If the popular militia group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), needed an excuse to snap out of the post-amnesty lull, then Emmanuel Uduaghan, the Delta State governor, gave them an ample dose.
It was Mr. Uduaghan’s statement, MEND claims, that provoked the group to make a detour from their usual pipeline or crude oil related attacks. To simply blow up a Shell Petroleum pipeline – or whichever unlucky oil company it was that held the attention of the group at the moment – was no longer enough. MEND had to do something a bit more original. A bomb scare, was a natural choice.
What could be more original than to set up a bomb, or two, within the Delta State government house? What setting could be more interesting than an assembly of at least three governors from the Niger Delta region, who incidentally are not particularly MEND-friendly?
What, indeed, could be more dramatic than to send an alert, western-movie style if you please, that a bomb was to be remotely detonated in a certain location and at a certain hour?
If MEND had the aim to scare Mr. Uduaghan and register the reality of their existence, nay in the core of his being, then they accomplished that – and more.
So many camps, so many groups
MEND has never been a single militia group and cannot pretend to be so. The general structure of MEND reads like a franchise. Henry Okah, who is thought to be the leader of MEND, confirmed this in an interview with NEXT last year, describing the group as ‘an amalgam of a number of formerly independent militia commanders’.
Government Ekpemupolo, known as Tompolo, was the head of Camp 5; Ateke Tom headed Camp 4. These camps were not necessarily militia camps set up by ‘MEND’. They were camps built up by different groups under different names. A nomenclatural war, therefore, should not be in the radar. In fact, one can hardly blame Mr. Uduaghan for expressing a bit of confusion over MEND.
However, to dismiss the group as a figment of imagination would be tantamount to saying that the rivers in the delta region are not a huge mass of polluted water. Mr. Uduaghan could well have said that Saro Wiwa did not die for the cause of resource control in the Niger Delta.
MEND, therefore, could justify its chagrin at the cheek of the governor.
But MEND should ask itself how effective its actions will be. Shouldn’t it be of more effect for MEND to think of ways to cause a legislative change that will grant the Niger Delta states complete control of their mineral resources.
Unfortunately, MEND has one strategy: to destroy oil facilities and bring crude oil production to a halt. By that, it believes that the federal government would be more ready to listen to its demands.
Smart or foolish?
MEND’s actions, last Tuesday, were more than anything, a wake up call to the Nigeria’s leaders. It was an announcement of the dismal state of security in our state. It was a statement that all is not well in the Niger Delta and that an amnesty program, which is more a mirage than reality, does not drive away the reality of corruption-induced lack.
Once again, it is shown that Nigeria have young brilliant minds, who should be gainfully employed, but who have instead put their minds to negative use.
Any post amnesty programme has got to be more than a photo shoot of former militants, fake or genuine, brandishing automatic rifles and bazookas. It has got to be more than collecting young, educated, and restless youth in a camp to teach them questionable skills in the name of ‘rehabilitating’ them.
And it must certainly mean more than allocating funds for repentant militants and then turning around to loot same funds by inserting ‘ghost workers’ in the repentant militants’ pay roll.
These guys are not stupid. At the very least, last week’s bomb scare has proven that.