Why hostage taking is increasing in Niger Delta ��Navy

The Navy Headquarters said some militants resorted to such criminal activities because they could no longer engage in illegal oil bunkering owing to naval operations in the area.

The Navy said it was regrettable that the few criminal elements, who claimed to be fighting for the people, were actually unleashing terror on them, stressing, however, that there was no cause for alarm as the authorities were on top of the situation.

The Director of Information, Naval Headquarters, Capt. Henry Babalola, stated this in his assessment of the upsurge in criminal activities in the oil-rich Niger Delta area.

He told our correspondent on Friday that recent figures released by the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation and Shell confirmed a drastic reduction in illegal oil bunkering in the area.

He said, �It is because we have reduced illegal oil bunkering and cheap money is no longer there, that is why you have kidnapping on the increase.

�If through some policing by the Navy, we are able to reduce the figure of illegal bunkering.

�If you check Shell and NNPC records, illegal oil bunkering is going down. But illegal bunkering, hostage taking, piracy, sea robbery, kidnappings are intertwind because you have some criminal elements masquerading as emancipators.

�What do they resort to? They rob banks; take hostages, carry out sea robbery; attack fishing trawlers, because it is the same group of people that are involved in illegal bunkering.�

He described illegal oil bunkering, kidnapping, abduction, hostage taking, sea robbery and piracy as a different side of the same coin.

The director said that it had been observed that once illegal bunkering was declining, there would be corresponding increase in hostage taking and abduction �because it is the same group of people that are involved.�

The naval spokesman however, said that it was wrong to see all attacks by criminals in the Niger Delta area as the failure of the Navy.

�When they attack a police station, it is seen as the failure of the Navy. But the fact remains that the agency primarily charged with the duty of maintaining law and order in Nigeria constitutionally is still the Nigerian Police Force,� he maintained.

Babalola, who insisted that security agencies operating in the Niger Delta area were on top of the situation, said that it was an irony that the same people who claimed to be emancipators of the Niger Delta robbed, raped and killed the people they claimed to be fighting for.

He added, �There is this misconception about the Niger Delta. I will start from pipelines. A lot of pipelines pass through villages. There is no naval base, for instance, in Ugheli. It is not a Navy problem as such. If they broke into a pipeline on-shore, it is the duty of the Nigeria Police to provide law and order.

�It is the secondary role of the military and the military will come in only when the police have been overwhelmed. That is what we call aid to civil authority. So, if a pipeline in one village in Ugheli area is attacked or if they break a pipeline in that area, it is not a Navy problem. It is wrong to see every thing that happens in the Niger Delta as a Navy problem.

�The secondary role, is that there is a Joint Task Force in place in the Niger Delta headed by a brigadier-general in the Army. We have naval component of the JTF, we have Army component and Air Force component. So it is wrong to heap all the blame on the Navy when anything goes wrong in the Niger Delta. With off-shore, it is definitely the duty of the Navy.

�That is why you find at any time, we have a minimum of two ships at sea and the condition they patrol, honestly, if we show you, you know that we are really working because they go to Bonga Oil Field and others and most of these are new multi-billion dollar off-shore investment that the government is bringing because the new thing is to explore off-shore because of the problem on-shore.

�In the last 20 months, nothing has happened around that place.�

According to him, between Bayelsa and Rivers states, there are 3,014 river entrances, creeks and rivers. He added, �These entrances lead to the Atlantic Ocean and they also lead to settlements and villages, where you have pirates, robbers and other criminals. If the Nigerian Navy has about 12 boats to patrol 3,014 estuaries and entrances, then you will know that it is grossly inadequate.�

Nonetheless, he said the government was sensitive to the needs of Navy adding, �As you are aware, we are going to take delivery of patrol boats, some 31-metre defence boats and two attack helicopters. No doubt, they are going to improve our precarious situation, but it still falls short of the number we need. So, it is not that you have somebody in the navy that is not doing his work. Far from it.

�We are not shifting blame. The Joint Task Force operates along the water ways. The marine police operates along the water ways and the Nigerian Inland Ways Authority Police operate along the water ways. But people like to see it from the narrow prism. Once something happens along the water ways, it is Navy problem.

�The strategy of the present Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Ganiyu Adekeye, is that there is no way we can win the war by going to the communities when it is not our primary duty. Again, it is difficult because of the spread.

�That is why our strategy has been that you can break the pipelines, but the barges you use to collect the crude cannot undertake the hazardous traverse of Atlantic voyage to smuggle the crude. So, what we do, we lay in wait off-shore because they must supply some depot ships, which are usually stationed off-shore. We concluded that if a barge carrying crude does not have a depot ship to give to, you are discouraging them. That has been our tactics in the last 19 months.

�You are fighting to emancipate the Niger Delta, a hard working fisher woman will go and fish, she will sell the proceeds, you will attack her on the way and take the money, the same person you say you are fighting for.

�The people that bear the brunt are the hard working and honest Niger Deltans almost 99.9 per cent.�