Nigeria deploys troops to quell fighting in main oil region

Feb. 9, 2005
The Nigerian government, evidently in response to criticism from a human rights group, has deployed troops to prevent further fighting in the country's main oil producing region, the Niger Delta.

Eric Watkins
Senior Correspondent

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 9 -- The Nigerian government, evidently in response to criticism from a human rights group, has deployed troops to prevent further fighting in the country's main oil producing region, the Niger Delta.

On Feb. 5, Gen. Elias Zamani, in charge of the army and police in the Niger Delta, said his forces had stepped up the security arrangement following an outbreak of violence at the ChevronTexaco Corp. oil terminal on the Escravos River.

The terminal, near Warri, is key to Nigeria's oil output of 2.5 million b/d, most of which is produced in the impoverished Niger Delta.

Zamani said a security guard had been killed in clashes on Feb. 4, but a spokesman for the local community said at least two protestors had been killed.

The deployment of troops came just a day after a report issued by New York-based Human Rights Watch, which called on the Nigerian government to pursue a comprehensive strategy to tackle theft of crude oil and stop the flow of small arms into the Niger Delta.

The report, "Guns, Oil, and Power in Nigeria's Rivers State," said the recent violence in Rivers State is primarily the result of a struggle between two local factions—the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force (NDPVF) and the Niger Delta Vigilante (NDV)—for control over illegal oil revenues.

Faction threats
HRW said the current trouble started Sept. 27, 2004, when NDPVF leader Alhaji Dokubo Asari repeated his threat to launch an 'all-out war' in the Niger Delta—sending shock waves through the oil industry—unless the federal government ceded greater control of the region's vast oil resources to the Ijaw people.

At 10 million, the Ijaw are Nigeria's fourth largest ethnic group and are considered masters of the forests and waterways of the Niger Delta.

Asari's threat followed the deployment of federal troops to quell months of intense fighting between the NDPVF and the NDV, led by Ateke Tom.

"The threat also provoked an immediate response from multinational oil companies, global financial markets, and Nigerian government officials," HRW said.

Shell Petroleum Development Co. shut down a facility that produces some 28,000 b/d "because security concerns prevented the company from traveling to the area to fix a technical problem," the report said.

HRW said, "The threat of supply disruption rattled already twitchy oil markets and helped push global crude prices above an unprecedented $50/bbl."

The violence between Asari's NDPVF and Tom's NDV occurred mainly in riverine villages southeast and southwest of Port Harcourt and within Port Harcourt itself.

HRW said it found strong evidence to suggest that senior members of the state government at one time gave financial or logistical support to Asari and Tom, laying the foundations for a later conflict that would spin out of control.

Both the leaders of armed groups and their backers have been emboldened by the prevailing culture of impunity.

HRW said, "Across the Niger Delta, as throughout Nigeria, impunity from prosecution for individuals responsible for serious human rights abuses has created a devastating cycle of increasing conflict and violence."

To bring about long-term change, it said, the government must disarm the rival groups and develop a meaningful strategy with the oil industry, donor governments, and international financial institutions to address the absence of educational and employment opportunities for youth in the Niger Delta.

Underlying factors fueling the violence such as oil bunkering, or stealing large quantities of oil for resale on the black market, and problems associated with the community development strategies of oil companies must be also be resolved, HRW said.

The Nigerian industry is prey to organized gangs of heavily armed criminals who tap pipelines and siphon oil.

Smugglers sell an estimated 100,000 b/d to foreign refineries. The multimillion-dollar profits from the trade have fed the arms race among the pirate gangs and ethnic militias who ply the waterways of the Niger Delta.

To help control the problem, the Nigerian navy has bought 15 patrol boats from the US to fight piracy and the smuggling of stolen crude.

Last December, Capt. Sinefi Hungiapuko said four of the boats were to have been received by the second week of January.

He expected the remaining 11 boats to be delivered before the end of 2005.

Hungiapuko said the boats would be deployed to the high seas and the Niger Delta to curb piracy and illegal thefts of crude and petroleum products.

"The boats are specifically made to track down vessels used for illegal bunkering. They can go to the high seas and all routes used for these nefarious activities," he said.