BLUEBLOCK: Nigeria's former Niger Delta warlords now govt made millionaires: part 1

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Nigeria's former Niger Delta warlords now govt made millionaires: part 1

Thursday, August 30, 2012 | Posted by Blueblock | | Edit Post

It is being alleged that the message of the Nigerian state to would-be militants is that militancy pays. Recent reports say Nigeria is paying out millions of dollars to former Niger Delta "war lords" in the effort to sustain the "peace" in the region.

The militant groups had engaged in oil bunkering, kidnappings, bombings and attacks on Nigerian security forces and oil installations. At the height of their activities, oil production dropped to as low as 500,000 barrels a day from over 2 million, causing a spike in the price of oil in the international market. Recent reports say former Niger Delta warlords are now enjoying the "fruits of their labor" in the form of government patronage that includes payments of cash and award of contracts worth millions of dollars. The Wall Street Journal reports that last year, Nigeria's state oil company began paying Dokubo-Asari's account $9 million a year for his former 4,000 foot soldiers. The payments were made by the state to safeguard Nigeria's oil pipelines from attack. The Nigerian state touts the "peace" in the Niger Delta, that it buys with millions of dollars, to the world as a success story, The WSJ notes. But it is a very fragile peace that can be sustained indefinitely only with more payments to the "warlords." According to The WSJ, this year alone, Nigeria will spend half-a-billion-dollars on the federal government's amnesty program for former Niger Delta militants.

Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari The WSJ reports that when Asari was asked about the payments he is receiving from the federal government, he shrugged non-nonchalantly, saying: "I don't see anything wrong with it." The website gives a background on the man who now lives in the country's federal capital like a king, receiving tribute from the state:

"[he studied] guerrilla warfare in the Libya led by Col. Moammar Gadhafi. He says he was given $100,000 to stir up trouble back in Nigeria, an oil competitor to Libya. "Fomenting conflict proved easy in the restive Niger Delta he returned to in the early 1990s. From a local governor, Mr. Dokubo-Asari says, he procured weapons and money to build a militia that ultimately was several thousand strong. For years, as he tells it, they broke open pipelines, filling canisters with crude oil and refining some of it through timeworn techniques used by locals to boil palm-tree sap into wine...... "Mr. Dokubo-Asari responded to one amnesty offer that he considered meager by announcing a death threat against petroleum workers. Shell evacuated hundreds of expatriates and oil derricks briefly slowed to a stop. The next day, oil prices hit $50 a barrel for the first time. "Nigeria's government offered Mr. Dokubo-Asari a truce and $1,000 apiece, he says, for his AK-47 rifles, numbering 3,182. He says he took the deal and used the profits to purchase more weapons and return to the swamp."

He finally fled to Cotonou after assassination threats, but others moved in to fill the vacuum. A new crop of "warlords" emerged who,

"Marauding under noms de guerre like Gen. Shoot-at-Sight, Gen. Africa and Gen. Young Shall Grow... formed a loose confederation of gunmen calling itself the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, or MEND, and crippled enough oil infrastructure to bring Nigeria's production on some days to a near-halt."

Government Ekpemupolo, a.k.a. Tompolo The career of another prominent Niger Delta warlord, Government Ekpemupolo, a.k.a "Tompolo," follows the same pattern of militancy rags to riches story. Today, Tompolo, as he is popularly known, is a multi-millionaire government contractor. NigeriansSavingNigerians.org reports:

"To cement the romance [with Tompolo], government has invested the Global West Vessel Specialist Limited, GWVSL, a firm widely believed to be owned by Tompolo, with a contract worth $103.4 million (over N15 billion) to supply 20 vessels for the use of the nation’s military authorities to secure the waterways. "According to [Director-General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA Ziadeke Akpobolokemi], GWVSL 'will provide platforms for effective policing of Nigeria’s maritime domain and ensure compliance with international maritime conventions on vessels and ships voyaging the country’s waters.'"

Tompolo, according to NigeriansSavingNigerians.org, began his career after the death of General Sanni Abacha, leading attacks against Shell and forming a protection racket, with Shell making payments to him. After the transition from military to civil rule, he enjoyed patronage of state governors who financed his group's arms acquisition drive. NigeriaSavingNigerians.org reports:

"In 2003, Tompolo led the Federated Niger Delta Ijaw Communities, FNDIC, in an uprising that shut down about 40 per cent of Nigeria’s oil production, targeting mostly Chevron’s installations. Gradually, Tompolo’s fame as a vicious war general but a principled and magnanimous leader to his forces spread through the creeks... And gradually, the money began to flow in – from the various rackets of political and corporate protection, to illegal bunkering. He was effectively leader of the Delta State end of the Niger Delta militants’ battle against oppression... Tompolo’s profile and stature soared in 2006 when he gathered his fellow group leaders from across the Niger Delta at Camp 5 to accord their struggle a definite name and platform... So it was at Camp 5, Tompolo’s headquarters, that the Movement of the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, MEND, was formed. MEND was, however, not formed as an umbrella organisation of all the militant groups but as an organ to issue unified, rather than discordant, statements for them. So if any of the groups attacked any oil installation or kidnapped any figure, it was MEND that would admit responsibility for the act. So when in June 2009, the President Yar’Adua administration embarked on implementing its Amnesty programme for Niger Delta militants, it could not but court Tompolo as the arrowhead of the programme."

Source: Digital Journal