In some cases, this cut the revenue accruable
to some littoral States of the Niger Delta by as much as 80%. This gave rise to what has
come to be called the struggle for resource control.6

A second reaction of the Federal Government to the rhetoric of resource control put
forward by the Niger Delta has been to counter with the rhetoric of transparency. In doing
this, the Federal Government consistently accuses State governments generally and Niger
Delta governments in particular of being financially profligate if not corrupt. In fact,
recently, the Minister of State in the Federal Ministry of Finance, Mrs. Nenadi Usman
(now substantive Minister of Finance), accused State Governors of using financial
allocations to their States to buy foreign exchange, which they then take outside the
country. The Federal government also insists that Niger Delta governments have
generally misused the huge revenues they have been getting as a result of the 13%
derivation. Consequently, it has embarked on a campaign of transparency in the
extractive industry, particularly targeting the petroleum industry. In February 2004, the
Federal Government of Nigeria, Transparency International and the World Bank
organized a major international workshop on petroleum revenue management in Nigeria
as part of the Petroleum Revenue Transparency Initiative.7

5
Section 162(2) of the 1999 Constitution provides for a minimum of 13% of revenue to return to oil producing states
by derivation. In 2005, the National Political Reform Conference convened by the Federal government to discuss a
new Constitution dispersed inconclusively partly on a disagreement over whether derivation should be raised to 25%
as proposed by Niger Delta delegates or to 17% proposed by other delegates.
6
On April 9, 2001, the Federal Government went to the Supreme Court asking for clarification of section 162,
subsection 2 of the 1999 Constitution. In the suit, the Federal Government asked the Court to declare that petroleum
resources in Nigeria’s territorial waters belong to the Federal Government and not to States, and so should not be
used to calculate the 13% derivation. In April 2002, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of the Federal Government,
drastically cutting revenues to oil-producing States like Akwa-Ibom and Ondo. However, in what appeared like
forgiveness of the Niger Delta States by the Federal Government, and a rare act of statesmanship by the country’s
leadership, President Obasanjo sent a bill to the National Assembly to abolish the distinction between on-shore and
offshore petroleum revenues in applying the 13% derivation principle in revenue sharing. Although the Assembly
passed the bill in October 2002, the controversy did not end there. In a sudden twist, the President vetoed the bill by
withholding accent to it in December 2002 over the issue of definition of Nigeria’s offshore by the bill. Is it
“contiguous zone” used in the President’s draft bill or “continental shelf” inserted by the National Assembly? The
issue was resolved by modifying the Act to provide that “200-metre water depth isobath” contiguous to a State will
be used for purposes of calculating derivation.
7
Also at that meeting, a steering committee of the Nigerian Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI) to
monitor transparency in petroleum revenue was announced. The NEITI commissioned an audit which recently
reported its findings in the so-called Hart Report, which is available at the NEITI website.

10
The second dimension of the rhetoric of rights is the argument by Niger Delta Governors
that Niger Delta peoples have a right to far better living condition than is on offer
presently, and available data seem to justify this claim. Petroleum derived from the Niger
Delta accounts for about 50 percent of Nigeria’s GDP, 95 percent of foreign exchange
earnings, and 80 percent of all budgetary revenues. This amounts to nearly $20 billion
annually or about $54 million daily. Compared to this enormous wealth, the social
situation in the Niger Delta presents a mammoth discrepancy, and is generally worse than
the situation in most parts of the country. To illustrate, available figures show that there
is one doctor per 82,000 people, rising to one doctor per 132,000 people in some areas,
especially the rural areas, which is more than three times the national average of 40,000
people per doctor. Only 27 percent of people in the Delta have access to safe drinking
water and about 30 percent of households have access to electricity, both of which are
below the national averages of 31.7% and 33.6%, respectively. Only 6% of the
population of the Niger Delta have access to telephones, while 70% have never used a
telephone. For added measure, apart from a Federal Trunk B road that crosses Bayelsa
State, the State has only 15 kilometres of tarred road. Poverty remains widespread,
worsened by an exceptionally high cost of living created by the petro-economy.
According to a World Bank study, in the urban areas of Rivers State the cost of living
index of 783 is the highest in Nigeria. GNP per capita is below the national average of
$280 and unemployment in Port Harcourt, the premier city of the Delta, is as high as 30
percent. At the same time, access to education, central to remedying some of these social
conditions, lags abysmally when compared to other parts of the country. While 76
percent of Nigerian children attend primary school, in the Niger Delta the figure drops
appallingly to between 30 and 40 percent.

In response to the argument of welfare and right to development, the Federal side
counterpoises the rhetoric of peace and security, arguing that the main factor militating
against the enjoyment of the right to development in the Niger Delta is violence
perpetrated by people in the Delta against themselves, oil companies and the Nigerian
state. Repeatedly, examples of vandalization of oil installations, kidnapping of oil
workers and communal conflicts are cited as antinomies of development. For instance,
the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) reports that between 1993 and
2003, there were 1,298 seizure/piracy targeted at oil facilities in the Niger Delta. In
addition, in March 2004, Shell, Chevron and Elf were forced into production deferments
of 155 mbd amounting to $1.7billion in lost revenues as a result of crude oil theft,
community disturbances and destruction of oil facilities.8

So far, seven years of civilian rule have shown that the rhetoric of rights, whether as
resource control or as resource management, is conducive to conflicts. While it has failed
to resolve pre-1999 conflicts by substituting resource control for human rights, communal
livelihoods and environmental protection, it has created new interwoven trajectories of
conflict. First, there is the persisting conflict between local communities and security,
counterinsurgency and surveillance forces, which has led to many deaths, as in the widely
publicized military invasion of Odi in 1999 in which the Nigerian army, acting on the

8
NNPC and Academic Associates PeaceWorks (2004) Report of the Niger Delta Youths Stakeholders Workshop, Port
Harcourt, April 15 – 17, 2004, pp.48 & 51.

11
orders of President Obasanjo, killed hundreds of people and practically razed the once
thriving town. In deed, many communities in the Niger Delta still live under heavy
military surveillance such as Operation Hakuri II and Operation Restore Hope. In the
highly volatile creeks of the Western Delta, particularly in Delta State, military patrols
have summarily killed hundreds of people, ostensibly in trying to dislodge armed gangs
that steal crude oil and abduct oil workers. The situation has worsened since April 2004
when a team of Chevron workers returning to land from an offshore facility ran into a
gang of oil thieves. Unfortunately, the Chevron workers had a military patrol escorting
them and in the ensuing shootout between the soldiers and robbers two Americans and
five Nigerians in the Chevron team were killed. More recently, the emergence of the
Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) portrayed by many
government officials as an underground group specializing in the abduction of oil
workers for ransom, has raised the tempo of secret military operations in which many
local people are tortured and summarily executed in remote creeks and mangrove
forests.9

Second, there is the trajectory of political conflicts, especially conflicts linked to party
politics. Contest for political power, which is expected to be free, fair and open in a
democracy, has become a major source of violent conflicts in the Niger Delta. A good
illustration is the spate of violent conflicts that engulfed the Niger Delta following the
2003 elections, which are believed to be linked to young gangs recruited and armed by
politicians to fight their political opponents during the polls. It is estimated that over
30,000 people have died in gang violence and property worth hundreds of millions of
Naira destroyed since mid 2003.10 The spate of assassinations of important political
figures from the Niger Delta since 2003, including Dr. Marshall Harry in March 2003 and
Chief A.K. Dikibo in February 2004, both top politicians of Niger Delta origin, have been
emblematic of widespread political violence in the region. In August 2004, six people
were killed, 50 houses razed and about 6,000 were rendered homeless when an armed
gang thought to be members of NDPVF raided the Njemanze waterfront in Port Harcourt.
The attack was thought to be linked to the struggle between the Niger Delta Peoples
Volunteer Force (NDPVF) led by Mujahid Asari Dokubo and Niger Delta Vigilantes led
by Ateke Tom, both members of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Rivers
State and active in the Party’s widely contested victory in the 2003 elections. Also in
December 2004, a gang of armed youths believed to be members of the dreaded Egbesu
cult, attacked the convoy of Rivers State Governor, Dr. Peter Odili, along the East-West
Road in Port Harcourt.11 The fact that even the Governor was a target of gang attack
shows a heightened level of political conflict and insecurity that is unprecedented in the
region.

9
In spite of this derogatory portrayal of MEND, many people in the Niger Delta empathize with their wider
objective of addressing the deprivation of local communities of the region. MEND also identify as part of
its objectives the release of Asari Dokubo and other detainees involved in the Niger Delta struggle.
10
Okechukwu Ibeanu ‘Introduction’ in Okechukwu Ibeanu (ed) Oiling Violence: The Proliferation of Small Arms and
Light Weapons in the Niger Delta, Abuja: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 2006.
11
We should note that this is the government account. Independent sources say that the youth were actually
members of the Ijaw Youth Congress returning from a meeting. The Governor’s convoy attempted to run
them off the road, leading to the clash between the youths and the Governor’s security details.

12
Third, there is the trajectory of inter and intra-communal conflicts. Among these are the
Ijaw-Ilaje conflict, the Ogoni-Andoni conflict, the Ogoni-Okrika conflict, the internecine
conflict between the two Ijaw villages of Bassambiri and Ogbolomabiri in Nembe and the
recurrent conflicts between the Ijaw, Urhobo and Itsekiri over the ownership of Warri, a
major centre of petrobusiness in Nigeria. The central causus belli in these conflicts are
conflicting claims made by communities to land and creeks on which there are petroleum
deposits or oil installations. In many cases, state officials and oil companies either
generate or fuel these conflicts in their antics of divide and rule. For instance, it is known
that oil companies have local chiefs and notables on their payrolls in return for cultivating
favourable public opinion on behalf of oil companies. However, the oil companies
increasingly divulge their names to restive youths, thus fueling anger and conflicts within
communities. This trajectory of conflict has been worsened by party politics since 1999.
In Warri, around the time of the inauguration of the new civilian government in
May/June 1999, violence broke out in which up to 200 people were killed in raids and
counter raids by Itsekiri and Ijaw ethnic militias, forcing the new civilian Governor,
James Ibori, to impose a curfew. In September 1999, the Delta State House of Assembly,
the legislative arm of the State government, passed a bill that moved the headquarters of
Warri South West local government area from Ogidigben to Ogbe-Ijoh, heightening fears
that fresh violence would break out in future. It happened in 2003 when fighting broke
out in the Okere area of Warri town initially between Ijaw and Itsekiri youths on the
weekend of January 31 and February 1, 2003. Later, it extended to clashes between the
Itsekiri and Urhobo. The immediate cause of the violence was the primaries of the ruling
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to select its candidates for the 2003 national elections.
Many areas in Warri, especially Okumagba Estate were destroyed in the fighting. The
situation was controlled to some extent with the intervention of the military. However,
violence continued to simmer until March when another flare-up occurred, this time
involving mainly soldiers and Ijaw youths. In the aftermath of the widely rigged 2003
elections, Rivers State virtually became a jungle of anarchy, with an assortment of armed
factions freely roaming the streets of towns and villages. In Buguma, over 500 people lost
their lives in the 12 months following the 2003 elections in clashes among warring
members of the community, seemingly over traditional chieftaincy titles. In reality,
however, the Buguma carnage is symptomatic of the enduring character of violence in
Rivers State - a complex interplay of political and cultural forces in the struggle to
control oil revenues.

Civil society organizations have been in the forefront of conflict resolution activities in
the Niger Delta. During the period of military rule, they acted to diffuse tension among
warring communities and to unite them in focused action against military rule, social
privation and environmental degradation. In the post-military era, civil society
organizations have been playing a central role in intervening in inter-communal conflicts,
conflicts between local communities and oil companies, as well as in conflicts between
local groups, communities and the state. In spite of the bold intervention of civil society
organizations in Niger Delta conflicts, the incidence and severity of conflicts appears not
to have reduced. Indeed, following the intensification of political competition in the run-
up to the 2003 elections conflict hotspots in the Niger Delta increased tremendously.
More recently, increasing cases of kidnapping of oil workers, which have seen the

13
abduction of at least 20 expatriate and local officials of oil companies, and bombing of
military establishments suggest that the situation could indeed worsen rapidly.

Certainly, the situation suggests a failure or inadequacy of analysis, policy and advocacy.
This study seeks to conduct an explanation of Niger Delta conflicts, identify gaps in
policy and advocacy and suggest ways of remedying them. Its specific objectives are to:

• Highlight conflict intervention programs being implemented by civil society

groups in the Niger Delta.

• Document challenges faced by the actors.

• Identify gap areas that could be explored by stakeholders wishing to get involved.

• Recommend a local government area for a pilot project on community peace

building in each of the two study states

• Produce a publication that would assist civil society groups and donor agencies
active in conflict management in the Niger Delta

Methodology

The biggest challenge is to achieve samples of CSOs working on conflict issues in the
two States, Rivers and Bayelsa, that will give us dependable information about the study
objectives, without necessarily employing a probabilistic sampling design. This throws
up two dimensions to the sampling procedure. The first is to sample the locations of
CSOs, while the second is to get balanced distributions (samples) of CSOs from the
chosen geographical locations.

The focus will be on the two State capitals, Port Harcourt and Yenagoa. This is because
most of the CSOs are principally located in the capitals, though they usually have
projects in different parts of the State and work closely with Community Based
Organizations (CBOs) at the grassroots level. Sampling of CSOs will be based on a
“reputation approach”. We begin with interviews at CSOs that we already know are
working on conflict in Niger Delta. Each NGO will be asked about the most important
location where it has a conflict project. The project area will be visited and CSOs and
Community Based Organizations (CBOs) in the area of the project will be interviewed.
Every NGO selected will be asked to recommend two other CSOs or CBOs working on
conflict in the State for interview, apart from those already on our list.
Data Gathering

We needed to first get an adequate overview of the general character of the conflict work
of CSOs in a the Niger Delta. Secondly, we sought to get in-depth information about this
work in line with the objectives of the project. These necessitate two data gathering
strategies:

14
 (i) Enumeration of CSOs
(ii) In-depth study of selected CSOs.
Enumeration

The aim is to get adequate general information about the conflict work of CSOs that
enable us to establish a typology of their work, set out the basis for a comprehensive
database of CSOs working on conflicts in the Niger Delta and map gaps in their work.
The instrument for doing this will be an enumeration form to be completed by the
researchers. This is not a self-report (questionnaire) instrument. The researchers are
expected to complete the forms by primary contact with the CSOs where possible, and
from other secondary sources. The instrument is to be found as Appendix 1.

In-depth study

The enumeration will help us identify two CSOs in each State for in-depth study. The in-
depth study will primarily entail interviews with the leadership, members and
beneficiaries of the work of the CSOs. The interviews will be supplemented with
intensive gathering of secondary materials directly from the Organizations and from other
dependable sources – publications, websites, gazettes, etc.

Table 1.1: Initial list of reputable CSOs working on conflict

S/N Name of Organization State Location Contact

person
1. Our Niger Delta (OND) Rivers/Bayelsa Port Harcourt/ D. Von
Yenagoa Kemedi
2. Community Rights Initiative Rivers Port Harcourt Chizor
(CORI) Wisdom Dike
3. Academic Associates Peace Rivers Port Harcourt Judith Asuni
Works (AAPW)
4. Institute of Human Rights Rivers Port Harcourt Anyakwee
and Humanitarian Law Nsirimovu
(IHRHL)
5. Niger Delta Human and Rivers/Bayelsa Port Harcourt/ Azibaola
Environmental Rescue Yenagoa Robert
Organization (NDHERO)
6. Movement for the Survival Rivers Port Harcourt Bariara
of Ogoni People (MOSOP) Kpalap
7. Women Light Foundation Bayelsa Yenagoa
8. Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) Bayelsa Yenagoa Patterson
Ogon
9. Conflict Resolution Trainers Bayelsa Yenagoa
Network
10. Centre for Advanced Social Rivers Port Harcourt Sofiri
Science (CASS) Perterside

15
Selection of interviewees

To ensure a full understanding of the work of an organization, two approaches were

adopted in selecting interviewees:
a) Knowledgeable individuals in the CSO, preferably the head of the Organization
were selected and interviewed.
b) One ordinary member of the organization or one beneficiary of the work of the
organization was also selected and interviewed.

16
 II

NIGER DELTA CONFLICTS: BACKGROUND AND EXPLANATION

________________________________________________________________________

Niger Delta Environment and Society

The Niger River Delta is said to be one of the largest in the world.12 This 70,000 square
kilometers of marshland, creeks, tributaries and lagoons drain the Niger River into the
Atlantic at the Bight of Biafra. About one-third of this area is fragile mangrove forest, the
second the second largest mangrove forest in the world. The biodiversity of the Niger
Delta is very high. The area contains diverse plant and animal species, including many
endangered, exotic and endemic animals and plants.13 Implied in this ecology is that the
Niger Delta is an easily disequilibrated environment. There is also a serious scarcity of
arable land and fresh-water.14 Officially, the Niger Delta consists of the nine States of
Abia, Akwa-Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross-River, Delta, Edo, Imo, Ondo and Rivers. Ethnically,
the region consists of the Ijaw, Urhobo, Efik, Ibibio, Ogoni, Edo, Yoruba (mainly Itsekiri
and Ilaje) and the Igbo. Apart from the Yoruba and Igbo, these groups are ethnic
minorities in the context of the ethnic composition of Nigeria.

There is, however, a persistent debate over the areas that legitimately constitute the Niger
Delta. Driven principally by politics, especially the politics of oil revenue distribution,
the bulk of the debate has mostly generated more heat than light. Still, we can discern at
least four different definitions of the Niger Delta, which are classifiable as:
• Maximal socio-political
• Minimal socio-political
• Maximal geographical
• Minimal geographical

Maximal and minimal socio-political definitions

The maximal socio-economic definition of the Niger Delta is the definition adopted by
the Federal Government of Nigeria through the Niger Delta Development Commission,
its principal intervention agency in the Niger Delta. This definition identifies the Niger
Delta as corresponding to the geographical area of the nine States namely, Abia, Akwa-
Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross-River, Delta, Edo, Imo, Ondo and Rivers. These are also the oil-
producing States for which there had been an earlier development agency, the Oil
Minerals Producing Areas Development Commission (OMPADEC). However, the
maximal sociopolitical definition of the Niger Delta is often contested by the public,
politicians and society organizations in the area, which seek to distinguish between oil-

12
http://www.eni.it/english/mondo/pdf/naoc_eng.pdf
13
See Abdoulaye Ndiaye, ‘Conservation and Sustainable Development Strategy for the Niger Delta’, The John D. and
Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (mimeo) pp. 5-6.
14
Okechukwu Ibeanu, ‘Oiling the friction: environmental conflict management in the Niger Delta, Nigeria’,
Environmental Change and Security Project Report, Issue No. 6, Washington D.C.: The Woodrow Wilson Centre,
2000, p. 19.

17
producing States and the “core States” of the Niger Delta, which they arrive at through a
combination of geographical and recent historico-political experiences.
The ‘core States’ argument yields the minimal socio-political definition of the Niger
Delta, which limits the region to the States of the so-called South-South zone. This is one
of six geo-political zones that emerged during the 1994-95 Constitutional Conference,
which the military government later adopted formally as a basis for policies and planning,
especially the distribution of resources and political positions. The other zones are North-
East, North-Central, North-West, South-West and South-East. The South-South zone
consists of the States of Akwa-Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross-River, Delta, Edo and Rivers. These
States are populated by many minority ethnic groups like the Ijaw, Urhobo, Ikwerre,
Ishan, Ibibio and Efik, which for many years have struggled against the perceived
domination of more populous ethnic groups like the Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba and Igbo.
Within this minimalist definition, a distinction is often made between the “core Niger
Delta” and the “peripheral Niger Delta”. The “core Niger Delta States” consist of
Bayelsa, Delta and Rivers States, while the “peripheral Niger States” are Akwa-Ibom,
Cross-River and Edo. In effect, while the maximal sociopolitical definition is based on
petroleum resources alone, the minimalist definition is linked to States consisting mainly
of ethnic minorities that are located totally or partly in the Niger Delta Basin.

Maximal and minimal geographical definitions

The maximal geographical definition of the Niger Delta fixes it as the areas of southern
Nigeria with river systems linked to the River Niger as it drains into the Atlantic Ocean at
the Bights of Benin and Biafra. This area will fall roughly between Benin River in the
Southwest and the Cross-River in the Southeast, and then northwards to River Anambra.
This definition is justified by the systemic nature of the ecology of the area and the
interrelated and organic nature of social conditions and, therefore, social problems. On
the other hand, the minimal geographical definition of the Delta locates it as the 70,000
square kilometers of low-lying swampy terrain and multiple channels through which the
River Niger empties into the Atlantic Ocean. It stretches about 100 kilometers inland.
Consequently, it has been fixed as a triangle with its apex North around Ndoni or Aboh,
descending downwards and westwards to Benin River estuary and eastwards to the Imo
River estuary. Its base is the continental shelf along the Atlantic.

18
Table 2.1 Estimated population of the Niger Delta

The Niger Delta has an estimated population of about 29 million people, the bulk of
which lives in rural fishing and farming communities. However, with the discovery of oil
and the social and environmental changes that have accompanied it, particularly the
dearth of arable land and pollution of fishing waters, farming and fishing have
substantially declined, making way to white and blue collar jobs and an increasing
problem of unemployment.
Fig. 2.1: Map of the Niger Delta

All the majors such as Shell, Exxon-Mobil, Elf Aquitane, Chevron-Texaco, Eni-Agip,
and TotalFinaElf are engaged in upstream and downstream operations in the Nigerian
petroleum industry today. Their operations are principally organized as joint ventures

19
with the state-owned NNPC. Nigeria is the fifth largest producer of crude oil in the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). At peak production in the
1970s, it exported two million barrels per day. Presently, Nigeria’s export quota, which is
determined by OPEC, stand at around 1.79 million barrels daily, mostly to the United
States. Nigeria’s oil, the so-called Bonny Light, is said to be environmentally friendly
because of its low sulfur content.The World Bank estimates that petroleum contributes
about 50% of Nigeria’s GDP, 95% of foreign exchange earnings and 80% of all
budgetary revenues.15

By law, the Nigerian state owns all mineral deposits in Nigeria, including crude oil. This
ownership is established through a series of statutes that govern the petroleum industry,
dating to the colonial period. The central government controls revenues from petroleum
and sets up a formula for distributing them to the other tiers of government namely,
States and Local Governments. This has continued to nettle communities in the Niger
Delta, as they often feel cheated in the distribution of revenue from petroleum. A
Supreme Court ruling in April 2002 that gave control of offshore petroleum deposits to
the Federal Government, further reducing revenue accruable to oil-producing States, has
increased the feeling of deprivation in the region.16

Shell remains the largest producer in Nigeria. Inevitably, its dominance of the industry
and the centrality of petroleum in Nigeria’s political economy have brought Shell, and
indeed other multinational oil companies, very close to ruling governments in Nigeria. By
the same token, the ill will of communities arising from widespread feeling of deprivation
has also characterized the relationship between communities and oil companies. This was
particularly pronounced during military rule when the regimes used extremely coercive
means against restive communities in a bid to counter threats to oil production. Since the
inauguration of a civilian government in May 1999, there have been various attempts by
both government and oil companies to redress the socio-economic and environmental
damages of the military period. Particularly, the government established the Niger Delta
Development Commission (NDDC) to replace the military-established Oil Minerals
Producing Areas Development Commission (OMPADEC). The NDDC is expected to be
the flagship of government development policy in the Niger Delta. However, although
progress has been made in the area of human rights violation, social conditions remain
dire. The level of violence in the region remains relatively high and the acrimonious
relationships among local communities, civil society organizations, government and oil
companies persist.

15
http://www.eni.it/english/mondo/pdf/naoc_eng.pdf
16
On April 9, 2001 the federal government went to the Supreme Court asking for clarification of section 162 (2) of the
1999 constitution requesting among other things a declaration that petroleum resources in Nigeria’s territorial waters
are federally derived. In April 2002, the Supreme Court agreed with the federal government, thus further reducing
the revenues of littoral oil producing states. A bill sponsored by the President and passed by the National Assembly
in October 2002 abolished the onshore-offshore distinction. However, the President has been seeking an amendment
of the bill over what constitutes Nigeria’s offshore – “contiguous zone” used in the President’s draft bill or
“continental shelf” inserted by the National Assembly. The President has since vetoed the bill and in December 2002
Northern elders led by the Emir of Kano joined the fray, warning Northern members of the National Assembly not to
override the President’s veto because the abolition of the onshore-offshore dichotomy is not in the interest of the
North. All these have raised fears of a new round of conflict in the Niger Delta as there are now even more forceful
demands for resource control by youths in the Delta.

20
Genealogy of Nigeria’s petrostate and conflict in the Niger Delta

Understanding the persistence of conflicts in the Niger Delta necessitates a review of the
historical development to the oil industry. The historical context in which petroleum
production and the governance of the huge revenues accruing from it play out presents a
varied and intriguing trajectory. In tracing this trajectory of the development of Nigeria’s
petrostate, three phases or stages are distinguishable. The first stage, which we may call
the colonial stage, dates to the first few years of the 20th century when petroleum
exploration began. Organized marketing and distribution started around 1907 by a
German Company, Nigerian Bitumen Corporation. In 1914, the Colonial Mineral
Ordinance formalized state control of oil exploration, and the colonial state, on the basis
of the Ordinance, granted concessions exclusively to British and British-allied
companies. Under this arrangement, the Anglo-Dutch group Shell D’Archy (later Shell-
BP) got an oil exploration Concession covering the entire 367,000 square miles of
Nigeria in 1938. This set the stage for over six decades of dominance of the Nigerian oil
economy by Shell (currently about 50% of Nigeria’s total production and about 53% of
total hydrocarbon reserve base). In 1956, Shell discovered oil in commercial quantities at
Oloibiri, a town in the Niger Delta. The next year, the company ceded 95% of its
concession to other non-Nigerian companies, leaving itself prime 16,000 square miles.
By February 1958, Nigeria became an oil exporter with a production level of 6,000
barrels per day, although it was not until after the 1967-70 Civil War that it became a
major producer on a global scale. A year after Nigeria became an oil exporter, the Federal
government sought to take grater control of proceeds of the exports. It passed the 1959
Petroleum Profit Tax Ordinance, which provided for 50/50 profit sharing between
government and producers. This marked the early beginnings of a petro-rentier state.

Petro-politics in the immediate post-independence period began with the question of

distribution of petroleum rents between the federal government and the regional
governments. The Binn’s revenue allocation report recommended that 50% be returned to
the regions by derivation. In the light of the rapidly rising rents from oil, this potentially
put enormous wealth in the hands of the regional governments, particularly the Eastern
regional government. It is not surprising that oil became a central issue when the Eastern
region attempted to secede to form the independent state of Biafra. Although oil had only
a subsidiary role in the outbreak of the civil war that followed, it had more direct role in
determining the course and outcome of the war.17 For instance, the decision of Shell-BP
to pay royalties to the Federal side and not to the Biafran side decisively affected the
outcome of the war.

Oil was also significant in the politics of the war in yet another way namely, the creation
of states and redrawing of ethnic boundaries. On the eve of the civil war, the Federal
military government led by Yakubu Gowon changed the administrative structure of the
country from four Regions to twelve States, two of these, Rivers and South-East States,

17
Robin Luckham and Okechukwu Ibeanu ‘Nigeria: Military rule, democratization, conflict and corporate
responsibility in a petro-state’, discussion paper for the meeting on ‘Oil and Conflict’, Bellagio, Italy, November 18-
22 2002

21
catering for minorities in the former Eastern Region. Soon after creation of the twelve
States, the Eastern Region declared itself the State of Biafra on May 30, 1967, with a
predominantly Igbo ethnic composition (two-thirds of the official regional population)
and a number of ethnic minorities such as the Efik, Ijaw and Ogoni. The creation of states
by the military regime was meant to serve the immediate purpose of undermining support
for Biafra in two ways. First, it was designed to alter the Igbo ethnic boundary by
encouraging a number of groups that spoke dialects of the Igbo language, which are
mostly located in the Niger Delta, to abandon a pan-Igbo ethnic identity for new minority
identities like Ikwerre, Ekpeye, Etche, Ogba and Ndoni. The propaganda of the federal
government at the time was to cast these groups as victims of the hegemony of Igbos
from the “hinterland”. By so doing, the federal government sought to break Igbo
solidarity and weaken the Biafran secession bid. Secondly, state creation was meant to
get other ethnic minorities of the Eastern region such as the Ijaw, Ogoni and Efik to cast
their lot with the federal government in the war. This move sought to build on already
existing ill feelings towards the Igbo among these groups, namely their perceived
marginalisation and domination by the more populous Igbo. This feeling had already
been forcefully expressed to the 1958 Willink Commission appointed by the Rt. Hon.
Alan Lenox-Boyd, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, to look into the fears of
minorities in the run up to independence in 1960. At the Commission, representatives of
Eastern ethnic minorities complained about autocratic rule by the Igbo-dominated ruling
party in the region, the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons, later National
Congress of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC), skewed appointments in the public service, as
well as economic and social discrimination.

While undermining the support base of the Biafran secession was the immediate
objective of state creation, its long-term goal was oil. State creation and tinkering with
ethnic boundaries served the purpose of minoritizing petroleum, that is making it an
ethnic minority resource, by placing the bulk of the petroleum resources of the Niger
Delta outside the Igbo areas. This was necessary because the secessionist claim at the
time was that the petroleum resources assured the viability of an independent state of
Biafra. Yet the fact that Niger Delta’s petroleum resources were made an ethnic minority
resource did not translate into increased revenue benefits in the post-war era. In spite of their
role in swinging the balance in favour of the federal side in the civil war, ethnic minorities of
the Delta felt increasingly marginalised by shifts in the system of revenue allocation that
progressively de-emphasized the derivation principle and allocated resources on the basis of
States. In sum, they felt themselves consistently short-changed in the distribution of oil rents
in the post-war period.

The second stage in the genealogy of the Nigerian petro-state, which may be called the
indigenization stage, began just before the end of the civil war. In 1969, the federal
government enacted the Petroleum Act, which among other things abrogated the 1914
Ordinance. The essence of the new act was to establish tighter control of the federal
government on oil revenues. The Act imposed OPEC conditions on producers for the first
time. In 1971, the government set up the Nigeria National Oil Company (NNOC), which
later became Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), and joined OPEC. The
declared objective of the government in taking these measures was to maximize the

22
benefits of oil for the country against the increasingly rapine tendencies of multinational
oil companies. However, there were suggestions that the government sought to punish
Shell-BP for its initial unwillingness to pay oil rents to the federal side during the war.
These actions also took place in the context of a military regime buoyed by its successful
prosecution of the civil war, ostensibly fought to preserve Nigeria’s national unity. The
success of the military in prosecuting the civil war under its own direction, rather than
that of civil authority, had three consequences that are useful in understanding this phase
of the development of the Nigerian petro-state. First, it assured a political future for the
military. Second, it strengthened the nationalist rhetoric of the military government.
Third, it increasingly made the military government unaccountable to the Nigerian public
on how it used oil revenues.

The crucial period of the indigenization stage was 1971 through 1979. During this period,
government acquired 60% equity in the major multinational oil companies and 80% in
Shell-BP with the nationalization of BP over the Zimbabwe independence crisis in 1976.
Later, the federal government ceded about 45% of BP to Elf (10%), AGIP (5%) and Shell
(30%). Downstream, government also took over ESSO (UNIPETROL), BP (AP) and the
marketing arm of Shell (National). The indigenization period also saw a marked decrease
in foreign investment in the sector, with some multinational oil companies even
abandoning their Nigerian operations.

This period was also characterized by massive public sector expenditure, ostensibly in
support of post-war reconstruction. The First National Development Plan was massively
funded, including support for indigenous entrepreneurs to buy into numerous previously
foreign-owned companies under the Indigenization Programme. However, this period
also saw an unprecedented rise in corrupt practices by public officials. The cement
scandal in which millions of tonnes of cement were imported into the country at
exorbitant cost, which congested the sea ports of the country for months, shady deals in
foreign exchange and the huge personal wealth accumulated by public officers under the
Gowon regime are good illustrations. It is not surprising that when the regime was
overthrown in July 1975, all the twelve State Governors and numerous senior federal
government officials were found to have corruptly enriched themselves. The new regime
led by General Muritala Mohammed also sacked thousands of workers in a massive
purge of the public service.

The third and final stage in tracing the development of Nigeria’s petro-state, which may
be described as the deregulation stage, began in the early 1980s. As early as 1977, signs
of serious fiscal difficulties were already visible. The outgoing Obasanjo military
government at the time enunciated the so-called belt-tightening programme. By 1982, the
silhouette had become a very clear picture and the Nigerian economy was already deep
into a tailspin. Again, oil rents were at the heart of this. Crude oil revenues fell from
=N=201 million in 1980 to about =N=56 million in 1983, triggered by precipitous
declines in world crude oil prices. Since public revenues were largely dependent on crude
oil exports, the decline setoff a serious financial crisis that is clearly expressed in the
sudden increase in import of capital, which rose by 280% between 1979 and 1981. In
1983, external debts stood at about =N=15 billion, with a =N=5 billion backlog of

23
repayments, while internal public debt stood at =N=22 billion. Expectedly, the economy
virtually collapsed. Industrial capacity utilization fell to only about 20%, there were
massive layoffs of workers in the private and public sectors, inflation rose from 7.7% in
1982 to 23.2% in 1983, GDP fell by 4.4% in 1983 and GDP per capita fell from $960 in
1980 to about $300 in 1987. The civilian government at the time under President Shehu
Shagari tried to absolve itself by attributing these difficulties to the slump in world oil
prices. The international financial institutions (IFIs) blamed it on structural imbalances in
the economy (read: state involvement in the economy). However, the fiscal crisis was the
sum effect of a deep-seated Dutch disease which meant Nigeria’s inability over the years
to creatively use oil money to develop the industrial sector and in tandem neglected the
agricultural sector of the economy, which sustained the country before crude oil exports
became dominant.18 Biting fiscal crisis, pressure from IFIs, growing domestic discontent
and decline in foreign investment in the oil sector, a reprisal for policies of the
indigenization period, led to partial deregulation and commercialization of various
operations of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). As part of this, the
NNPC was commercialized in 1988 with the creation of 11 subsidiaries.19 And in an
attempt to woo the big oil companies, government also offered them new favourable
Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) in 1986 and 1991 dealing with production sharing
with the NNPC. Still, persistent inability of government to meet its payment in the joint
ventures (cash calls) with the oil majors and inability of NNPC to compete with them led
to increased dependence on multinationals. Today, there is talk about compete
deregulation of the industry and selling of NNPC. An attempt to privatize the NNPC-
owned refineries triggered a strike by petroleum sector workers in August 2002.

An important aspect of the deregulation stage is the search for other sources of petroleum
rent. Gas became the obvious focus. Hitherto, Nigeria’s huge reserves were flared as
associated gas in the drilling of crude oil. In 1982, the ten major oil companies operating
in the country including Shell, Gulf, Mobil, Agip and Texaco flared about 13.4 billion
cubic metres of gas, representing over 92% of all gas produced. Both the environmental
and economic consequences of gas flaring are dire. In 1997, gas flaring was thought to
release 35 million tonnes of carbon dioxide and 12 million tonnes of methane into the
Nigerian atmosphere. On the economic side, the quantity of gas flared in 1982 was
approximately the equivalent of 280,000 barrels of crude oil per day. That would have
shored up the declining revenues from crude oil export by about 25%. These
considerations led to the establishment of the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG)
project in the Niger Delta, which started production in late 1999. The project entails the
purchase of natural gas from producers by the NLNG. The company then transports it
over about 200 kilometres of dedicated pipelines into a plant at Finnima on the Bonny

18
See Terry Karl Paradox of Plenty, Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1997.
19
The NNPC is the sole government agency overseeing the petroleum sector. It currently has the following wholly-
owned subsidiaries: National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS), Duke Oil Limited, Eleme
Petrochemicals Company Limited, Integrated Data Services Limited, Kaduna Refining and Petrochemicals Limited,
National Engineering and Technical Company, Nigerian Gas Company Limited, Nigerian Petroleum Development
Company Limited, Pipelines and Products Marketing Company Limited, Port Harcourt Refining and Petrochemicals
Company Limited, Warri Refining and Petrochemicals Company Limited. It also has two partly owned subsidiaries
– Calson (Bermuda) Limited and Hydrocarbon Services of Nigeria Limited. In terms of control of oil revenues, the
NNPC works with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS)

24
Island. There, the gas is processed into liquefied natural gas and exported. The project is
a joint venture between NNPC (49%), Shell (25.6%), Elf (15%) and Agip (10.4%).20

Table 2.2: Shell and the Indigenization and Deregulation stages

DATE EVENT PHASE
April 1, 1973 First participation agreement; Fed. Govt. acquires 35% shares in the Oil
Companies

INDEGENIZATION
April 1, 1974 Second Participation Agreement; Federal Government increases equity to
55%

STAGE
July 1, 1979 Third Participation Agreement (through NNPC) increases equity to 60%

August 1, 1979 Fourth Participation Agreement; BP's share holding nationalised; NNPC =
80%, Shell = 20%

December 13, 1979 Changed name to Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria
(SPDC)

DEREGULATION
August 1984 Agreement consolidating NNPC / Shell Joint Venture
January 1986 Signing of Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)

STAGE
June 30, 1989 Fifth Participation Agreement; (NNPC = 60%, Shell = 30%, Elf = 5%,
Agip = 5%)
July 11, 1991 Signing of Memorandum of Understanding & Joint Venture Operating
Agreement
April 19, 1993 Production Sharing Contracts signed - SNEPCO
Source: Adapted from http://www.shell.com/home/ accessed February 1, 2006

It is important to make one final point about the deregulation stage. During the preceding
stage of indeginization there was increased access of the indigenous elite to petrodollars
and a phenomenal rise in their standard of living through access to the state and increased
involvement in downstream activities in the oil industry. Much of this was reversed in the
deregulation phase because as the fiscal crisis deepened, access to the state and to
petrodollars contracted, especially for those not associated with the ruling military and
ethnic circles. As the excluded middle class became increasingly pauperized, just like the
bulk of the underclass, they began to champion new social and environmental causes.
This was particularly so in the oil producing areas, notably the Niger Delta, because of
the social and environmental devastation arising from oil extraction.

It is in the context of the deregulation phase that the current profile of the industry is to be
located.21 The Joint Venture approach to production, which was the fallout of the
indegenization period, offered the foreign oil companies a means of protecting their
investments by ensuring that the Nigerian state had enough stake in the ventures.
However, it also meant that the Nigerian state took on increased financial burden, having
settled for 60% equity across board in the JVs. Consequently, the Joint Venture Cash
Calls (JVCC) became a major financial outflow. As Table 2.3 shows, the Cash Calls
accounted for over 40% of all earnings from sale of crude oil and gas in 2003. Indeed, in
2003 and 2004, the cash calls amounted to over $6.8 billion.
20
Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Limited, LNG from Nigeria, London: Nigeria LNG Limited, 1997.
21
See Okechukwu Ibeanu (with Ike Ifelunni) ‘Antinomies of wealth: oil revenue, allocation, distribution
and utilization in the Niger Delta’, research report submitted to Oxfam GB, Abuja, 2006.

25
As the cash calls mounted in the face of declining revenues, the Nigerian government
sought other forms of production relations with multinational oil companies. The
government settled for the Production Sharing Contract (PSC), which ostensibly would
reduce cash calls and increase Nigeria’s reserves by transferring exploration risks and
funding to the oil companies. PSCs define the percentage of production that the company
operating a well and the host country will get after the operating company has recovered
a specified part of its costs and expenses.

Table 2.3: Inflows and outflows from crude and gas sales, 2003 and 2004
US Dollars 2003 2004

Total inflow from sale of crude and gas 8,005,085,896 14,516,830,159

Joint Venture Cash calls 3,426,146,783 3,417,333,000
Federation Account 4,445,011,295 10,356,470,227

Cash calls as % of total inflow 42.80 23.54

Source: Hart Report, pp. 12-13

Consequently, there are two production systems in operation in Nigeria today, namely
Joint Venture Operations (JV) and the Production Sharing Contracts (PSC), both
resulting logically from the complex interfaces between the indigenization and
deregulation stages of the evolution of the petrostate in Nigeria. While JVs apply mainly
in onshore operations, PSCs apply mainly to offshore operations.

Joint venture operation

This approach entails a shareholding arrangement between the NNPC and one or more
companies. The JV is usually under an operator, while NNPC and other companies are
shareholders, with NNPC usually holding equity of 60%. The operating cost and risks are
shared according to shareholding, which means that the Nigerian state is responsible for
60% of the operating costs of each venture (cash calls). Presently, there are six principal
Join Venture Operations involving the major oil companies and the NNPC, which are
summarized in Table 2.4. They are Shell Petroleum Development Company, Mobil
Producing Nigeria Unlimited, Chevron Nigeria Limited, Nigeria Agip Oil Company, Elf
Nigeria Limited and Texaco Overseas (Nigeria) Petroleum Company

26
Table 2.4: Joint Venture Operations in Nigeria
Joint Venture Shareholding Operator Remarks

Shell Petroleum • NNPC (55%) Shell • Largest producer

Development Company • Shell International (30%) • Accounts for about half of Nigeria’s
(SPDC) • Elf Petroleum (10%) production (900,000 bbl/day)
• Agip Oil (5%) • Accounts for half of Nigeria’s
reserves (about 10 billion barrels)
• 100 producing oil fields and 87 flow
stations
• 2 Export terminals at Forcados and
Bonny
Mobil Producing Nigeria • NNPC (60%) Exxon • Second largest operation in Nigeria
Unlimited • Mobil Oil (40%) Mobil • Main activity in shallow offshore
waters
• Operates Qua Iboe Terminal
• Daily production of around 520,000
bbl/day including 100,000 bbl/day
from its OSO condensate field
Cheveron Nigeria • NNPC (60%) Chevron- • Operates 25 fields mainly in the
Limited • Chevron-Texaco (40%) Texaco Western Delta area covering 5180 sq
km offshore and 2590 sq km onshore
• Daily production of about 420,000
bbl/day
•
•
•
Nigerian AGIP Oil • NNPC (60%) Agip • Fourth largest producer
Company (NAOC) • Agip Oil (20%) • 145,000 bbl/day
• Phillips Petroleum (20%) • 146 producing wells
• Export terminal located at Brass
ELF Nigeria Limited • NNPC (60%) TotalFinaElf • 12 onshore and offshore fields
• TotalFinaElf (40%) • 125,000 bbl/day
•
TEXACO Overseas • NNPC (60%) Chevron- • 6 oil mining leases in an area of
(Nigeria) Petroleum • Chevron-Texaco (40%) Texaco 606,000 acres offshore and in the
Company (TOPCON) Delta Basin
• Texaco, now Chevron-Texaco, has
been involved in exploration and
production in Nigeria since 1961. In
that time, it has produced over 473
million barrels of oil
• In 1999 Texaco and its deepwater
partner, Famfa, announced major
discovery at the Agbami-1.

Production sharing contract

In this approach, the NNPC goes into contract with a competent contractor to prospect for
and produce oil in an NNPC-controlled area. The contractor takes full responsibility for
all production activities and output is shared with NNPC according to agreed terms. The
oil produced is usually shared into:
a) Cost oil – a proportion that the producer (contractor) takes annually to offset
defined costs in accordance with the production sharing contract.

27
 b) Equity oil – a proportion that enables the producer guarantee return on
investment.22
c) Tax oil – a proportion that goes into settling the tax and royalty obligations of the
producer.
d) Profit oil – a proportion shared between the Nigerian government and the
producer based on conditions specified in the contract.
A typical PSC would include first, the contract term, usually 30 years. There is also
provision for termination of the contract. Second, the PSC contains a work programme,
which includes the amount of money that a contractor must spend over a specified period
of time. Third, the PSC established a Management Committee usually to be appointed by
the parties within 30 days of the contract. NNPC normally appoints the Chair of the
Committee. Finally, the PSC specifies the terms of recovery of operational costs and rates
for royalties. Currently, there are a number of sharing contracts with NNPC notably
Chevron (7 blocks), Shell (SNEPCO) (5 blocks), Statoil/BP/Allied Energy (4 blocks) and
Elf (2 blocks), among others.

Table 2.5: Joint Venture and Production Sharing Contract Operators in Nigeria
Major Production Sharing Contract Operators
Major Joint Venture Operators (Mainly offshore)
(Mainly onshore)
• Agip Group • Chevron Group
• Chevron-Texaco Group • SNEPCO (Shell Group)
• Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited • Statoil/BP
• Elf Producing Nigeria • Ashland
• Shell Group • Elf Producing Nigeria
• Agip Group
• Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited
• Conoco
• Abacan
• Esso

Table 2.6: Comparative Summary of Joint Venture and Production Sharing Contract
JOINT VENTURE OPERATION PRODUCTION SHARING CONTRACT
1. Partners share in the cost of petroleum operations 1.The contract areas for the OPL’s, are located in
in the proportion of their equity shareholding. deep offshore or inland basin.
2. Each partner can lift and separately dispose of its 2. The term of the P.S.C. is for a period of 30 years,
interest share of crude oil production, subject to inclusive of a 10 year exploration period.
payment (to Government) of petroleum profits tax,
and royalty.
3. One of the partners is designated as the operator of 3. The contractor bears all the cost of exploration,
the joint venture. and if oil is found, also bears the cost of subsequent
development and production operations. If no oil is
found, the contractor is not reimbursed for

22
Production sharing contracts may differ from company to company and it seems that equity oil is not present in all
the contracts.

28
 exploration expenses.
4. The operator prepares and proposes programmes 4. Crude oil produced is allocated as follows Tax Oil
of work and budget of expenditure, for approval by - This is to offset tax, royalty, and concession rentals
NAPIMS, the major shareholder. due to the Government -Cost Oil - This is for
reimbursement to the contractor for capital
investment and operating up to certain limits. -Profit
Oil - The balance after deduction of tax oil and cost
oil elements, will be shared between the contractor
and NNPC.
5.The operator has freedom of action in specific
matters, and Each party can opt for, and carry out
sole risk operations
6. The contractor pays no corporate tax on its
profit.
7. NNPC reserves the right to become operator.
8. The commercial aspects of the agreement are
covered in the Memorandum of Understanding
(M.O.U.). The current M.O.U. provides the
companies:
a) A guaranteed minimum profit of $2.30 per barrel
after tax and royalty on their equity crude.
b) A reserves addition bonus, in any year that a
company’s addition to oil and condensate ultimate
recovery exceeds production for that year.
Source: www.nigrianoil-gas.com/ and www.nipc-nigeria.org/

Explaining Niger Delta conflicts: Three theses

There are three strands of interconnected theses that help us understand the link between
politics, petroleum and conflicts in the Niger Delta. These strands express three
paradoxes of the petro-state. First is the paradox of plenty, which refers to the tendency
for petroleum wealth to create enormous poverty. Second is the paradox of security,
namely the tendency in a petro-state for national security to undermine the security of
nationals. Thirdly, there is the paradox of development, which refers to the tendency for
the putative development efforts of the petro-state to generate underdevelopment. These
three explanatory theses demonstrate how wealth makes the Niger Delta poor, how
national security makes nationals in the Niger Delta insecure and how development has
underdeveloped the Niger Delta. They capture the roots of conflicts in the Niger Delta.

Thesis one: how wealth impoverishes the Niger Delta

One of the most glaring paradoxes of the petro-state in Nigeria is the level of poverty in
the Niger Delta, which is the source of the country’s oil wealth. Without doubt, Niger
Delta’s poverty is in part the consequence of oil production, especially its environmental
consequences, which have destroyed livelihoods by destroying farmland and fishing
waters. The numerous negative environmental impacts of crude oil mining and refining
are well known. Pollution arising from oil spillage destroys marine life and crops, makes
water unsuitable for fishing and renders many hectares of farmland unusable. Brine from
oil fields contaminates water formations and streams, making them unfit as sources of

29
drinking water. At the same time, flaring gas in the vicinity of human dwellings and high
pressure oil pipelines that form a mesh across farmlands are conducive to acid rains,
deforestation and destruction of wildlife. In addition, dumping of toxic, non-
biodegradable by- products of oil refining is dangerous to both flora and fauna, including
man. For instance, metals that at high concentrations are known to cause metabolic
malfunctions in human beings, such as cadmium, chromium, mercury and lead, are
contained in refinery effluents constantly discharged into fresh water and farmland. They
enter the food chain both by direct intake via food and drinking water, and indirectly. For
example, fish is known to be able to store mercury in its brain without metabolizing it.
Man in turn could eat such contaminated fish. In the specific case of Ogoniland, it has
been recorded that 30 million barrels of crude oil were spilled in the area in 1970.23

According to Shell, this was because of sabotage by the Biafran Army after the civil war,
a claim that many local environmental groups contest. Shell figures also say “in Ogoni
from 1985 up to the beginning of 1993, when we withdrew our staff from the area, 5,352
barrels of oil were spilled in 87 incidents”.24 However, other independent sources give
much higher figures. According to Earth Action, there had been more than 2,500 minor
and major oil spills in Ogoniland between 1986 and 1991, including a major one in which
Shell dallied for forty days before patching a ruptured pipeline.25 However, rather than
take responsibility, state officials and oil companies are quick to blame oil spills on
sabotage by local communities. For instance, Shell insists that out of 87 oil spill incidents
in Ogoniland between 1985 and 1993, sixty (about 70%) were sabotage, 44 using
hacksaws. This agrees with the position of government. According to the Rivers State
government, out of 11 incidents in Ogoniland in 1990, 8 or 73% were sabotage.26

Apart from oil spills, there have been other far-reaching environmental damages in the
Niger Delta. For instance, Mitee reports that in the 1960s Shell constructed a narrow road
through the town of Dere to link its oil wells. This destroyed the drainage system of the
town leading to sever flooding. To date, the community is still seeking compensation for
thirty-nine years of suffering. In Gbaran, Shell also constructed a road to link its
installations with a major road from Yenagoa to Mbiama. Consequently, water flow to a
large section of timberland was cut leading to the atrophy and death of 1,000 acres of
forest. There is also the problem of gas flaring, which we have already alluded to. In
November 1983 alone, Shell flared over 483 million cubic metres of gas from its oil
wells. In these gas flares, temperatures reach as high as 1,400oC.27 Although there are
existing attempts by oil companies to end flares, the situation is still one of the worst

23
Earth Action (1994) ‘Defend the Ogoni people of Nigeria, Alert, No. 3.
24
Shell Petroleum Development Company, The Nigeria Brief: The Ogoni Issue, Lagos: The Shell Petroleum
Development Company of Nigeria Limited, 1995, p. 8.
25
op cit.
26
I. Ezeanozie (1991) ‘Environmental degradation and social conflict in Nigeria: a case study of the oil-producing
areas of Rivers State’, B.Sc. project, Department of Political Science, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
27
Batom Mitee (1997) ‘The social-cultural impact of oil exploration on an indigenous people: the Ogoni case’, paper
presented at the international symposium on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights among the Sami, the Maasai and
the Ogoni, University of Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland (12 - 14 September), p. 6-9.

30
cases in the world.28 For instance, in 1991 Nigeria exceeded the world average for gas
flares by 72%. In that year, Nigeria flared 76% of gas produced. Compare this with the
world average of 4% and OPEC average of 18%.29

Ecological damage has gone hand in hand with resource scarcity in the Niger Delta.
Consequently, local communities have come to associate the two, sometimes
unjustifiably. For instance, there is no doubt that the general economic situation in
Nigeria has deteriorated tremendously in the last two decade. Inflation has risen in leaps
and bounds and the value of the national currency (the Naira) has fallen dramatically
from about $1 = N3 in 1986, to $1 = N140 in 2002. Under difficult economic regimes
canvassed by International Financial Institutions, successive Nigerian governments have
cut public spending, virtually frozen public sector employment and withdrawn state
subsidies to mass consumption goods such as petrol. At the same time, most public
enterprises have been sold to private interest and their workers disengaged,
notwithstanding public outcry. The pump price of petrol, the major energy source, has
risen from N0.75/litre in 1986 to N26 under the present government, with recurrent
periods of serious scarcity when one litre of petrol could cost as much as N100. All these
have drastically affected living standards of ordinary people across the country, including
oil-producing communities. However, because oil exploration by multi-national oil
corporations has dominated the lives and livelihoods of people in Niger Delta for four
decades, and being increasingly aware of the contradiction of riches between themselves
and petrobusiness, local communities are holding oil companies responsible for their
deprivation and poverty. This has shown in the demands that are being made on oil
companies: roads, schools, hospitals, employment, support for farming, indeed
everything to improve their livelihoods and everything that in fact should be the
responsibility of government. Part of the problem is that, as we have already argued, the
strong affinity and coziness between oil companies and governments, including the most
oppressive ones. In any case, people in the Delta reason that if oil companies can easily
call out military detachments to quell protests at their facilities, there is no reason to make
a distinction between them and government.

Thesis two: how national security generates insecurity in the Niger Delta

In the Niger Delta, national security contradicts the security of nationals because of the
politics of oil. This has to be linked to the rule of a militariat and its attempts to maintain
its social dominance in the face of declining petroleum rents, pressure from international
finance capital and domestic discontent over its rule. By the militariat we designate a
social category, which though related to the Nigerian military, is not coextensive with it.
The starting point in deciphering the militariat is the military’s domination of the
Nigerian state. Since its establishment by the British, the Nigeria military has undergone
three main stages of transformation propelled essentially, but by no means exclusively,
by politics. At its nascence in the last years of colonial rule, the Nigerian army was a
28
For instance, Shell has set itself the target of ending “routine” gas flaring by 2008, although government has set
earlier targets. See Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (2001) ‘Challenges of gas flare-out in
Nigeria’, SPDC Briefing Notes No. 4, p. 11.
29
International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) (2000) Democracy in Nigeria: Continuing
Dialogue(s) for Nation-Building, Stockholm: International IDEA. p.244.

31
career for educationally under-achieving young men. Nevertheless, by the first five years
of independence, a growing number of educated young officers had emerged. Mostly
trained abroad, many of them had perceived the inevitability of an increased political role
for the army. This role was itself fuelled by ethnic politicians whose calculation was to
raise a crop of officers from their ethnic homeland who would be loyal to the ethnic
group and, by extension, to them, the ethnic leaders. At this stage, the Nigerian military
transformed from a mere career into a prop for ethno-political factions.30

However, the strategy of the ethnic leaders soon backfired because of a sub-
transformation that occurred in the military at this stage. Initially a prop for ethno-
political factions, the military quickly transformed into a contender for power. In doing
this, soldiers adopted the ethnic calculus to which ethnic leaders had exposed them.
Therefore, initially ethnic political factions enlisted the military, but subsequently
military political factions enlisted ethnicity. This stage came to a head in the civil war
(1967-1970), which pitted federal soldiers led by ethnic Hausa-Fulani and Yoruba against
the secessionist army dominated by the Igbo. The military’s “successful” prosecution of
that war under its own political direction, rather than that of civil authorities, served to
establish the army from 1970 onwards as a very important political force. Among other
things, it further undermined civil-political control of the military. Huge personal wealth
acquired by individual officers from war contracts and massive post-war reconstruction
underscored the demise of civil control of the military. Officers began to feel that they
were not only masters of violence, but also masters of politics and successful business
entrepreneurs. A political future for the military became guaranteed.

The final transformation of the military occurred from around 1986. From being a
political faction, the Nigerian military, particularly its upper echelons, became the core of
an emerging social category. It was precisely the military’s “specific and over-
determining relation” to political structures, occasioned by its politicization, which
constituted it into a social category.31 However, the final impetus to this transformation
came from the extensive economic and political reforms of the mid-1980s, mostly under
the auspices of international financial institutions. The military by destiny or design led
the technocracy that implemented those reforms. This period marked the full
crystallization of a militariat.32

As a social category, the Nigerian militariat was inserted with pertinent effects at all the
levels of structures - political, economic and ideological. Consequently, it became not
only a political force but also a social force. It has a specific terrain of interests and draws
its “membership” from various segments of society. This means that although the long
period of military rule in Nigeria facilitated the emergence of this social category, it is not
30
For a sociological study of the Nigerian army prior to the civil war see Robin Luckham (1971) The Nigerian
Military: A Sociological Analysis of Authority and Revolt 1960-67, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
31
See Nicos Poulantzas (1978) Political Power and Social Classes, London: Verso Books. p. 84.
32
This term is used in order to express the importance of the long period of military control of the Nigerian state in the
emergence of this social category. The persistence of the tendencies associated with this social category, even under
civilian rule, makes this term even more apt. Moreover, the defining role of serving and retired military officers both
in the transition and in the present government, as well as the strong business and political connections that have
arisen between civilian and military elite all point to the deepening internal unity of this social category.

32
exclusively military. As a social category, the militariat has three component strata,
consisting of both military and civilian agents. These are the local business classes
(comprador), middle class (petty bourgeoisie) and foreign investors (international
capital). For the first two, their strongest defining interest is the use of the state for private
accumulation, through public works contracts and in more recent times outright
embezzlement of public funds. Consequently, they support the “strong” and economically
interventionist state. The third stratum of the militariat is foreign capital, notably those
investing in the petroleum sector. The bulk of foreign private investment in Nigeria is in
that sector.

The dominance (not hegemony) of the militariat balances on three props namely,
authoritarianism, communalism (especially in its ethnic form) and petrobusiness.33 These
three props respectively capture the principal political, social and economic moments of
the rule of the militariat. First, authoritarian rule involves limiting the democratic space,
whether by military rule or a farcical elected government. This is achieved through the
systematic use of state violence against individuals, communities and other targeted
groups, which are defined as constituting a threat to “national security”. A necessary
correlate of authoritarian rule is the diffusion of a culture of militarism. Derived from the
military organisation, this culture favours violence and force over persuasion, order over
discussion and bargaining, exclusion over inclusion and coercion over conviction.

Second, communalism, especially in its ethnic and religious forms, is also a defining
moment of the rule of the militariat in Nigeria. To be sure, communalism, especially
ethnicity, predates the coming into dominance of the militariat, being a constitutive
element of the Nigerian state as it emerged from colonialism. However, the rule of the
militariat adopted, maintained and deepened communalism. In the first place, in the
absence of institutionalised means of political mobilisation under military dictatorships,
communalism burgeoned as pan-ethnic organisations filled the space vacated by political
parties and pressure groups. Furthermore, various factions of the military found in
communalism a means of legitimising their seizure of power. Appeal to their co-ethnics
for support against threats from other ethnic groups was a common strategy of successive
military regimes. Civilians also found in communalism a means of pursuing their interest
under military rule. For one thing, military regimes tended to give more access to
economic resources to ethnic in-groups, that is, ethnic groups supporting or appearing to
support the military regime. For another thing, ethnic out-groups found in ethnicity a
means of counter-mobilizing the ethnic homeland against exclusion. Under civilian rule,
given the tenuous ideological link between politicians, workers and the peasantry, a link
that was provided previously by the anti-colonial ideology of nationalism, ethnicity has
become a substitute cross-class solidarity.

Third, while authoritarian rule and communalism provide the political and social props of
the rule of the militariat, foreign capital bankrolls it. The principal expression of the
interest of foreign capital in the militariat is petrobusiness. Its subsidiary interest lies in

33
By petrobusiness we mean social ensembles that control Nigeria’s petroleum industry. They include major foreign
and local investors in upstream and downstream activities in the petroleum industry, including exploration,
contracting, consulting, and marketing.

33
Nigeria’s huge foreign debt, which accumulated under the militariat. It stood at $32.5
billion in 1996, with a repayment arrears of over $15 billion. The rule of the militariat
ensured that this debt, accumulated mostly in profligacy, will not be repudiated. By 1998,
Nigeria was spending N44billion (about $500 million) annually in servicing her external
debt.

We should not be drawn into the common illusion that the dominance of the militariat
ended with the inauguration of a new civilian government in 1999. This will mean a total
misunderstanding of class-political power and how it is produced and reproduced
socially. Although the military per se is no longer in direct political control of the
apparatuses of the Nigerian state, militarism, the ideological expression of the rule of the
militariat, persists. Democratic norms are yet to take roots and the new government still
acts in a violent and authoritarian way towards Nigerians. In any case, the two other
social co-ordinates of the rule of the militariat namely, ethno-communalism and
petrobusiness are still very much in tact under the present civilian government. Above
all, the strong affinity between the present people in power and the military establishment
is instructive. The number of ex-military personnel in politics in Nigeria today, including
President Obasanjo and his Defense minister, is unprecedented.

The rule of the militariat and its tendency to give a privileged position to national
security (read: regime security) remains the prime driver of the persistent conflict and
insecurity in the Niger Delta. The most fundamental basis for conflict between the
Nigerian state and communities in the Delta is the contradictory conditions of security
they project. For the forces that control the Nigerian state (state officials and
petrobusiness) national security, which they say takes precedence over everything else,
means an uninterrupted production of crude oil at “competitive” prices. This is their
paramount concern irrespective of the impact on the local inhabitants and environment.
On the part of local people in the Niger Delta and their organizations, the condition for
security is the maintenance of the carrying capacity of the environment. Security for them
is recognition that an unsustainable exploitation of crude oil, with its devastation of
farmland and fishing waters, threatens resource flows and livelihoods. Therefore,
protection of the environment is invariably linked to this perception of security. When
livelihoods are threatened, a feeling of deprivation ensues. A people that feel deprived
also feel anxious about their livelihoods. Such people are insecure. Consequently, a
condition of security for the people is the elimination of deprivation through a just
distribution of resources. This, for them, means that a good part of wealth generated from
their land should return to them.

Both under military rule and presently, the almost reflexive response of state officials to
this contradiction of securities is not to seek consensus and negotiate common grounds.
Instead, it is to unleash state violence through militarism. State violence clearly illustrates
the continuing tendency of people in power to privatize the instrumentalities of the state,
in this case using them to pursue the private interests of state officials and petrobusiness.
In effect, although conflicts in the Delta involve social groups, this is only an illusion
because actually it is the violence unleashed by a privatized state that is the cause of

34
conflicts. Ake et al (nd) therefore argue that what is happening for the most part is violent
aggression by the state rather than conflict. This is because:
Those who are aggressed, communities, ethnic groups,
minorities, religious groups, peasants, the poor, counter
elites, are often not in any dispute or even systematic
interaction with the people who aggress them. The
aggression often occurs in the routine business of
projecting power, carrying out policies without
consultation or negotiation with other parties or spreading
terror to sustain domination.34
State aggression against the people of the Niger Delta has taken four main forms namely,
constant harassment of the leaders of popular movements and organizations, instigating
inter-communal conflicts, especially along ethnic, religious and clan lines, instigating
internal division of popular organizations and direct repression using the army and police.
In response, communities in the Delta mobilize to engage the alliance of state and
petrobusiness for improved livelihoods and a clean environment. Often, in the violence
that ensues, as in the case of the Ogoni, women are the prime victims.35

A good case study of the aggression of the Nigerian state against the Niger Delta is the
experience of the Ijaw ethnic minority in Bayelsa state between 1998 and 1999. This was
particularly illustrated by the Egbesu wars and Odi massacre. From the time of its
creation in 1996, Bayelsa State, the heartland of the Ijaw ethnic group, was like a
simmering earthquake waiting to erupt. The repression of the Niger Delta by the military
had left the region highly charged and mobilized and it was only a question of time
before the situation exploded. In August 1997, over 10,000 youths from across the Delta
demonstrated at Aleibiri in Ekeremor Local Area of the State to demand an end to all
Shell activities in the Niger Delta. Aleibiri was chosen as the focus of the demonstration
because, according to the youths, Shell had refused to clean an oil spill that occurred
there on 18 March 1997. Even at the time, evidence clearly pointed to more conflicts
between the state, oil companies and Ijaw youths, in spite of repeated claims by
government that peace had returned to the area. Speaking at the Aleibiri gathering, a
community leader and retired Navy Lieutenant, Chief Augustine Anthony, clearly stated
that Ijaw youths would fight until there is freedom in the Niger Delta because “we have
been exploited for so long”.

Within one year, Ijawland exploded in what became known as the Egbesu36 wars. It
began in early 1998 when an Ijaw youth leader was arrested and detained by the military
Governor of the State during the rule of General Abacha. He was held without trial in the
Government House (the military Governor’s official residence) for distributing

34
Claude Ake, Nnoli, O. and Nwokedi, E. (not dated) ‘The causes of conflict in Africa’, A research proposal for the
Centre for Advanced Social Science, Port Harcourt (mimeo), p. 8-9.
35
Okechukwu Ibeanu (2002) ‘Healing and changing: the changing identity of women in the aftermath of the Ogoni
crisis in Nigeria’ in Sheila Meintjes, Anu Pillay and Meredeth Turshen (eds) The Aftermath: Women in Post-conflict
Transformation, London: Zed Books. p. 196-8.
36
Egbesu is the Ijaw god of war. The 1998 Egbesu wars were reminiscent of events a century earlier when King Koko
mobilized 1,000 Nembe warriors in 1895 to attack Goldie’s Royal Niger Company headquarters at Ashaka bolstered
by their belief in Egbesu

35
“seditious” documents questioning the financial probity of the Governor Navy Captain
Olu Bolade. In reaction, a group of youths believed to be members of the Egbesu cult,
stormed the Government House in Yenagoa the State capital city, disarmed the military
guards and released their leader. Many residents of Yenagoa that we spoke to, including
policemen and soldiers, believe that members of the cult were able to break into the well-
guarded Government House because they wore charms that made them impervious to
bullets. The success of the first Egbesu war obviously enhanced the profile of the youths
and the cult, and encouraged more young people, many of whom were unemployed
(youth unemployment in Bayelsa State is very high), to join the cult and the ensuing
protests. In a matter of weeks, the invincibility of the Egbesu had spread throughout
Ijawland and beyond. The success of the Egbesu youth in the “first war” also fed into
wider demands by the Ijaw for more petroleum revenues. Prior to the Egbesu action, the
Ijaw National Council and the Movement for the Survival of Ijaw Ethnic Nationality
(MOSIEN) had made vociferous demands for more petroleum revenues to be allocated to
the Ijaw.

The death of the dictator Abacha in June 1998 and improvements in human rights and
expansion of the political space made it possible for Ijaw demands to become more
openly articulated and pursued. The first Egbesu war had guaranteed a central role for the
youth in this new dispensation. This became clear in late 1998 following a spate of
hijacks of oil installations by Ijaw youths. This phase of Ijaw resistance, as they called it,
culminated in a grand Convention of Ijaw youths in Kaiama town. The meeting issued a
document addressed to the government and oil companies requesting more local control
of oil revenues and better environmental practices. The Kaiama Declaration also gave
the government until 31st December 1998 to respond positively to their demands. The
government upped the ante with a spate of condemnations and threats to use force against
the youths. In his new year/budget broadcast on 01 January 1999, the Head of State
General Abubakar, gave indications of a military action against the youths. Since early
December 1998, there had been massive military build-up in Bayelsa State by the
government, including the positioning of frigates in the Gulf of Guinea.

Throughout December 1998 and early January 1999, Bayelsa State was virtually under
siege and the atmosphere was tense. The second Egbesu war was imminent. It started
when military men in Yenagoa, the capital of Bayelsa State, confronted Ijaw youths
participating in a cultural festival. In the ensuing violence, which lasted for over one
week, many Ijaw youths lost their lives in Yenagoa and Kaiama, property worth millions
of Naira was destroyed and scores of people were displaced.

The military invasion of the town of Odi in Kolokuma-Opokuma Local Government Area
of Bayelsa State in 1999 by the new civilian government seemed to confirm the fears of
the human rights community that it will take some time before the vestiges of the rule of
the militariat are eliminated. Odi is the second largest town in Bayelsa State, after the
capital Yenagoa. Trouble began in mid-November 1999 when a criminal youth gang took
some policemen hostage and later tortured them to death. The team of policemen had
gone to the town to investigate rumours of renewed Egbesu mobilisation, this time to
storm Lagos. This was thought to be a reprisal for attacks a month earlier on Ijaws in

36
Lagos by the ethnic Yoruba youth group called the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC). It
was widely believed that the OPC attacks on Ijaw residents of the Lagos suburb of
Ajegunle was a carryover from the conflicts in the State of Ondo between the Ijaw and
Ilaje, a Yoruba clan. The government interpreted the killing of the policemen as renewed
Egbesu challenge to the state. However, it is known that one leader of the gang that
murdered the policemen at Odi was in fact a member of the ruling Peoples Democratic
Party (PDP), the party of both President Obasanjo and Governor Diepreye
Alamieyeseigha of Bayelsa State. This youth leader is known to be very influential
among Ijaw youths and mobilised them to support the PDP in the Gubernatorial elections
of January 1999. In response to the death of the policemen, President Obasanjo ordered
Governor Alamieyeseigha to produce the culprits. When this failed, he ordered in the
army.

The consequences were chilling – over two thousand deaths, many more missing,
thousands forced to flee and virtually no house left standing in Odi. As if this was not
enough, the President in a televised interview ordered security forces to shoot rioters at
sight. These draconian measures have been widely criticized in Nigeria, but the
government continues to defend its actions. The excessive display of military force at Odi
against a civilian population is unprecedented for a democratic government. A very
useful reflection of the psychology of the soldiers that led the invasion are captured in the
graffiti they left behind. Scratched on walls with charcoal and hard objects, many of them
give an insight into the rules of engagement given to the soldiers by their political and
military superiors. Table 2.7 presents a selection of the graffiti.

Table 2.7: A selection of graffiti left behind at Odi by invading soldiers

GRAFFITI COMMENTS/INTERPRETATION

1. We will kill all Ijaws – by Soldier

2. Bayelsa will be silent forever
3. Odi people take your time
4. Don play with soldier Do not play with soldiers
5. As from today Odi people if you see soldier or “From today if you touch any soldier or Police, you
Mopol or police try an touch one of them again should expect repercussions from soldiers”. This is in
you will see what go happening by soldier reference to the policemen allegedly killed by Egbesu
boys at Odi
6. Nobody can save you
7. Odi people no be our fault na ona government “Odi people it is not our fault, it is your government”.
The soldier claims that it is not the fault of the army,
but that of the new civilian government elected by
people including the people of Odi
8. Where is Egbesu
9. Idiots, why Egbesu no save una! “Idiots, why didn’t Egbesu save you”
10. So Odi youths this is the end of Egbesu in Odi
village
11. You bagers of Odi (Egbesu) should be very Reference to claims that Egbesu boys are members of
careful with d living God a fetish cult
12. No power from Odi will ever supercede that of
God. Therefore Egbesu is a manmade power

37
13. Thou will serve God the maker of heaven and
not Egbesu
14. Bloody civilians! A common derogatory description of civilians by
soldiers
15. Na you get oil? Foolish people. “Does the oil belong to you? Foolish people”.
Reference to demands of people of the Niger Delta to
control more petroleum resources
Source: Environmental Rights Action (1999) ‘Graffiti from Odi compiled on Christmas day, Era Field Report
No. 52, Benin: Environmental Rights Action.

Thesis three: how development underdevelops the Niger Delta

Any hope of crude oil becoming the engine of development in the Niger Delta has now
been completely dashed. In the first place, the pattern of exploitation of crude oil in the
region is patently unsustainable. It is instructive that many renewable resources like land
and underground aquifers are being destroyed in the process of extracting a finite, non-
renewable resource like crude oil. The destruction of the Niger Delta environment as a
result of the petroleum extraction industry not only destroys local livelihoods now, but
also undermines their future prospect. One of the consequences of the rule of the
militariat in the Niger Delta is the prevalent unsustainable use of petroleum resources in
Nigeria.

Second, the level of infrastructural development in the Niger Delta is generally poor. To
be sure, the terrain of the Delta is harsh, but generally inadequate attention has been paid
to the provision of facilities like education, health, roads, electricity and potable water by
both government and oil companies. Yet, these facilities are readily available at oil
installations dotting the Delta, making these installations islands of affluence in a sea of
deprivation. This has heightened the sense of relative deprivation in communities and
made oil installations ready targets of their anger. Oil companies will readily point to the
huge investments they are making in community development. For instance, Shell says
that it spends about $60 million annually in community projects like water, agriculture
and health. However, activists in the Niger Delta dispute these figures. They claim that a
great deal of the money goes to political payments by Shell and for establishing
infrastructure for its activities such as construction of roads to its installations and
dredging canals to facilitate its activities. They insist that local communities are not part
of decisions on projects to be established and they call for structures for monitoring funds
that are supposedly spent on development projects in Niger Delta communities.

In recognition of the poor state of infrastructure and the harsh terrain of the Niger Delta,
successive governments since independence have established special development
agencies for the region. First, there was the Niger Delta Development Board in the 1960s,
which was recommended by the Willink Commission. The Commission had found that
the harsh terrain of the Niger Delta necessitated a special development Board for the area.
Second, in the 1970s when the military government used River Basin Commissions as the
principal tool of rural development, the Niger Delta River Basin Development Authority
was established as one of 11 River Basin Commissions across the country. Since then,
other efforts have included the Special Fund created by the 1981 Revenue Act for Oil

38
Producing Areas and the Special Presidential Task Force for the Development of the Oil
Producing Areas, which administered the special fund amounting to 1.5% of the
federation accounts, created in 1989. However, the principal intervention of this sort
began in July 1992, when the military government of General Babangida by Decree No.
23 of that year, established the Oil Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission
(OMPADEC) and committed 3% of oil revenues to it.37

There were high hopes at its inception that OMPADEC will become the driving force
behind the regeneration of the Niger Delta. The huge financial resources that ostensibly
were available to the Commission bolstered this goodwill. Based on the 3% commitment,
it was expected that the Commission would be receiving about one billion Naira ($50
million) every month from the federation account. This however did not materialize due
to inter-ministerial intrigues and diverse political calculations in government. For
instance, according to A.K. Horsefall, who chaired the inaugural Board of the
Commission from its inception until it was dissolved in January 1996,38 “governments –
civil or military – never stopped eyeing our funds with a view to either poaching them or
indirectly controlling or sharing in them.”39 Still, as Table 2.8 shows OMPADEC
received very substantial funding for the five years it was operational. In 1993 alone, it
received about $250 million for its activities, and by December 1997 had expended some
$870 million.

Table 2.8: OMPADEC monthly financial receipts, 1993-1997 (Millions of Naira)

1993 1994 1995 1996 1997
January 316.0 225.0 318.0 275.5 355.2
February 2,680.1 216.0 270.3 233.1 388.8
March 0.0 243.6 327.6 288.5 231.7
April 227.4 243.6 211.4 299.9 140.5
May 0.0 172.9 206.2 286.0 279.1
June 243.4 191.5 322.4 312.3 274.2
July 239.5 197.2 309.2 310.8 278.9
August 230.1 198.9 188.4 146.9 287.0
September 450.5 237.4 315.7 246.7 248.1
October 193.1 260.8 195.2 152.0 293.2
November 0.0 165.1 254.2 207.7 275.9
December 398.8 184.0 239.2 471.3 470.3
Total 4978.9 2536.0 3157.8 3230.7 3522.9
Source: A.K. Horsfall (1999) The OMPADEC Dream, London: Imprint Publishers. p. 127

Unfortunately, OMPADEC became in the popular consciousness of the people of the

Niger Delta another ruse designed to enrich the families and friends of the military
government, while pretending to be investing in the Delta. OMPADEC was often accused
of mismanagement of its resources if not outright corruption. Incidentally, there seems to
37
See the account of A.K. Horsfall, the pioneer Chief Executive of OMPADEC in A.K. Horsfall (1999) The
OMPADEC Dream, London: Imprint Publication.
38
General Abacha dissolved the OMPADEC Board and appointed Prof. E. Opia as Sole Administrator.
39
A.K. Horsfall, The OMPADEC Dream, p. 66.

39
be some truth in the public perception of OMPADEC. By his own account, Horsfall
accepts that there were shortcomings in the management of its finances. For instance, in
March 1993, two billion Naira was taken from OMPADEC account by the Federal
Ministry of Works for projects, which according to Horsfall “never ever took place”. In
addition, the management of OMPADEC made advance payments to contractors,
sometimes amounting to over 50% of project cost, even before projects were executed. In
one instance in 1993, this led to the loss of 275 million Naira over a disputed water
project.40 It is not surprising that when OMPADEC was finally scrapped, it owed billions
of Naira to its contractors and had hundreds of projects abandoned. In 1999, the military
government requested the National Economic Intelligence Committee to evaluate
OMPADEC debts to its contractors by assessing the extent of work on abandoned
projects. In Bayelsa State alone, the Intelligence Committee found over 300 abandoned
projects, the extent of work on many of them intentionally overestimated by OMPADEC
staff and in others contractors had received huge sums of money for work they did not
carry out. In addition, in many communities projects were unnecessarily duplicated. For
instance, in one community there were three jetties, two by oil companies and one by
OMPADEC. The OMPADEC jetty was about 70% complete, while the other two were
already operational. Yet, this community lacked many other basic facilities like schools,
healthcare and clean water.

The latest special development intervention by government in the Niger Delta is through
the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). The Commission took off in
January 2001, with a revenue profile as good as its predecessor, OMPADEC, projected to
be at least 40 billion Naira annually. The NDDC is to be funded from the following major
sources:
• 15% of federal allocation to the nine states of the Niger Delta
• 50% of ecological fund due to the nine states
• 3% of annual budget of oil companies.
NDDC has completed a Master Plan for the development of the Niger Delta, expected to
cost trillions of Naira. The Plan was developed by the German agency, GTZ. Many
observers have praised the Plan, though there are concerns as to whether it will be
implemented.

In recent times, civil society organizations in the Niger Delta have been expressing
unease about the Commission. The feeling is that it is another patronage system, an
avenue for enriching party loyalists. They point to the fact that already a director in the
Commission has been removed from office for financial malpractices. As a matter of fact,
the NDDC was nearly stillborn. Soon after his inauguration, President Obasanjo toured
the Niger Delta and promised a major government intervention in the region. The
President followed this with consultations with representatives of communities and other
stakeholders in the petroleum industry, consultations that did not always end on an
amicable note. Later in 1999, he finally sent a bill to the National Assembly to create the
NDDC. However, from start the bill was mired in controversies involving the people of
the Niger Delta, the National Assembly and the Presidency over the definition of the

40
Ibid, p. 68.

40
Niger Delta, the funding of the Commission, location of its headquarters and staffing.41
These controversies continue to date. Other observers also think that the structures of
decision making in the NDDC are not participatory enough and that direct consultation
with communities are either not conducted or where they are conducted are farcical. Even
the oil companies have been critical of the NDDC and threatened to withhold their
remittances until the Commission shows what it has done with the monies already paid to
it. These concerns point to the repeated failure of development in the Niger Delta – the
tendency for development to underdevelop the Niger Delta, thereby generating conflict.

41
After the Assembly passed the bill, President Obasanjo withheld accent leading to threats that the Assembly would
override his veto and force the bill to become operational.

41
 III

ROLE OF CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS IN NIGER DELTA CONFLICTS

________________________________________________________________________

In analyzing the role of civil society organizations in the conflicts in the Niger Delta, it is
possible to locate two phases. The first phase is the phase of military-authoritarian rule,
which lasted from around 1990 to the end of military rule in 1999, while the second
phase, which is the present phase, corresponds to civilian rule. It is important to
distinguish these two phases because the role, objectives and strategies of civil society
organizations in the conflicts in the Delta differ markedly between the two phases.

The Military-authoritarian phase

There are two levels of this phase. The first level was marked by insurgent encounters
between civil society organizations and the military-authoritarian state under the
militariat.42 Literature on civil society encounters with the state essentially offers two
understandings of such encounters. The first sees the state as reactionary and resistant to
progressive change, while civil society represents progress and development.
Consequently, the relationship between the two is inherently conflictive and tense. This
viewpoint has a lot to do with experiences associated with authoritarian regimes in the
Third World, where the tasks of democratisation and protection of human rights have
become the central preoccupation of civil society organizations. However, whether this
state-civil society articulation is necessary and fundamental, rather than incidental and
fleeting, is an issue that is not resolved by this perspective. It does seem to us that the
generalisability of this characterisation of state-civil society encounter is suspect. Not
only have some sections of civil society played patently reactionary roles in the struggle
for democracy, but also in many cases the impetus for democratisation have genuinely
and independently come from within the state.

The second characterisation of state-civil society relation sees it as cooperative and

complementary. This is the common view from the North. Underlined by Western
pluralist conceptions of politics, this viewpoint portrays the state, in a sense, as an
extension of civil society. State structures and policies are the products of the activities of
a parallelogram of autonomous, coordinate powers (civil society). These powers act as
countervailing forces both to one another and to the state, producing an equilibrium
which is expressed in political structures and state policies.43 Thus, in discussing the
relations between the state and civil society in Europe, Gidron, Kramer and Salamon
speak of a “collaborative agent partnership”.44 On their part, Taylor and Lindsay speak in
terms of “market pluralist and welfare pluralist” arrangements, while Kramer posits a
“pragmatic partnership” between government and civil society organizations.45

42
Okechukwu Ibeanu ‘Insurgent civil society’ op cit.
43
Nicos Poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes, London: Verso, 1978, p. 265
44
Gidron, B., Kramer, R. and Salamon, L. Government and the Third Sector: Emerging Relationships in Welfare
States, San Francisco, California: Jossey Bass, 1992.
45
Taylor, M. and Lansley, J. ‘Ideology and welfare in the UK: The implications for the voluntary sector’, Voluntas,
3(2), 1992 and Kramer, B. Voluntary Agencies in the Welfare State, Berkeley, California: University of California

42
Pluralist analysis generally and the cooperative-complementary thesis in particular have
been criticised as Euro-centric and inapplicable to non-European settings. For one thing,
their equilibrated notion of society flies in the face of constant social disequilibria, crises,
changes and discontinuities. For another thing, the parallel-coordinate view of social
actors masks the division of society into dominant (exploiting) and subordinate
(exploited) sections with profoundly contradictory and irreconcilable interests. Indeed,
not all sections of society are part of civil society. It is only those interests that are part of
the political conjuncture through organisation are, strictly speaking, within of civil
society. Thus, Ake argues that the peasantry in Nigeria is external to civil society.46
Above all, the portrayal of a Gesellschaft, associational society has been argued to have
very limited application to the African situation in which communalism and mechanical
solidarity are still very much predominant. In fact, whether a civil society in the classical,
Hegelian form exists in Africa is often questioned. And even if it exists, it is questionable
as well whether the bulk of Africa’s people, who are essentially non-urban and non-
associational (in the pluralist sense) are part of it.47

A flaw that both characterisations of state-civil society relations share is the monolithic
portrayal of the state and civil society. There is need for an approach to state-civil society
relations and the role of civil society organizations in governance that deconstructs and
disaggregates both. Deconstructing them means understanding how their various facets
and structures articulate at given historical conjunctures; and disaggregation entails
fathoming the various levels of structuring of the state and civil society, as well as their
interactions. What should then become clear by pursuing these lines is twofold. First is
that state-civil society encounters are not uniform (antagonistic or complementary) but
multiform, therefore the need to study them in specific historical contexts. Thus, an
ideographic approach aimed at understanding the particularities of each case, as a means
of arriving at unifying characteristics of the general (nomothetic) is imperative. Secondly,
there is need for an approach that is diachronic rather than synchronic. Within this
approach, we should undertake periodised analyses of the forces that determine the
historical development of the state, civil society and their encounters. Consequently, a
transactional approach looking at the exchanges between civil society organisations and
the state becomes very useful.

Literature on state-civil society transactions in Africa focuses mostly on encounters

between what has been called insurgent civil society and the state.48 A common starting
point is the notion of the second independence or liberation. The first independence, that
is decolonisation, turned out to be a ruse. Independence neither achieved democracy nor

Press, 1981. See also Taylor M. and Bassi, A. (1998) ‘Unpacking the state: the implications for the Third Sector of
changing relationships between national and local government’, Voluntas, 9(2), 1998.
46
Op cit, p. 25.
47
Mahmood Mamdani cited in Pillay, D. ‘Globalisation, marginalisation and the retreat of the state in Africa: the role
of civil society in the pursuit of democratic governance, socio-economic development and regional integration’, ISTR
Occasional Report, No. 2, 1998.
48
See Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Africa: Essays in Contemporary Politics,
London: Zed Books, 1997; Abubakar Momoh ‘Popular struggles in Nigeria (1960-1982)’, African Journal of
Political Science, Vol. 1, No. 2 (December), 1996 and Ernest Wamba-dia-Wamba ‘Pan Africanism, democracy,
social movements and mass struggles’, African Journal of Political Science, Vol. 1, No. 1 (June), 1996.

43
engendered development, the two planks on which the masses of Africa waged the
nationalist struggle. Consequently, a second independence struggle waged from below by
the democratic organisations of the people becomes a desideratum. Mass movements in
the South are taking up this challenge. Indeed, the failure of the state and the private
sector, representing the two developmental paradigms of socialism and capitalism, to
engender democracy and development has led to the insurgence of civil society in its
mass form.49 Wignaraja aptly argues that:
. . . as the poor and vulnerable groups in the South deepen their
understanding of their reality, they also, through greater consciousness-
raising and awareness, action and organisation, can bring about changes
both in their lives and in society that the same time contribute to economic
growth. The deepening of their understanding can begin with collective
protest against some form of social injustice or with a positive
development action undertaken by a group.50

In the Niger Delta during the military-authoritarian phase, these groups included an
assortment of civil rights organizations, community rights organizations, environmental
organizations, as well as workers organizations. Among the well-known organizations
are Environmental Rights Action (ERA), Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People
(MOSOP), Ijaw Youth Council (IYC), Movement for the Survival of Ijaw Ethnic
Nationality (MOSIEN), Institute for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (IHRHL) and
Niger Delta Human and Environmental Rescue Organization (NDHERO). They
mobilized effectively across the Niger Delta against military rule, environmental
degradation arising from the petroleum industry, poor welfare conditions in the
communities and for return to democratic government. In doing so, they became targets
of military repression including imprisonment, torture and extra-judicial execution, as in
the case of Ken Saro Wiwa and his eight colleagues in MOSOP.

The second level of the role of civil society organizations in Niger Delta conflicts during
the military-authoritarian phase was mediation in inter-communal and intra-communal
conflicts in the region. To be sure, many of these conflicts predated military rule and the
regime of the militariat. However, what the military-authoritarian state did was to deepen
these conflicts and use it as a pretext to repress targeted communities. For instance, in the
Ogoni case, the state openly encouraged conflicts between the Ogoni and their neighbours,
and then used them as a pretext to repress the Ogoni. The government readily proclaimed
such clashes to be ethnic clashes and moved military forces to ‘quell’ the clashes. But the
frequency of the clashes (among erstwhile peaceful neighbours), the extent of devastation
and the sophistication of weapons employed convinced many independent observers that
“. . . broader forces might have been interested in perhaps putting the Ogonis under
pressure, probably to derail their agenda” (Claude Ake, quoted in Human Rights Watch,

49
See Wignaraja, P. ‘Rethinking development and democracy’, in Wignaraja, P. (ed) New Social Movements in the
South: Empowering the People, London: Zed Books, 1993, p. 13 and Okechukwu Ibeanu ‘Third sector
organizations, government agencies and transition to democracy in Nigeria: a comparative study’, paper presented at
the Third International Conference of the International Society for Third Sector Research, University of Geneva, 8 –
11 July, 1998, pp. 11 – 12.
50
Ibid, p. 5.

44
1995: 12). Between July, 1993 and April, 1994, there were at least three such conflicts
between the Ogoni and their neighbours, involving the destruction of many villages, loss of
life and refugees. Among these were the Andoni in July, 1993, the Okrika in December,
1993 and the Ndoki in April, 1994. In each case, the Ogoni were blamed by the security
forces for starting the clash.

The Post-military phase

Nigeria’s return to civil rule in 1999 was a critical juncture for civil society organizations
in the country generally and in the Niger Delta in particular. It does appear that having
worked for sixteen years to overthrow military rule, they were patently ill prepared for
life under a civilian political regime that is yet far-off from full democratic
institutionalization. Consequently, the aftermath of military rule has been a transition
after the transition for civil society groups, and how this transition has panned out is still
to be seen in silhouettes. There politics has therefore been ambivalent, swinging between
cooptation and insurgence.51 In the Niger Delta, civil society organizations have been
torn between wholesale support of the civilian governments on the grounds of preserving
democratic experiments and confronting the excesses of the government. This
ambivalence has resulted in the different ways in which they have confronted six major
challenges. First is the challenge of transforming themselves from being exclusively
urban and elitist, to incorporate the vast majority of Nigeria’s rural areas and people.
Most politically pertinent civil society groups remain essentially urban-based and have
been unable to effectively reach and integrate the rural areas where a vast majority of
Nigerians still live into their mobilization and advocacy work. This urban-centric
character of civil society organizations has given rise to the derogatory epithet of
LABANGOs (Lagos-based NGOs).

The second challenge is that of effectively responding to continuing human rights abuses
in the post-military era. There are indeed persisting threats to human rights of Nigerians
under the civilian government, a government that these civil society organizations helped
in no small measure to midwife. The responses of civil society groups to human rights
violations under the present civilian government have in the main either been of
acquiescence or muffled protest, rather than vocal and active opposition, leading to
accusations of hypocrisy against civil society organizations. Related to this, the third
challenge has been that of refocusing from anti-military mindset to respond to the
demands of working in a civilian regime, especially the janiform demand of one and the
same time cooperating with the government and effectively curbing its excesses.

Fourth is the challenge of adjusting to declining funding opportunities in a post-military

environment, especially with the realignment of priorities by donors. Consequently, many
of them have become ‘hired guns’ for donors, engaging in any activity for which there is
funding. Unfortunately, as international donors have tended to realign funding away from
politically controversial issues such as human rights, access to power and resources,

51
In recent times, a number of issues appear to be uniting a vast majority of civil society organizations in
opposition to the state in recent times. Prominent among these is the attempt by President Obasanjo to
change the Constitution and elongate the term of the President, the so-called Third-term agenda.

45
conditions of labour, accountability and privatization of social infrastructure to more
politically correct issues such as fight against HIV/AIDS, maternal mortality and
morbidity and child rights, civil society organizations have also followed suit.

Fifth is the challenge of defining the correct political role for civil society organizations.
The wholesale involvement of leading members of civil society organizations in partisan
politics, which was mostly unsuccessful, has raised the question of the correct political
role for civil society in a very strong and immediate way. Sixth and finally, there is the
challenge of democratization and institutionalization of their internal structures, which
entails moving from the founder-owner phase to a public-institutional phase.

In responding to these six challenges, many civil society organizations in the Niger Delta
have swung ambivalently between opposition to and cooptation by government.
Sometimes, entire organizations have been co-opted by government into specific agenda
and projects, while at other times specific leaders of organizations have been co-opted.
Cooptation has generally led to a weakening of civil society organizations, abandonment
of their philosophy and programmes, and divisions within the coalition that worked to
challenge military repression during the military-authoritarian phase. Consequently, their
current role on the Niger Delta conflicts has been predominantly in the area of conflict
management and conflict mediation.

Civil society organizations and conflict work in the Niger Delta: a general profile
A profile of the major civil society organizations that deal with conflict issues in the
Niger Delta shows that about 67% of them came into existence before 1999, the year
Nigeria country returned to civilian rule (Table 3.1). The Table shows that they were
mostly established from 1990 when the resistance of the people of the Niger Delta against
military rule became more organized and focused. First of all, this history of the
establishment of civil society organizations working on conflict issues in the Niger Delta
demonstrates the high incidence of inter-communal conflicts under military rule, in
particular the tendency for military regimes and petrobusiness to instigate or fuel
conflicts over resources between and among communities in the Delta. Second, it is also
an indication of the prominent role that civil society organizations played in mediating
and managing these conflicts. Third, the seeming decline in the formation of civil society
organizations dealing with conflicts since 1999 is an indication of the initial optimism in
civil society that the civilian government will be capable to democratically manage these
conflicts. Of course this has not been the case, and as Table 3.1 shows, the number of
organizations dealing with conflict issues is once more increasing. For instance, 13.3% of
the organizations we surveyed were established in 2005, which is the same number of
organizations working on conflict issues that were established between 1999 and 2004.
Finally, the decline in the establishment of civil society organizations working on conflict
issues after 1999 is an indication of changes in the priorities of funding agencies. With
Nigeria’s return to civilian rule, there was a general assumption among funding agencies
that conflicts will be on the decline in the Niger Delta. This assumption has turned out to
be flawed. What was not built into it is that the rule of the militariat, at the heart of which

46
lies petrobusiness, will continue even after military rule. As we have already noted, the
rule of the militariat, particularly its proneness to heated struggles for the control of oil
revenues and the negative social and environmental consequences of the petroleum
industry, are at the centre of conflicts in the Niger Delta.

Table 3.1: Year of establishment of CSOs working on conflict in the Niger Delta
Year of Cumulative
establishment Percent Percent
1990 6.7 6.7
1991 6.7 13.4
1993 6.7 20.0
1995 6.7 26.7
1996 6.7 33.4
1997 13.3 46.7
1998 20.0 66.7
1999 6.7 73.4
2002 6.7 80.0
2005 13.3 93.3
No response 6.7 100.0
Total 100.0

The profile of civil society organizations working on conflict issues in the Niger Delta
also shows that they are mainly small to medium sized community-based NGOs. Of the
fifteen we studied in depth, only two namely, MOSOP and IYC reported a membership
of more than 150. This is because the two are ethno-rights organizations representing the
Ogoni and Ijaw ethnic groups. Of the remaining thirteen organizations we studied, eleven
have 20 or less members.

Table 3.2 shows the conflict issues that form the foci of civil society organizations in the
Niger Delta. There are six main issues namely, conflict management, peace education,
training, post-conflict rehabilitation, early warning and mediation. The Table shows that
of these six issues, mediation is the most important conflict issue that civil society
organizations focus on (80% of the organizations). Mediation is followed by conflict
management, peace education and training (73.3% respectively), while post-conflict
rehabilitation and early warning trail the rest (60% respectively).

Table 3.2: Conflict focus of CSOs in the Niger Delta by their year of establishment
All Pre-1999 1999 - 2003 After 2003
Conflict management 73.3 81.8 0.0 100.0
Peace education 73.3 72.7 50.0 100.0
Training 73.3 72.7 50.0 100.0
Post-conflict rehabilitation 60.0 54.5 50.0 100.0
Early warning 60.0 54.5 50.0 100.0
Mediation 80.0 81.8 50.0 100.0

47
However, a more nuanced picture emerges from Table 3.2 with the cross-tabulation of
the issue areas and the period of establishment of the civil society organization. In fact, a
clear generational difference is observable. For civil society organizations established
before 1999, conflict management and mediation are their principal areas of interest. This
supports our earlier proposition linking this to the period of military rule when these
organizations played a major role intervening in conflicts that were mostly created by the
military and petrobusiness. On the other hand, organizations established during the ‘first
term’ of the present civilian government (1999 – 2003) are not working in conflict
management, though they 50% of them work on mediation. On their part, all the
organizations established since 2003 work on all the six conflict issues.

Civil society organizations and conflict work in the Niger Delta: two case studies
Two case studies, the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) and
Community Rights Initiative (CORI) present rich experiences of the specific roles of civil
society organizations in conflict work in the Niger Delta. The two cases present
interesting contrasts and similarities. While MOSOP is an ethno-rights organization
representing Ogoni people, CORI is an independent rights organization that works
closely with communities in various parts of Rivers State. At the same time, both CORI
and MOSOP have had a long tradition in conflict work in the Niger Delta, dating to the
period of military rule. Consequently, the work of these two organizations constitutes a
useful background on which to set the conflict work of civil society organizations in the
Niger Delta.

Movement of the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP)

MOSOP was established in 1990 at the early beginnings of military repression of

minority ethic communities of the Niger Delta. It was established to serve as the umbrella
organization uniting numerous Ogoni organizations. It currently counts among its
members over 200,000 people of Ogoni origin across Nigeria and all over the world.

MOSOP’s conflict work is carried out in through three projects. The first is the Peace
building and conflict prevention project, which began in 2005 in parts of Ogoniland. The
project seeks to raise awareness about the negative impact of conflict, especially conflicts
within and among Ogoni communities. It does this through mediation and alternative
(traditional) dispute resolution methodologies. The anchor agency for this project is the
Ogoni Peace Action Committee (OPAC), which consists of eminent and respected Ogoni
people and some outsiders. The major challenges confronting the peace building project
is capacity to respond to demands for intervention of OPAC, funding and lack of
cooperation by some community leaders and local council officials.

The second major conflict project of MOSOP is the dialogue project in which MOSOP
engages state and non-state actors in dialogue. These include politicians, youths,
government agencies and civil society organizations. The project began across Ogoni in
2005. The third project is the ‘Mop up arms’ project, which entails engaging security
agencies and militias to get them to voluntarily turn-in their arms. It also entails offer of
immunity from prosecution to individuals and groups that return their weapons. The

48
project of mopping up arms is constrained by lack of cooperation of politicians, who
intend to use the armed youths in future elections. In addition, there is the problem of
providing alternative means of livelihood for armed youth gangs.

Community Rights Initiative (CORI)

Established in 1996, CORI works in communities of the Niger Delta to empower them to
protect their rights, particularly in their relations with government and oil companies.
Since inception, CORI has been working on conflict issues, focusing particularly on
community-oil company negotiations. Some of its previous and ongoing projects include
first, Negotiation and Conflict Resolution Project, which it has been implementing since
1996 in Ogba-Egbema-Ndoni Local Government Area. The project, which is jointly
funded by the Local Council and CORI, involves bringing oil companies, communities
and government officials to address conflict issues through negotiation. The aim is to sign
a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the parties. In one case, the project
led to the signing of an MOU between Egi community, Elf Oil Company and
government.

A second project is geared to peace education. It began in 1999 in Ogbia Local

Government Area, Bayelsa State, Akpabuyo-Bakassi Local Government Area (Cross
River State) and Abua-Odual Local Government Area of Rivers State. The peace
education project seeks to educate people on peace building process, conflict prevention
methodologies and traditional conflict management mechanisms. Third, there is the
Conflict Research Project in Okrika, Buguma, Ekpeye and Odi. It is designed to research
and document conflicts, assess their impacts and make confidential recommendations to
government. Finally, CORI has a mediation project it began in 2003 in Ikwerre Local
Government Area of Rivers State. The project investigates conflicts and identifies
mediators who intervene and report back to CORI and government.

The main challenges confronting these projects include slow pace of attitudinal change,
divisions within communities, problem of sustainability, lack of commitment on the part
of government and other stakeholders and difficulties in modernizing traditional conflict
resolution methods such as oat taking. Other challenges include weak knowledge of
mediators, negotiators and researchers and lack of cooperation by stakeholders.

49
 IV

SCOPING GAPS FOR POLICY INTERVENTION AND ADVOCACY

________________________________________________________________________

One objective of this study is to scope gaps in the conflict work of civil society
organizations by identifying projects and locations in Rivers and Bayelsa States for
further intervention. While they recognize the need to identify gaps in their current work
on conflicts, civil society organizations in the Niger Delta emphasize the need to
consolidate their ongoing work. A general challenge that they identified in this regard is a
dearth of funds. Many of them pointed out that their projects have become hostages to
constant changes in donor interests and funding strategies. For instance, a number of
them argued that the reason for the rapid decline in conflict work between 1999 and 2003
is that donors did not consider conflict a priority on the assumption that the new civilian
government will better manage conflicts.

We asked the CSOs we studied to recommend a maximum of four new conflict

intervention projects in Bayelsa and Rivers States, two most important conflict issues and
locations for the projects. Table 4.1 shows that civil society organizations recommended
conflict management as both the first choice and second choice conflict programme area
for future intervention in the Niger Delta. While 46.7% of organizations recommended
conflict management as the first programme area to be focused on in future, almost 67%
chose it as second. Peace building was the second most popular first choice of conflict
programme areas among civil society organizations, with 20% of respondents making it
their second choice.

Table 4.1: Recommended conflict programme areas

FIRST CHOICE Frequency Percent

Valid Conflict management 7 46.7
Early warning 1 6.7
Hostage negotiation 1 6.7
Peace building 3 20.0
No response 3 20.0
Total 15 100.0

SECOND CHOICE Frequency Percent

Valid Conflict management 10 66.7
Early warning 1 6.7
Peace building 1 6.7
Peace education 1 6.7
No response 2 13.3
Total 15 100.0

50
Like the programme areas, both the first and second choice locations of future conflict
programmes in the Niger Delta were identified as Nembe in Bayelsa State52 and Okrika
in Rivers State (Table 4.2). For many years, Nembe has been a hotbed of conflict. Apart
from the intermittent conflicts between the two sections of the town namely, Bassambri
and Ogbolomabiri, there is a rising tide of conflict fueled by different youth groups
seeking ‘settlement’ by oil companies. On its part, Okrika has also witnessed repeated
clashes among youth gangs. In 2003 and 2004, Okrika saw repeated clashed between the
two most dreaded armed gangs in the Niger Delta at the time namely Mujahid Asari
Dokubo’s Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force (NDPVF) and Ateke Tom’s Niger Delta
Vigilantes.

Table 4.2: Locations of conflict programme

FIRST CHOICE Frequency Percent

Valid Abua Odual 1 6.7
Asari Toru 1 6.7
Ekeremo 1 6.7
Khana 1 6.7
Nembe 3 20.0
Ogba Egbema 1 6.7
Ogbia 2 13.3
Okrika 3 20.0
No response 2 13.3
Total 15 100.0

SECOND CHOICE Frequency Percent

Valid Ahoada West 1 6.7
Asari Toru 2 13.3
Brass 1 6.7
Degema 1 6.7
Nembe 3 20.0
Ogbia 1 6.7
Okrika 3 20.0
Sagbama 1 6.7
No response 2 13.3
Total 15 100.0

It is therefore not surprising that the most important reason adduced by civil society
organizations for choosing the programmes and locations is the extent of violent conflict
in these communities (Table 4.3). While 33.3% and 13.3% adduced extent of violence or
violence in the communities as the reason for recommending Nembe and Okrika, 13%
recommended them because there are already peace processes in place in the

52
Many of our respondents say that Nembe is likely to ‘explode’ again soon because of the politics of
selecting a new Amayanabo (paramount ruler) in which a Minister is interested, the coming 2007
election and the Liquefied Natural Gas project.

51
 communities. Civil society organizations strongly suggested the need to sustain such
processes by supporting the work of the peace committees.

Table 4.3: Reasons for choice conflict programme and location

FIRST CHOICE Frequency Percent

Valid Community unrest 1 6.7
Conflict and Hostage 1 6.7
Extent of Violence 5 33.3
Oil Related Issues 1 6.7
Peace Committee 2 13.3
Violence 2 13.3
No response 3 20.0
Total 15 100.0

SECOND CHOICE Frequency Percent

Valid Community unrest 1 6.7
Cult Menace 1 6.7
Extent of Violence 6 40.0
No response 7 46.7
Total 15 100.0

Finally, Table 4.4 summarizes existing conflict projects being implemented by civil
society organizations in the Niger Delta, the challenges confronting them and proposed to
be implemented in future. Among the major challenges facing existing projects are funds,
low capacity of both civil society organizations and communities, commitment by
stakeholders and sustainability of projects.

Table 4.4: Summary of existing and proposed conflict projects by CSOs

ORGANIZATION ONGONING PROJECT(S) ON CHALLENGES PROPOSED NEW LG FOR
CONFLICTS PROJECT ON CONFLICT
CONFLICTS PROJECT
Community i) Negotiation and conflicts i) Difficulties of attitudinal -Peace building project in Okirika LGA-
Rights Initiative resolution (1996) @ Ogba-Egbema, change on the part of Okrika, R/S. This is Rivers
(CORI) Ndoni.-The program with support community members as a because there exist a peace
P/Harcourt. form the local govt. involved the oil result of division within and conflict committee, Nemebe LGA-
companies, govt. and target communities though a small Bayelsa
communities to deal with conflict community, but
issues through negotiation. -Sustainability of the peace economically very
education program strategic.
ii) Peace Edu.’99 Ogbia, Bayegba,
Akpabuyo-Bakari, Abua Rivers-A iii) situate mediation with -Peace building and
project that centres around educating traditional method of reconciliation project;
people on Peacebuilding processes. mediation; oath taking and Abua Rivers State. This is
persistence of old traditional as a result of the political
iii) Mediation Project (2003).Ikwere, ways situation there, including
Abua, Odual, Ahoada Local Councils: the death of a State
A project that deals with investigation iv) Lack of committed Commissioner, which is
and identification of notable persons people to peace e.g. the said to have brought a
within a community who could be leaders lease of life to the area.
trained as a mediator. -Peace Negotiation

52
 program in Nembe-Brass
iv) Conflict research project. Okrika, axis in Bayelsa State. This
Buguma, Ekpeye Ogba/Gbene, will be aimed at training
Ndoni, odi- Research and people to acquire
documentation of causes, negotiaitve skills so as to
background etc of conflicts. be able to address
conflicts issues between
the oil company, local
communities and the
government.

-Peace education project

in Odi –Bayelsa State.
This will be aimed at
contending with the
memories of the 1999
invasion and destruction
Movement for the -Ogoni Peacebuilding and Conflict -Lack of capacity -Re-orientation and Khana and Gokane
Survival of Ogoni Prevention project 2005-a program (personnel) to respond to economic empowerment. in Rivers State as a
People MOSOP that aims at creating awareness on demands in terms of result of incessant
the negative impact of conflict. intervening in disputes, clashes in the area.
Lack of fund and co- Okrika, Nembe
-Engagement of state and non-state operation by the and Brass.
sectors in dialogue in Ogoni – communities and local
arranging dialogue among government officials were
politicians, govt, agencies and youths also challenges faced.
in the community.2005
-Non-cooperation by
-Mop-up arms, Ogoni, 2004.- politicians who intend to use
Engaging security agencies and arms for elections and lack
militant to voluntarily turn in their of alternative livelihood for
arms and also offer immunity from armed youths.
persecution.

Centre for i) Community Peacebuilding project Access to information and -Peace building project in Nembe in Bayelsa
Advanced Social for women leaders in the Niger Delta suspicion of communities Nembe, Bayelsa State. and Okrika in
Science (CASS) region.2003. about intentions of Program on conflicts Rivers
researchers, sincerity and resolution aimed at
cynicism of communities, conflict intervention and
security and demand for also as a correctional role
money and gifts from for the youths.
researchers.
-Gainful engagement of
demoralized members of
the NigerDelta, Bush boys
allied to NDPVF

-Okrika-Eleme Boundary
adjustment

-Tombia Chieftaincy
disputes
Academic i)Conflict Intervention program in -Lack of community -Peace and development Asari Toru and
Associates Warri South,Delta State, 2003. mobilisation, publicity and project in Abua/Odual Degema (Peace
PeaceWorks Funded by Mac Arthur Foundation, commitment. (R/S) and Ogbin And and Dev.) as a
(AAPW) R/S govt. and NDDC. Nembe in B/S. result of the
ii) Promoting partnering among -Deep rooted suspicion and frequent clashes
stakeholders in Degema, Khana and doubt arising from past - Political awareness and
Etshe in R/S and Gbaran and experiences of conflict. voter education project in
Ekpatiama in Bayelsa St. Funded by Odula and Yanogoa.
Mac Arthur Foundation, R/S govt.
and NDDC.

53
Sustainable Peace i) Rapid response programme in Lack of confidence on the - Conflict prevention Oruma community
Initiative Nigeria Warri, Yanogoa and PH 2005: Rapid intentions or outcome of the programme in Delta, in Ogbia LGA, B/S
(SPIN) response on conflicts as they break project and on the personnel. Rivers and Bayelsa States. and Akaolu
out through mobilisation of women This is as a result of the Comm. in Ahoada
group to fight for a common course. II) Lack of enough work needs assessment carried West LGA R/S as
ii) Community Peace Education facilities in terms of out in the area hence the a result of socially
project for community based personnel and equipment. new project will seek to cohesive nature of
organisation and social groups in link communities’ peculiar the areas.
Nembe, Yanogoa and Eleme. needs to a development
agency.

- Training Project on first

aid administration during
conflicts. The project is
planned in collaboration
with the Nigeria Red
Cross with an aim to
respond to people in need
of medical attention
during conflicts.
Niger Delta -Conflict Transformation and -Lack of funds, need for -Situation Analysis Okrika LGA and
Women for leadership training programme for office spaces in some work intervention programme in Asari .
Justice (NDWJ) women in the NigerDelta.2002-04. area and cultural patriarchal Bakana R/S.
- Mobilisation of Egi women to barriers and negative
intervene during the Egi conflict in attitudes towards women.. -Documentation of
1995. conflicts in the
NigerDelta.
-A training programme on Conflict
Transformation at Iko, Akwa Ibom -Create a forum for
State in 2003. dialogue between oil
companies and women in
-Development of a radio discussion PH..
programme on conflict issues in
collaboration with the Federation of
African Media Women of Zambia.
Yanogoa, 2001

Environmental i) Democracy Outreach project in the ii) Lack of effective -Community Exchange Abua/Odual and
Rights Action NigerDelta.2000.Funded by Ford democratic Programme for Okrika LGA
(ERA) Foundation practices/environmental communities to share and
laws and genuine learn from experiences on
ii) Environmental monitoring commitment of the political conflicts in Nembe LGA
projects 1995 funded by Oxfam class. B/S.
International. iii) Lack of capacity
on the part of the civil -Environmental
iii)Environmental litigation project society and community Parliament in R and B
in the Nigerdelta 2003. organs to work for change. States.

iv) Gas Flaring and climate change

project 2000.

Niger Delta Peace -Early Warning program on Lack of fund Okrika and Nembe
and Security conflicts 2005/06. The Yanogoa Accord a
Secretariat Community based
(PASS) -Arms and Ammunitions programme that will
demobilisation 2005/06 provide an avenue for
dialogue and exchange of
Educative Media outreach program information

54
 on conflicts 2006

Ijaw Council for -Social Justice project in the -Companies do not honor Early warning signs Nembe and
Human Rights NigerDelta 1998 with support from agreements brokered by /conflicts prevention Ekeremo LGA in
individuals NGOs. projects in Bayelsa. Bayelsa State.
Okrika and Asari
-Economic justice project in the -Protracted communal -Capacity building for Toru LGA in
NigerDelta 1998 with support from clashes that are most times local communities and R/State.
individuals not easily resolved. promotion of transitional
conflict resolution
-Peace and Good governance project -Lack of fund mechanism in Rivers and
1998 -government attitude Bayelsa State.
towards communal conflicts
-Environmental justice project 1998

Ijaw Youth -Working in collaboration with govt. Fund Early warning signs Ekeremo LGA-hot
Council on release of hostages 06 with -Government antagonistic /conflicts prevention bed of inter
support form members. behaviours projects in Bayelsa. communal
conflicts and
-Resolving communal clashes in -Capacity building for hostage taking.
Brass LGA. 2005/6 with support local communities leaders Ogbia LGA –
from members and indigenous co- both young women and increase in cult
operate org. Do not accept funds men to train them on how practices
from govt or foreign agencies. to mobilise and tackle
conflict issues.
-Mediation and ceasefire project in
the NigerDelta .2005/2006

Democratic -Fund. -NigerDelta Okirika in R/S and

Leadership Rivers State youth rehabilitation Neighbourhood program- Degema in B/S
Institute (DLI) scheme 2005/06 –re-orientation of -Militants withdrawal to old training the community on
disarmed youths. habit in where there is no peace education
sustainable means of
Basic Leadership and civic livelihood -NigerDelta women in
education project 2005/06 for politics and leadership-a
Secondary schools and Student training program to
Union in tertiary institution on the involve women in politics
conflict resolution skills and decision making on
peacebuilding.
Degeba project on militant group
Rivers/Bayelsa States-a re-
orientation programme.

Mediation and ceasefire project in

the NigerDelta .2005/2006

Our Niger Delta -NigerDelta Peace and security Funding because the IT -Prefers to dwell more on Nemembe LGA
(OND) strategy –an IT based early warning based project requires a consolidation of existing B/S and Brass
system. huge amount of money to projects rather than LGA in R/S
implement it. developing new projects
Public/Media Education program-
use of comic magazine and radio -Capacity building/lack of
program discuss session on issues adequate on the field
bothering on conflicts. training of staff involved in
conflict.
Community governance project-
working with communities and
stakeholders to help reform their

55
 systems to meet challenges of the
day.

Training program on peace

negotiation and mediation-for
traditional rulers and youth leaders
and also involving govt. officials in
negotiation skills.

Centre for -Small Arms project 2001 PH.- Funding and inadequate -Monitoring and Ogbia LGA and
Environment, Research project. staff. documentation of conflicts Sagbama as a
Human Rights as it occurs in the Niger result of increasing
and Development - Training program on non-violent Delta. militant activities
(CEHRD) strategy for community leaders and e.g. hostage taking.
members

56
 V

SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

________________________________________________________________________

This study employed field evidence and secondary data to explore the various
ramifications of conflicts in the Niger Delta and the role of civil society organizations in
them. Among other things, the study highlighted conflict intervention programs being
implemented by civil society groups in the Niger Delta, documented challenges faced by
the actors, identified gaps that could be explored by stakeholders wishing to get involved
in conflict work in the region and recommended a local government area for a pilot
project on community peace building in each of the two study States of Bayelsa and
Rivers.

From the study, it is clear that a consensus is that future intervention should particularly
focus on conflict management. Our recommendation is that such intervention should
specifically focus on strengthening the channels of communication and exchange of
views among the principal parties in conflicts in Nembe, Bayelsa State and Okrika,
Rivers State.53 These two Local Government Areas should be used as pilot locations for
the project.

One striking thing about the Niger Delta is a range of issues on which cooperation among
communities, civil society, oil companies and government is possible, but which are not
pursued. For instance, all stakeholders agree on the dire developmental situation and
living conditions of the people of the Niger Delta and the need to increase the benefits
accruing to local communities from the oil economy. As well, there is a broad agreement
that there are legal, political and practical obstacles to the attainment of these ends, such
as existing laws, high level of violence and insecurity, as well as corruption. Yet, little
effort has been put into working together to overcome some of these obstacles. The
reason for this is that stakeholders are talking at rather than to each other. There is a lot of
talk going on in the Niger Delta, but very little communication. The consequence is the
persistence of a conspiracy syndrome on the part of communities and civil society, and a
siege mentality on the part of oil companies. Thus, communities continue to feel that
government officials have the ulterior motive of misappropriating funds and colluding
with oil companies, who through political payments seek to perpetuate environmental
degradation. On their part, oil companies continue to feel that restive communities
maliciously target their installations and workers and that government is incapable of
providing a secure environment for their operations.

The purpose of recommended intervention will be to create channels of communication

and problem solving among conflicting parties. We envisage that the channels will
involve multiple processes. Initially, they will entail periodic (even informal) forums for
exchange of views and discussion of issues among stakeholders. However, in time they
should develop into more formal, stable structures for collectively identifying, analyzing

53
Our alternate recommendation of locations of the pilot work is Khana Local Government for Rivers State
and Kolokuma-Opokuma Local Government for Bayelsa State.

57
and resolving problems by stakeholders. This gradual/sequenced approach is important
because it will take some time to breakdown the barriers posed by years of suspicion and
conflict in the relations among stakeholders. The underlying principle is to avoid
attempting to do too much too soon.

Strong channels of communication should increase the level of understanding, consensus

and cooperation among stakeholders, especially between oil companies, communities and
CSOs. Generally, suspicion and conflicts have marked their relations in the recent past.
The communication structures will build on some of the issues on which there is already
a measure of consensus regarding their urgency. These include the need for more
community-determined development projects, improvements in the laws guiding the
petroleum industry, raising environmental standards in the petroleum industry, security of
oil workers and installations and communal violence. Oil companies, like Shell and
Chevron-Texaco, are already pioneering such forums. In the last couple of years, Shell
has been organizing community development stakeholders’ forum in Warri, Delta State.
On its part, Chevron-Texaco following a recent face-off with local women at its
production facilities around Escravos has entered into a series of dialogues and signed
Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) with communities in the area. Unfortunately, the
parties often wait for crises to erupt before entering into dialogue. Sadly, discussions held
under crisis conditions tend to be too reactive, characterized by trading of blames,
damage limitation and exaction of concessions, where normally dialogues should be
proactive, characterized by consensus building, goal setting and exploration of mutual
benefits. As a result of the crisis nature of extant discussions between oil companies and
communities, civil society organizations that are considered to be too combative by
government and oil companies are either excluded from the forums, or they boycott them.
Grants that encourage inclusiveness of the process through organizations that command
confidence on all sides will be useful in addressing this problem.

There are two key elements in strengthening channels of communication and exchange of
views among stakeholders in the Niger Delta.

a) Stakeholder consultations: This entails the establishment of structures for regular

exchange of views and setting of targets by a representative cross section of stakeholders
– communities in conflict, oil companies, civil society organizations and government
agencies, including the NDDC and particularly security forces. These structures could
begin as periodic forums arranged by competent, independent civil society organizations
working with experienced corps of mediators. The expectation is that with time the
forums will mature into more stable, formal structures.

Intervention should focus on encouraging stakeholder peace initiatives and forums that
already exist, for instance where there is already a peace agreement or an MOU among
stakeholders (e.g. MOUs by communities and oil companies or peace agreements
between warring communities). Encouragement should also be given to the integration of
the security forces into this process, since their past activities have served to heighten
suspicion and anger in many communities. A useful means of doing this is through the
Police-Community Relations Committees (PCRC) or through the establishment police-

58
community partnership forums. This will constitute one linkage between CLEEN’s
existing work and its work in the Niger Delta. In order to effectively monitor, co-
ordinate, institutionalize and sustain the consultations, it is necessary to establish a
coordinating centre within an existing civil society organization but with prospects of
becoming an independent structure in future. The coordinating centre will also serve as a
resource centre for stakeholders and a repository of knowledge and experience generated
by the consultations. The coordinating centre could also serve as a hub for policy
dialogues.

One major issue that the stakeholders’ consultation should be encouraged to address is
legal reform of the petroleum industry. Although legal reform is a cardinal aspect of the
Foundation’s human rights strategy for Nigeria, improvements in the legal architecture of
the petroleum sector remains a central issue in the Niger Delta and requires specific
attention. Communities often complain that the existing legal framework such as the
Petroleum Act and the Pipelines Act are too favourable to oil companies and has
encouraged them to evade their social and environmental responsibilities. The importance
of legal reform in the petroleum industry has been echoed recently with the pending
application by Shell for a renewal of its pipeline rights. A number of communities and
CSOs in the Niger Delta have opposed renewal until a reform of the Pipelines Act is
conducted. Government and oil companies on their part insist that legal reform is an
arduous process and that too stringent legal requirements could make cost recovery and
profitability difficult. Still, it is possible through frank discussions, which hopefully the
stakeholders’ consultations will foster, to arrive at a consensus on legal reform that
satisfies all sides.

b) Policy dialogues: Policy dialogues are useful means of periodically bringing together
researchers, activists, policy makers and the private sector. If policy dialogues on varying
concerns of the Niger Delta are well-organized and implemented, they could become
invaluable to enhancing communication and bridge building among politicians, CSOs,
academics and oil company executives.

Specific outcomes and benchmarks of success

The expected outcomes of strengthening communication among stakeholders include the

following:
• Holding of periodic stakeholders’ consultative forums and establishment of a
coordinating centre.
• Holding of annual policy dialogues and briefings.
• Increased collaboration between communities, CSOs, security forces, NDDC and oil
companies through the stakeholders’ meetings.
Consequently, success will be measured by the regularity of intercommunity dialogues,
dialogues between communities, CSOs, government agencies, including security forces
and NDDC, and oil companies, the degree to which such dialogues support the solution
of problems and the rapidity of information flow among stakeholders through the
channels of communication established. Joint peace initiatives among stakeholders, for

59
instance in addressing community grievances, conflicts and insecurity, as well as the
longevity of existing peace agreements and MOUs will constitute indicators of success.

60
 APPENDICES
________________________________________________________________________

Appendix I

Enumeration Questionnaire
CLEEN FOUNDATION, LAGOS
SCOPING STUDY ON CONFLICTS IN THE NIGER DELTA

Enumeration Sheet

Date of visit: Time of visit: Location: …………………... Name & designation of interviewee:
…………...…… …………….. ……………………………... ………………………...……...

1. Name of CSO (include acronym): …………………………….………………………………………………………

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
2. Full address and contact of organization: ……………………………………………………………..………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….………………
…………………………………………………………Fax:………:……………………Tel:………….. ………………
Email:……………………………………………….Website:………………………………………….. ………………
3. Date of establishment: ……………………... 4. Membership size: …………………………..
5. Is organization the main establishment or a branch? …………………………………………….……………………
6. If a branch, does it bear same name as main establishment? …………………………………….……………………
7. If not, what is the name of the main establishment? …………………………………………….……………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
8. If it is a branch, establish location and address of its headquarters (incl. tel): …………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………….……………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………….……………………
9. Kindly summarize a maximum of 4 major ongoing conflict resolution projects of your organization:
Project name/Date established/ Summary of project including funder(s)
Location

a) ……………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..

b) ……………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..

61
c) ……………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..

d) ……………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..
10. What are the major challenges faced by the projects?

a) ……………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..

b) ……………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..

c) ……………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..

d) ……………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..
11. With the benefit of hindsight, what other objectives, activities, personnel etc. would you have liked to include in
these projects that are not there at the moment?

a) ……………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..

b) ……………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..

62
c) ……………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..

d) ……………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..

12. If you had funds to establish four new conflict intervention programs in Rivers and Bayelsa States, what are they
likely to be?

Project name and Location Summary of project

a) ……………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..

b) ……………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..

c) ……………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..

d) ……………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..

13. Kindly give me the names, location and contact persons of two other CSOs in Rivers and Bayelsa States working
on conflict that I may contact (At this point, share with the interviewee the list of CSOs already in our list)

(a) ………………………………………………………………………………………………...

63
 ……………………………………………………………………………………………………

(b) ………………………………………………………………………………………………...
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
14. Could you recommend two most important local government areas in this State where a conflict intervention
project would be most successful, the type of intervention and why it should be located there?

Local Government/ Reason(s) for location

Type of project

a) ……………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..

b) ……………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………..

64
 Appendix II

Summary of Field Trip Data

1. ORG: Community Rights Initiative (CORI)

Location: Port Harcourt
ADD: NO.12 Chinda Close, off No.1 Elegbam rd. Rumola.
Name/designation of interviewee: Wisdom Dike (ED)
Email add: [email protected]
Tel: 084-488390
Date of Establishment: 1996
Membership size: 12

Ongoing conflicts resolution projects/Location

i) Negotiation and conflicts resolution.1996 Ogba-Egbema, Ndoni.-The program with

support form the local govt. involved the oil companies, govt. and target communities to
deal with conflict issues thru negotiation.
ii) Peace Edu.’99 Ogbia, Bayegba, Akpabuyo-Bakari, Abua Rivers-A project that centres
around educating people on Peacebuilding processes.
iii) Mediation Project ’03.Ikwere LGA. Abua, Odual, Ahoada=a project that deals with
investigation and identification of notable persons within a community who could be
trained as a mediator.
iv) Conflict research project. Okrika, Buguma, Ekpeye Ogba/Gbene, Ndoni, odi-
Research and documentation of causes, background etc of conflicts.

Challenges

i) Difficulties of attitudinal change on the part of community members as a result of

division within communities
II) Sustainability of the peace education program
iii) situate mediation with traditional method of mediation; oath taking and persistence of
old traditional ways
iv) Lack of committed people to peace e.g. the leaders

Objectives, activities, personnel etc that would be included in future projects

i) Capacity building for local communities to enable them negotiate with oil
companies and other agencies.
ii) Documentation of traditional peace education methodology. Documenting
local experiences in peace education. Resources.
iii) Training of local mediators for sustainability
iv) Lack of skill in conflicts research especially anthropological and ethnographic
research skills e.g. participant’s observation, Research on the dynamics of
both peace and conflict communities.

65
New conflict intervention programs in Rivers and Bayelsa States/Reasons.

i) Peace building project in Okrika, Rivers State. This is because there exist a
peace and conflict committee, though a small community, but economically
very strategic.
ii) Peace building and reconciliation project; Abua Rivers State. This is as a
result of the political situation there e.g. commissioner Oyagbiri’s death gave
lease of life because as the arrow head of PDP he was alleged of killing a high
chief and stealing election form the ANPP.
iii) Peace Negotiation program in Nembe-Brass axis in Bayelsa State. This will be
aimed at training people to acquire negotiaitve skills so as to be able to
address conflicts issues between the oil company, local communities and the
government.
iv) Peace education project in Odi –Bayelsa State. This will be aimed at
contending with the memories of the 1999 invasion and destruction.

Recommendations on two local communities where a conflict intervention program

would be most successful.

Okirika LGA-Rivers

Nemebe LGA-Bayelsa

2. ORG: Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP)

Location Port Harcourt
ADD: NO 6 Etonahia close, off Olu Obasanjo Way.
Name/designation of interviewee: Kpalap (Information Bari Mgr.)
Website :www.mosop.net
Email: [email protected]
Tel: 084-233907, 08068228065
Date of Establishment: 1990
Membership size: 200,000

Ongoing conflicts resolution projects/Location

I) Ogoni Peacebuilding and Conflict Prevention project 2005-a program

that aims at creating awareness on the negative impact of conflict.
II) Engagement of state and non-state sectors in dialogue in Ogoni –
arranging dialogue among politicians, govt, agencies and youths in the
community.2005
III) Mop-up arms, Ogoni, 2004.-Engaging security agencies and militant
to voluntarily turn in their arms and also offer immunity from
persecution.

Challenges

66
 1) Lack of capacity (personnel) to respond to demands in terms of
intervening in disputes, Lack of fund and co-operation by the communities
and local government officials were also challenges faced.
2) Non-cooperation by politicians who intend to use arms for elections and
lack of alternative livelihood for armed youths.

Objectives, activities, personnel etc that would be included in future projects

i) Development of capacity of members of peace communities, training of JPs in

the community on peace mediation and increasing monitoring of conflicts
through early warning signs.
ii) Develop skills of youths for economic empowerment.

New conflict intervention programs in Rivers and Bayelsa States/Reasons.

i) Re-orientation and economic empowerment.

Recommendations on two local communities where a conflict intervention program

would be most successful.

Khana and Gokane in Rivers State as a result of incessant clashes in the area.
Okrika, Nembe and Brass.

3. ORG: Centre for Advanced Social Science (CASS)

Location: Port Harcourt
ADD: NO. 13, William Jumbo Str.Old GRA.
Name/designation of interviewee: Sofin Peterside (Research Officer)
Tel: 084-237323
Date of Establishment: 1995
Membership size: -

Ongoing conflicts resolution projects/Location

I) Community Peacebuilding project for women leaders in the Niger Delta region.2003.

Challenges:

Access to information and suspicion of communities about intentions of researchers,

sincerity and cynicism of communities, security and demand for money and gifts from
researchers.

Objectives, activities, personnel etc that would be included in future projects

-Involvement of local initiatives in the management of conflict

67
-Indigenous conflict resolution mechanism salvaging such traditional knowledge and
giving a role to youth in decision making in communities and in conflict management.

New conflict intervention programs in Rivers and Bayelsa States/Reasons.

i) Peace building project in Nembe, Bayelsa State. Program on

conflicts resolution aimed at conflict intervention and also as a
correctional role for the youths.
ii) Gainful engagement of demoralized members of the
NigerDelta, Bush boys allied to NDPVF
iii) Okrika-Eleme Boundary adjustment
iv) Tombia Chieftaincy disputes

Recommendations on two local communities where a conflict intervention program

would be most successful.

Nembe in Bayelsa and Okrika in Rivers

4. ORG: Academic Associate Peaceworks (AAPW)

Location: Port Harcourt
ADD: NO. 116/118 Woji Rd. GRA Phase 11.
Name/designation of interviewee: Danjuma Sa’idu (Ass. Project Director)
Website-
Email: [email protected]
Tel: 08037139183
Date of Establishment: 1991
Membership size: Made up of govt and donor agencies.

Ongoing conflicts resolution projects/Location

i)Conflict Intervention program in Warri South,Delta State, 2003. Funded by Mac Arthur
Foundation, R/S govt. and NDDC.
II) Promoting partnering among stakeholders in Degema, Khana and Etshe in R/S and
Gbaran and Ekpatiama in Bayelsa St. Funded by Mac Arthur Foundation, R/S govt. and
NDDC.

Challenges
i) Lack of community mobilisation, publicity and commitment.
ii) Deep rooted suspicion and doubt arising from past experiences of conflict.

Objectives, activities, personnel etc that would be included in future projects

i) Awareness creation using the media.

68
New conflict intervention programs in Rivers and Bayelsa States/Reasons.

i) Peace and development project in Abua/Odual (R/S) AND Ogbin And Nembe in B/S.
ii) Political awareness and voter education project in Odula and Yanogoa.

Recommendations on two local communities where a conflict intervention program

would be most successful.

Asari Toru and Degema (Peace and Dev.) as a result of the frequent clashes

5. ORG: Sustainable Peace Initiative Nigeria (SPIN)

Location: Eleme
ADD: NO. 6 Obo Nwangboke Str. Ogale Nchia.
Name/designation of interviewee: Damka Puebe (Director)
Website-
Email: [email protected]
Tel: 08033398818
Date of Establishment: 2005
Membership size: Not a M/ship Org.

Ongoing conflicts resolution projects/Location

i) Rapid response programme in Warri, Yanogoa and PH 2005.Rapid response on

conflicts as they break out through mobilisation of women group to fight for a common
course.
II) Community Peace Education project for community based organisation and social
groups in Nembe, Yanogoa and Eleme.
ii) Training Project on first aid administration during conflicts. The project was done in
collaboration with the Nigeria Red Cross with an aim to respond to people in need of
medical attention during conflicts.

Challenges
i)Lack of confidence on the intentions or outcome of the project and on the personnel.
II) Lack of enough work facilities in terms of personnel and equipment.

Objectives, activities, personnel etc that would be included in future projects

i) Educational entertainment in form of Dance drama hinged on issues on

conflict.
ii) Training on skill acquisition on the part of the personnel

New conflict intervention programs in Rivers and Bayelsa States/Reasons.

Conflict prevention programme in Delta, Rivers and Bayelsa States. This is as a result of
the needs assessment carried out in the area hence the new project will seek to link
communities’ peculiar needs to a development agency.

69
Recommendations on two local communities where a conflict intervention program
would be most successful.

Oruma community in Ogbia LGA, B/S and Akaolu Community in Ahoada West LGA
R/S as a result of socially cohesive nature of the areas.

6. ORG: NigerDelta Women for Justice (NDWJ)

Location: NigerDelta
Head office adds: NO.10, Ibaa str. D/Line PH.
Name/designation of interviewee: Emem J. Okon (co-ordinator)
Website-www.ndwj.org
Email: [email protected]
Tel: 08033398818
Date of Establishment: 1998
Membership size: 18 work groups plus 15 individuals.

Ongoing conflicts resolution projects/Location

i) Conflict Transformation and leadership training programme for women in the

NigerDelta.2002-04.
II) Mobilisation of Egi women to intervene during the Egi conflict in 1995.
iii) A training programme on Conflict Transformation at Iko, Akwa Ibom State in
2003.
iv) Development of a radio discussion programme on conflict issues in
collaboration with the Africa Women Journalist, Zambia. Yanogoa, 2001

Challenges
i) Lack of funds, need for office spaces in some work area and
cultural patriarchal barriers on negative attitudes towards
women..
Objectives,activities, personnel etc that would be included in future projects

-Awareness program on UN Resolution 1320 in the NigerDelta.

-Strengthening the capacity of NDWJ cells (works group) and training of personnel for
capacity building.

New conflict intervention programs in Rivers and Bayelsa States/Reasons.

-Situation Analysis intervention programme in Bakana R/S.

-Documentation of conflicts in the NigerDelta
-Create a forum for dialogue between oil companies and women in PH..

Recommendations on two local communities where a conflict intervention program

would be most successful.

70
Okrika LGA and Asari Toru.

7. ORG: Environmental Rights Action (ERA)

Location: PH
Head office add: NO.214 Uselu Lagos Rd. Benin City. 052-600165
Branch Office: No 10 Ibaa str. D/Line PH.
Name/designation of interviewee: Isaac Osuoka (Prog. Mangr.)
Website-www.eraction.org
Email: [email protected]
Tel:
Date of Establishment: 1993
Membership size: -

Ongoing conflicts resolution projects/Location

i) Democracy Outreach project in the NigerDelta.2000.Funded by Ford Foundation

II) Environmental monitoring projects 1995 funded by Oxfam International.
iii) Environmental litigation project in the Nigerdelta 2003.
iv) Gas Flaring and climate change project 2000.

Challenges
ii) Lack of effective democratic practices/environmental laws
and genuine commitment of the political class.
iii) Lack of capacity on the part of the civil society and
community organs to work for change.

Objectives, activities, personnel etc that would be included in future projects

-Involvement of community members in the development and planning of projects.

New conflict intervention programs in Rivers and Bayelsa States/Reasons.

-Community Exchange Programme for communities to share and learn from experiences
on conflicts in Nembe LGA B/S.
-Environmental Parliament in R and B States.

Recommendations on two local communities where a conflict intervention program

would be most successful.

Abua/Odual and Okrika LGA

8. ORG: NigerDelta Peace and Security Secretariat (PASS)

Location: PH
Head office add: NO.116/118 Woji rd.
Branch Office:-.

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 Name/designation of interviewee: Nene P. (Administrator)
Website:-
Email: [email protected]
Tel: 084-463184 Fax: 084-463184
Date of Establishment: Sept 2005
Membership size: -made up of 3 other org i.e AAPW, OND and Int. Centre
for Reconciliation (ICR)

Ongoing conflicts resolution projects/Location

i) Early Warning program on conflicts 2005/06

ii) Arms and Ammunitions demobilisation 2005/06
iii) Educative Media outreach program on conflicts 2006

Challenges
Lack of fund

Objectives, activities, personnel etc that would be included in future projects

-Involvement of community members in the development and planning of projects.

New conflict intervention programs in Rivers and Bayelsa States/Reasons.

The Yanogoa Accord a Community based programme that will provide an avenue for
dialogue and exchange of information.

Recommendations on two local communities where a conflict intervention program

would be most successful.

Okrika and Nembe

9. ORG: Ijaw council for human rights

Location: Yanogoa
Head office add: Bayelsa Research and Information Council (BRIC) Koko
House Opolo.
Branch Office:-.
Name/designation of interviewee: Patterson Ogon (Founding Director).
Website:-
Email: [email protected]
Tel: 084-463184 Fax: 084-463184
Date of Establishment: 1998
Membership size: -35

Ongoing conflicts resolution projects/Location

I) Social Justice project in the NigerDelta 1998 with support from

72
 individuals
II) Economic justice project in the NigerDelta 1998 with support from
individuals
III) Peace and Good governance project 1998
IV) Environmental justice project 1998

Challenges

-Companies do not honor agreements brokered by NGOs.

-Protracted communal clashes that are most times not easily resolved.
-Lack of fund
-government attitude towards communal conflicts

Objectives,activities, personnel etc that would be included in future projects

Building intra and inter communal harmony and re-orientation programmes for youths
dealing on arms.

New conflict intervention programs in Rivers and Bayelsa States/Reasons.

-Early warning signs /conflicts prevention projects in Bayelsa.
-Capacity building for local communities and promotion of transitional conflict
resolution mechanism in Rivers and Bayelsa State.

Recommendations on two local communities where a conflict intervention program

would be most successful.

Nembe and Ekeremo LGA in Bayelsa State.

Okrika and Asari Toru LGA in R/State.

10. ORG: Ijaw Youth Council

Location: Yanogoa
Head office add: Okotukutu Main House, Okotukutu Town along
Ibiama/Yanogoa rd.
Branch Office:-.All Ijwa speaking areas in the NigerDelta.
Name/designation of interviewee: Claudius Egba (Chairman).
Website:-
Email:
Tel: 08038880998 Fax:
Date of Establishment: 11th Dec.1998
Membership size: Over 50,000

Ongoing conflicts resolution projects/Location

i) Working in collaboration with govt. on release of hostages 06 with support

form members.
ii) Resolving communal clashes in Brass LGA. 2005/6 with support from

73
 members and indigenous co-operate org. Do not accept funds from govt or
foreign agencies.
iii) Mediation and ceasefire project in the NigerDelta .2005/2006

Challenges
-Fund
-Government antagonistic behaviours

Objectives,activities, personnel etc that would be included in future projects

Involvement of young women organisation in project execution

New conflict intervention programs in Rivers and Bayelsa States/Reasons.

-Early warning signs /conflicts prevention projects in Bayelsa.

-Capacity building for local communities leaders both young women and men to train
them on how to mobilise and tackle conflict issues.

Recommendations on two local communities where a conflict intervention program

would be most successful.

Ekeremo LGA-hot bed of inter communal conflicts and hostage taking.

Ogbia LGA –increase in cult practices

11. ORG: Democratic Leadership Institute (DLI)

Location: Yanogoa/PH
Head office add: 33 Mbonu str. PH.
Branch Office:-.
Name/designation of interviewee: Peterside Dakoko (ED).
Website:-www.dli-ng.org
Email:
Tel: 08033123801 Fax:
Date of Establishment: 2002
Membership size: -

Ongoing conflicts resolution projects/Location

i) Rivers State youth rehabilitation scheme 2005/06 –re-orientation of disarmed youths

ii) Basic Leadership and civic education project 2005/06 for Secondary schools and
Student Union in tertiary institution on the conflict resolution skills
iii)Degeba project on militant group Rivers/Bayelsa States-a re-orientation programme.
iv) Mediation and ceasefire project in the NigerDelta .2005/2006

Challenges
-Fund.
-Militants withdrawal to old habit in where there is no sustainable means of livelihood.

74
Objectives,activities, personnel etc that would be included in future projects
Setting up of Human rights club in schools- with theme on catch them young for peace.

New conflict intervention programs in Rivers and Bayelsa States/Reasons.

-NigerDelta Neighbourhood program-training the community on peace education

-NigerDelta women in politics and leadership-a training program to involve women in
politics and decision making on peacebuilding.

Recommendations on two local communities where a conflict intervention program

would be most successful.

Okirika in R/S and Degema in B/S

12 ORG: Our Niger Delta (OND)

Location: Yanogoa/PH
Head office add: 116/118 Woji str. GRA PH.
Branch Office:-.
Name/designation of interviewee: Von Kemedi (Director).
Website:-www.nigerdelta.com
Email:[email protected]
Tel: Fax:
Date of Establishment: 1997
Membership size: -

Ongoing conflicts resolution projects/Location

i) NigerDelta Peace and security strategy –an IT based early warning system.
ii) Public/Media Education program-use of comic magazine and radio program discuss
session on issues bothering on conflicts.
iii) Community governance project- working with communities and stakeholders to help
reform their systems to meet challenges of the day
iv) Training program on peace negotiation and mediation-for traditional rulers
and youth leaders and also involving govt. officials in negotiation skills.

Challenges
-Funding because the IT based project requires a huge amount of money to implement it..
-Capacity building/lack of adequate on the field training of staff involved in conflict.

Objectives,activities, personnel etc that would be included in future projects

Sustainable development programs for all projects.

New conflict intervention programs in Rivers and Bayelsa States/Reasons.

75
-Prefers to dwell more on consolidation of existing projects rather than developing new
projects.

Recommendations on two local communities where a conflict intervention program

would be most successful.

Nemembe LGA B/S and Brass LGA in R/S

13. ORG: Centre for Environment, Human Rights and Development (CEHRD)
Location: Eleme
Head office add: 6 Obo Nwanboke Street, Post Offuice Building. Ogale-Nchia..
Branch Office:-.
Name/designation of interviewee: Patrick Naagbaton (Co-ordinator).
Website:-www.cehrd.org
Email:[email protected]
Tel: 08033367823
Fax:
Date of Establishment: 15th Aug. 1999
Membership size: -

Ongoing conflicts resolution projects/Location

i) Small Arms project 2001 PH.-Research project.

ii) Training program on non-violent strategy for community leaders and members

Challenges
-Funding and inadequate staff.

Objectives,activities, personnel etc that would be included in future projects

Will employ more training programs and recruitment of staff.

New conflict intervention programs in Rivers and Bayelsa States/Reasons.

-Monitoring and documentation of conflicts as it occurs in the Nigerdelta.

Recommendations on two local communities where a conflict intervention program

would be most successful

Ogbia LGA and Sagbama as a result of increasing militant activities e.g. hostage taking.

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 Appendix III
Major Civil Society Organizations working on conflicts and related issues in the
Niger Delta

Organization Location(s) Focus of activities

1. Academic Associates Peace ABUJA; PORT HARCOURT • Conflict resolution
Works • Peace-building
2. Accord for Community PORT HARCOURT • Community development
Development
3. Africare/Nigeria PORT HARCOURT • Social and community development
4. Akpor Co-operative Credit Union PORT HARCOURT • Micro-credit
5. Ampez Centre for Environment & PORT HARCOURT • Environment
Development • Community development
6. Centre for Advanced Social PORT HARCOURT • Research
Science (CASS) • Policy
• Advocacy
7. Centre for Development Support PORT HARCOURT • Development
Initiative (CEDSI) • Research
8. Centre for Environmental PORT HARCOURT • Environmental protection
Awareness
9. Centre for Responsive Politics PORT HARCOURT • Constitutionalism/democracy
• Human rights
10. Centre for Social Research UYO • Research
• Advocacy
11. Chikoko Movement YENAGOA • Environment
• Community rights
12. Civil Liberties Organization Lagos; Benin-City • Human rights
13. Community Development PORT HARCOURT • Community development
Partners
14. Community Rights Initiative PORT HARCOURT • Community rights
• Environment
15. Consulting Centre for PORT HARCOURT • Human rights
Constitutional Rights & Justice • Environment
16. Development Initiatives (DEVIN) PORT HARCOURT • Sustainable development
17. Development Practitioners PORT HARCOURT • Development
Network
18. Development Research Centre PORT HARCOURT • Research
• Policy
• Advocacy
19. Egi Youth Foundation EREMA TOWN • Community rights
• Environment
20. Elimotu Movement OTUASEGA • Community rights
21. Entrepreneurial Development PORT HARCOURT • Entrepreneur development
Initiatives
22. Environmental Rights Action BENIN-CITY; PORT HARCOURT • Environmental rights
(ERA) • Human rights
• Capacity building
• Research
23. Enyikokome Rural Development AGBOR • Rural development
Union
24. Ijaw Council for Human Rights PORT HARCOURT; YENAGOA • Community rights
• Environment
• Human rights
25. Ijaw Youth Council PORT HARCOURT • Community rights
• Environment

77
26. Infrastructure Check PORT HARCOURT • Social development
27. International Association for PORT HARCOURT • Research
Impact Assessment Nigeria • Community rights
28. Institute for Labour and People PORT HARCOURT • Social rights
Empowerment
29. •
30. Institute of Human Rights & PORT HARCOURT • Human rights
Humanitarian Law (IHRHL) • Environmental rights
• Constitutionalism
31. Integrated Devleopment and PORT HARCOURT • Environment
Health Surveillance • Development
• Health
32. International Foundation for PORT HARCOURT • Social development
Education and Self Help (IFESH)
33. Journalists for the Niger Delta PORT HARCOURT • Media rights
• Environment
34. Kakarne Development AGBOR • Rural development
Association
35. ‡ PORT HARCOURT; ABUJA • Human rights
Legal Rights Initiative
• Conflict management
36. Living Earth Foundation PORT HARCOURT • Environmental rights & protection
37. Mangrove Forest Conservation PORT HARCOURT • Conservation
Society of Nigeria
38. Mankind Survival Project PORT HARCOURT • Environment
39. Mankind Survival Project (MSP) PORT HARCOURT • Environmental rights
• Human rights
40. Minority and Environment Watch PORT HARCOURT • Environment
• Minority rights
41. Movement for Reparation to YENAGOA • Community rights
Ogbia • Environment
42. Movement for the Survival of PORT HARCOURT • Human rights
Ogoni People • Community Rights
• Environment
43. Niger Delta Coalition for Peace PORT HARCOURT • Peace-building
and Development • Community development
• Environment
44. Niger Delta Defence and Security PORT HARCOURT • Community rights
Council • Environment
45. Niger Delta Development Project PORT HARCOURT • Environment
• Development
46. Niger Delta Human and PORT HARCOURT • Environmental rights
Environmental Rescue • Human rights
Organization (ND-HERO)
47. Niger Delta Network PORT HARCOURT • NGO capacity building
48. Niger Delta Project for ELEME • Environment
Environment, Human Rights and • Human rights
Development • Community development
49. ‡ PORT HARCOURT • Environment
Niger Delta Wetlands Centre
• Sustainable development
50. Niger Delta Women for Justice PORT HARCOURT • Women’s rights
(NDWJ) • Human rights
• Environment
51. Nigerian Institute of Human PORT HARCOURT • Human rights
Rights • Environment
52. Oil Watch Africa PORT HARCOURT • Environment
• Community rights
53. Okpoloma Imo Engenni AHOADA • Community Rights
54. Our Niger Delta PORT HARCOURT • Environment

78
 • Social rights
55. Persons with Disability Network Benin-city • Disabled rights
56. Public Interest Lawyers League PORT HARCOURT • Community rights
(PILL) • Human rights
57. Rivers NGO Consultative Forum PORT HARCOURT • NGO capacity building
58. Save Earth Nigeria PORT HARCOURT • Environmental rights & protection
59. Soltee Energy & Environmental PORT HARCOURT • Environment
Network (SEEN)
60. Sus-DEL PORT HARCOURT • Sustainable development
61. Sustainable Peace Initiative PORT HARCOURT • Conflict management
Nigeria • Peace education
62. Total Development Initiative PORT HARCOURT • Community development
• Environment
63. Watch the Niger Delta AHOADA • Environment
• Human rights
64. Women Environmental and PORT HARCOURT • Women’s rights
Development Network (WEDEN) • Environmental protection
65. Women in Nigeria PORT HARCOURT • Women’s rights
• Constitutionalism
66. Women Political Action PORT HARCOURT • Women’s rights
Committee • Governance
67. Women’s Health Education UYO • Reproductive health
Development Association • Women’s rights
68. Yakubu Gowon Centre PORT HARCOURT • Social rights
69. Youth profile PORT HARCOURT • Youth development

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 Appendix IV

Report of Validation Workshop on the Study

Introduction

On August 5, 2005, the CLEEN foundation organized a one day validation workshop on
the draft report of the scoping study of conflict intervention programmes by civil society
groups in the Niger Delta. The event held at the Aldgate Congress Hotel, Port Harcourt,
Rivers State. Representatives of civil society groups active in Niger Delta, the Niger
Delta Development Commission (NDDC) and the Police Community Relations
Committee (PCRC) took part in the day long workshop. The objectives were to:

1. Verify the findings of the study through feedback from CSOs already working in
the Niger Delta community
2. Generate targeted information to aid with programmatic interventions and
implementation structures
3. Honor the efforts of the communities and CSOs researched in the study and to
facilitate further discussion in identifying opportunities for conflict intervention
programmes.

Opening Remarks: Innocent Chukwuma, CLEEN Executive Director

Although CLEEN Foundation is an NGO primarily concerned with justice sector reform,
it has developed a keen interest in the area of conflict management and intervention
mechanisms. Currently, CLEEN seeks to contribute to and support the work of CSOs
already entrenched in this field, particularly within the Niger Delta region and within the
scope of early warning/early response programs in conflict management. In light of this,
CLEEN has collaborated with Professor Ibeanu of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka to
develop a study on “Civil Society and Conflict Management in the Niger Delta: Scoping
Gaps for Policy and Advocacy.” The overall purpose of this study is to help us at CLEEN
identify two organizations to collaborate with and two local governments within the
Niger Delta to establish pilot programs for community peace building. With the result of
the study in hand, it is essential that we get your opinions and feedback before we
commence our pilot project.

Report Overview: Professor Ibeanu

Over the years, the Niger Delta has become synonymous with conflict. This Hobbesian
myth has fed the negative perception of a Niger Delta that is “peopled by groups …prone
to conflict, criminality, and violence.” The prevalence of conflict in this region is
explained in the study using the following theses:
1. Wealth impoverishes the Niger Delta
2. National Security generates insecurity

80
 3. Development underdevelops the Niger Delta

The change in the role of civil society organizations has been central to the
conflicts occurring in the Niger Delta. Two role-changing phases identified in the study
are:

1. The Military-Authoritarian phase: During this period, CSOs were essential to

brokering peace among warring communities
2. Post-Military phase: Since Nigeria’s return to civilian rule in 1999, CSOs have
placed a great emphasis on conflict mediation, but there are challenges on how to
address underlying roots of conflicts

In trying to identify specific gaps in policy intervention and advocacy, the various
CSOs that took part in the study suggested Okrika and Nembe as areas where fruitful
conflict management/intervention can be implemented. Alternatively, Khana and
Kolokuma-Opukoma LGAs were also identified as areas were one could establish strong
channels of communication to allow for the exchange of views among stakeholders,
community members, police divisions, and CSOs in the Niger Delta.

Preliminary Comments: From participants

1. Patterson Ogon: Pg. 4 Pointed out that Egbesu did not attack Odili; made spelling
corrections to two Nembe towns on same page.

2. Sofori Peterside: Pg. 4 Problem with the description or explanation of what

MEND does. Insert “believed by the government” and insert accompanying
footnote. The definition needs to be balanced between what the government
thinks MEND does and what MEND actually does.

3. Sofori Peterside: Pg. 4 – Use of maximal and minimal geographical definitions is

unclear. – Prof. Ibeanu explained that he was using the definitions from a socio-
political angle where “maximalist” – is equal to states that produce petroleum,
while “minimalist” – refers to the socio-political character, that is, the area
occupied by ethnic minorities that have had a specific history and (in addition) are
oil bearing.

4. Sofori Peterside: Pg. 2 – Asked for clarification on the “Rhetoric of Rights.”

5. Damka Pueba: Pg. 7 – List of CSOs working on conflict, specifically on the IYC
and NDHERO – Are they really working on conflict resolution? In response, it
was agreed to list only functional organizations working on conflict in the Niger
Delta.

6. Wisdom Dike: Pg. 43 – Made a correction to the section on CORI’s new projects
i.e. the murder of the High Chief.

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 7. Emem Okon: Pg. 45 – Made a correction to SPIN’s list of projects. Insert
“proposed” in front of training project on item three.

Strengths and Weaknesses of the Study:

Sofori Peterside stated that he was impressed with the level of analysis of the
study and commended Professor Ibeanu for his work on the project. Other attendants
agreed.

Follow up on Pilot LGAs and potential partner organizations:

Mr. Innocent Chukwuma started this part of the workshop by saying that CLEEN
is looking forward to establishing a structure for communication among the police,
community, and stakeholders. Informal modes of contact need to be initiated and a better
strategy needs to be employed to ensure the efficiency of this mechanism and to ensure
the overall success of the pilot program. Facilitating an interactive forum where all
parties can be involved in discourse regarding the issues of conflict in the community will
be at the heart of the pilot. This way, the parties involved at the forum can agree on
priorities to be handled before the next meeting. In essence, this will help to repress the
reason for conflict, therefore, stopping it from escalating any further.
Mr. Donald Chukwunenye of the PCRC emphasized PCRC involvement with the
CSOs working in conflict management and intervention in the Niger Delta. In response, it
was suggested that the PCRC would hold a permanent seat in CLEEN’s community
peace-building project.

BAYELSA STATE:

In choosing a location to embark on a pilot program for community peace

building in the Niger Delta, Mr. Chukwuma stated that the objective conditions (violence
on the ground) demonstrate that Nembe should be the number one choice. However,
CLEEN is using the following criteria for embarking on the pilot:
1. Willing partners – which CSO, Police Division, or Oil Company is willing to
work with CLEEN in the specified location
2. Accessibility - how accessible is the location
3. Framework for peace – there needs to be a framework for peace on which CLEEN
can build on
4. Visibility of the pilot – for the pilot to be successful people need to know what
CLEEN is doing so that this work can be replicated in other areas

Based on these criteria for involvement, it was agreed that currently Nembe is not
a prime place to establish a pilot program for conflict management and intervention.

Patterson Ogon from NDDC suggested that CLEEN go into the

Gbarain/Ekpetiama LGA - Yenegoa. He described the situation in Yenegoa as one that
would benefit from the conflict management strategies that CLEEN plans to implement.

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Currently, Shell is planning to build a gas plant in an area that has been under dispute in
court for 35 years. Mr. Ogon suggested that CLEEN might be able to take advantage of
this location since this issue is just emerging on the scene. Organizations that CLEEN
could potentially collaborate with in Yenegoa are the Ijaw Youth Council, youth leaders
of the different communities, CDCs, Commissioner for Police, and NDDC. The PCRC
also has a branch in Yenegoa. Major contacts have already been established in Bayelsa
and CLEEN will begin to create the framework for community peace-building
inYenegoa.

RIVERS STATE:

Instead of Okrika, other suggestions that came to the table were Kana, Gokana, or
Abua LGA. It was agreed that CLEEN would conduct “advocacy visits” to both LGAs in
Rivers State and then pick one LGA and a collaborating organization in the area.
The two advocacy visits were scheduled for Thursday, August 10, 2006 and
Friday, August 11, 2006. Thursday’s visit will be to Gokana LGA and travelers will
include representatives from MOSOP, CLEEN, PCRC and SPIN, while Friday’s visit to
Abua will include representatives from CORI, CLEEN, NDDC, and SPIN. PCRC was
invited to accompany us on both visits.

Closing Remarks: Professor Ibeanu

In closing, Professor Ibeanu thanked all for attending and those who aided the
research and study into the subject matter.

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