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Turbulent Oil: Conflict and Insecurity in

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a b
Michael J. Watts & Ibaba Samuel Ibaba
a
University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA
b
Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island, Bayelsa State, Nigeria
Published online: 18 Mar 2011.

To cite this article: Michael J. Watts & Ibaba Samuel Ibaba (2011): Turbulent Oil: Conflict and
Insecurity in the Niger Delta, African Security, 4:1, 1-19

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ISSN: 1939-2206 print / 1939-2214 online
DOI: 10.1080/19392206.2011.563181

Turbulent Oil: Conflict and

Insecurity in the Niger Delta
Michael J. Watts1 and Ibaba Samuel Ibaba2
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1
University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA
2
Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island, Bayelsa State, Nigeria
ABSTRACT. The Niger Delta region of Nigeria has been engulfed by oil-related con-
flict for over two decades now, and concerns pertaining to Nigeria’s national security,
economic stability, and global energy security have been brought to the fore of global
discourse. This paper reflects on the character and dynamics of oil turbulence and
in particular the transformation of the conflict from a community protest against
oil industry operations to insurgency and the counterinsurgent responses by state
security forces. The article indentifies the availability of arms, endemic corruption,
state violence, patterns of corporate practice, and the politics of oil revenue distribu-
tion as central to the origins of the contemporary crisis. The paper interrogates the
amnesty program and draws attention to incomplete disarmament, poor post amnesty
rehabilitation, and political contradictions as possible threats to its success.
KEYWORDS. Amnesty, militia groups, insurgency, petro-state, Niger Delta, energy
security

Oil is fluid and fugitive.

—Petrogeologist, cited in Variant (2007)

INTRODUCTION
The first barrels of Nigerian crude oil destined for the world market departed
from Port Harcourt harbor almost fifty years ago, on February 17, 1958. To nav-
igate its way through the shallows of the Bonny River, the 18,000 ton tanker
Hemifusus left from the Port Harcourt dockside half full. A shuttle tanker
accompanied the Hemifusus to Bonny Bar, eight miles from the coast, where
another 9,000 tons was pumped into the hold. The oil on board had been dis-
covered in the central Niger Delta in 1956 at Oloibiri, a small, remote creek
community near Yenagoa—now the capital of Bayelsa state—located ninety
kilometers to the west of Port Harcourt. Wildcatters had begun drilling in 1951
in the northern and eastern reaches of what was then called Eastern Nigeria,

Address correspondence to Michael J. Watts, University of California, Berkeley,

Berkeley, CA 94720. E-mail: mwatts@berkeley.edu
 2 Michael J. Watts and Ibaba Samuel Ibaba

and finally on August 3, 1956, discovered oil in commercial quantities in ter-

tiary deposits at 12,000 feet. In its first year of operations Oloibiri produced
5000 barrels of heavy (“sour”) crude oil each day. A year later, the first crude
oil pipeline connecting Oloibiri to Kugbo Bay, seven miles distant, came on line.
Two hundred ton barges shuttled the oil to two storage tanks in Port Harcourt;
from there it was then shipped to the Shell haven refinery at the mouth of the
River Thames. Within a few weeks of its arrival, Nigerian gasoline was fuel-
ing automobiles in and around London, the new symbols of postwar British
prosperity. The Nigerian oil industry had been born.
When the first helicopters landed in Oloibiri in 1956 near St. Michael’s
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Church to the astonishment of local residents, few could have predicted what
was to follow. A camp was quickly built for workers, prefabricated houses,
electricity, water, and a new road followed. Shell-BP (as it then was) sunk
seventeen more wells in Oloibiri, and the field came to yield, during its life-
time, over twenty million barrels of crude oil before oil operations came to a
close twenty years after the first discovery. Misery, scorched earth, and capped
wellheads are all that remain now.
In the decade that followed, the Nigerian oil industry grew quickly in scale
and complexity. A giant field was quickly discovered at Bomu in Ogoniland,
west of Port Harcourt in 1958, and Shell-BP, which had acquired 46 oil mining
leases covering 15,000 square miles, rapidly expanded its operations across
the oil basin. Ten years of feverish activity saw the opening of the Bonny
tanker terminal in April 1961, the extension of the pipeline system includ-
ing the completion of the Trans Niger Pipeline in 1965 connecting the oilfields
in the western Delta near Ughelli to the Bonny export terminal, and the com-
ing on stream of twelve “giant” oil fields including the first offshore discovery
at Okan near Escravos in 1964. Oil tankers lined the Cawthorne Channel like
participants in a local regatta, plying the same waterways that, in the distant
past, housed slave ships and palm oil hulks. By 1967, three hundred miles of
pipelines had been constructed and one and half million feet of wells sunk;
output had ballooned to 275,000 barrels per day (b/d). By the first oil boom
in 1973, Nigerian oil crude production was comparable to the present day (2.4
million b/d), accounting for more than 3.5% of world output. Nigeria the oil
nation had arrived. Despite the slide into a bloody civil war—the Biafra War
1967–1970—fought on and around its oilfields, the Niger Delta (ND) had come
of age. Nigeria emerged as a theater of major significance in the global search
for low cost, high quality oil. By some industry estimations, the Nigerian
exchequer now takes in over $1.5 billion in oil revenues each and every week,
supplying a larger share of U.S. crude imports than Saudi Arabia. A rusting
sign sits next to the “Christmas tree”—the capped wellhead—at Oloibiri. Well
No. 1. It reads: Drilled June 1956. Depth: 12,000 feet (3,7000 meters).
It is a monument to an exploit-and-abandon culture, just as Oloibiri
itself is a poster child for all of the ills and failed promises of what Ryszard
 Turbulent Oil 3

Kapuscinski1 calls the fairy tale of oil. In the 1960s the town had a popula-
tion of 10,000; it is now a wretched backwater, a sort of rural slum home to
barely one thousand souls who might as well live in another century. It has no
running water, no electricity, no roads, and no functioning primary school. The
creeks have been so heavily dredged, canalized, and polluted that traditional
rural livelihoods have been eviscerated. “I have explored for oil in Venezuela
and . . . Kuwait” said a British engineer, “but I have never seen an oil-rich town
as impoverished as Oloibiri.”2 In the past few years the town has been rocked
by youth violence. The Aso Rock armed “cult group” dethroned the traditional
ruler amid allegations of corruption and half-finished community development
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projects.
It is a bleak picture, a dark tale of neglect and unremitting misery. Oloibiri
said one local is now a “useless cast-away snail shell after its meat has
been extracted and eaten by the government and SPDC [Shell Petroleum
Development Company].”3 When I (Michael Watts) visited in 2001, the chief,
drunk on local gin, thrust into my hand a tattered copy of the original lease
agreement with Shell, hoping that I might be able to explain why the terms
of the agreement had been abrogated. As if to mock the sad fact that Oloibiri
is a now a sort of fossil, the piece of detritus cast off by the oil industry, a
gaudy plaque dating from a presidential visit in 2001, sits next to Well No. 1.
It is a foundation stone for the Oloibiri Oil and Gas Research Institute and for
a museum and library, homage to Oloibiri and the early history of oil. Noble
ideas. But the ground has not been broken, and it never will be. Regularly
defaced, the plaque is policed by touts looking for a commission from erstwhile
visitors who want to record where it all began, the ground zero of Nigeria’s
oil age.
Oloibiri’s intimate association with oil contains another crucial lesson, this
time a sort of prophesy. It was here that Isaac Adaka Boro, an Ijaw nation-
alist and leader of the Niger Delta Volunteer Service (“remember . . . your
petroleum . . . pumped out daily from your veins and then fight for your
freedom”) was born at midnight on September 10, 1938. Declaring an inde-
pendent Niger Delta Republic on February 24, 1966, Boro’s famous “Twelve
Day Revolution” was a foretaste of what was to come twenty years later as the
abandonment and despoliation felt so harshly by Oloibiri was replicated, with
terrifying fidelity, across the Niger Delta oil fields. As if to convert tragedy into
farce, in August 2010 the Governor of Bayelsa state announced his intention
to build, with Chinese finance, a Greenfield oil refinery at Oloibiri.4
These industrial landscapes—let’s call them petrolic surfaces—become,
over time, relics and ruins, residual and abandoned landscapes. The trans-
formative powers of oil, that is to say the human ecology of hydrocarbon
capitalism, dwarf virtually every other sector (with perhaps the exception of
the specter of nuclear winter). The collateral damage associated with produc-
ing and moving vast quantities of oil—the nightmare of 1989 Exxon Valdes,
 4 Michael J. Watts and Ibaba Samuel Ibaba

the 2010 Gulf of Mexico spill, and the massive scarification of the Canadian
tar sands—is hard to calculate. In any inventory of the most polluted spots on
the face of the earth, the oil field figures prominently. Virtually none of these
costs show up in the price consumers pay at the gas pump. When deployed
as a target of war or insurgency, oil infrastructure becomes a weapon all of
its own. The stunning aerial images of Kuwait’s incendiary oilfields, detonated
by Saddam’s retreating forces in 1991, have become part of the iconography
of war. The underwater rupture in the Gulf of Mexico confirms the popular
suspicion of an industry sustained by a culture of irresponsible risk-taking,
cutthroat cost-cutting, and the unregulated lawlessness of the oil frontier.
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TURBULENCE IN THE NIGER DELTA

The Niger Delta (see Figure 1), one of the largest wetlands in the world and
the largest delta in Africa,5 is home to Nigeria’s oil and gas industry, which
accounts for 80 percent of government revenue, 95 percent of exports receipts,

Figure 1: The Niger Delta. (Color online only.)

 Turbulent Oil 5

and 90 percent of foreign exchange earnings.6 The country is estimated to

have earned over $600 from oil sales between 1960 and 2006 alone7 as well
as about $4 billion annually from the sale of natural gas.8 In the past two
decades, the region has witnessed protracted violent conflicts, which turned to
armed insurgency in the past few years. Militia groups such as the Movement
for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) and many others confronted
the Nigerian military and disrupted oil production, gas development and elec-
tricity generation projects, and electricity generation. In 2009, for example,
shut downs in oil production caused by such attacks led to 25 percent decline
in oil production.9 Such disruptions have affected national revenue, budget
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implementation, and development planning. According to Watts,10

The costs of this turmoil had been vast. Direct assaults to oil installations and
infrastructure cost the Nigerian government $6.8 billion losses in revenue from
1999 to 2004. . . . Currently the conflicts cost Nigeria $60 million per day, roughly
$4.4 billion per annum in damages and lost revenue. In May 2007, Nigeria drew
upon $2.7 billion from its “domestic excess crude” (a windfall profits account) to
plug revenue shortfalls from oil deferment.

Other statistics indicate that the country lost $17,120,320,000 in 2006,

$18,805,262,000 in 2007, and $20,720,842,000 in 2008 to attacks and dis-
ruptions on the oil industry and oil theft/bunkering.11 Similarly, Obi12 has
reported that due to militia attacks, the country’s oil production dropped from
2.6 million barrels per day in 2005 to 1.3 million barrels per day in June 2009
(see Figures 2 and 3). Beyond the losses in oil revenue is the threat the fall
in oil production pose to energy security of Nigeria and other countries such
as the United States, who import Nigerian oil. Furthermore, the fluctuations
in oil price associated with disruptions in oil production also affect economic
growth and socioeconomic stability. This partly explains the convergence of
interests between U.S. energy security and security in the Niger Delta.13
Despite the 2009 amnesty program, which resulted in the surrender of
firearms, the renunciation of militancy by over 20,000 militia youths, the ces-
sation of attacks on oil installations, and the subsequent rise in oil production,
concerns on insecurity in the region are still very high. Perhaps pointing to
cracks in the postamnesty environment, this year MEND has claimed respon-
sibility for two major twin car bombing attacks: the first in March in Warri,14
Delta state (Niger Delta), and then in October in Abuja,15 the nation’s capi-
tal. The Warri attack occurred at a government building where a postamnesty
dialogue was being held.
This concern pertains to a number of issues. First, although oil is not the
only natural resource in Nigeria, it is the “main object of intra-elite, factional,
regional and identity struggles over who controls and benefits from it.”16 One
way of tackling the violence will be through economic diversification and devel-
opment of industries outside of the oil and gas sector. This can be done through
 6 Michael J. Watts and Ibaba Samuel Ibaba
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Figure 2: Nigeria crude oil production 2006–2009.

Figure 3: Pipeline breaks, 1999–2007.

 Turbulent Oil 7

the development of other natural resources in addition to building up agro-

industrial linkages that could help address the crisis of unemployment not
only in the region but throughout the country. However, current policies are
not addressing this effectively. Second, since the 1960s the conflict has taken
several turns. Mapping the conflict reveals multiple periods, such as a time
when the central issue was community agitations for development attention
and demands for the payment of compensation for damages caused by oil com-
pany activities. Succeeding events resulted in sabotage of oil installations, oil
theft, militarization of the region by the Nigerian state and the militarization
of the conflict by the raft of different groups which cross-cut villages, classes,
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social networks, ethnic groups, and oil companies. The following section maps
the conflict in greater detail.

MAPPING THE CONFLICT: FROM PROTEST TO INSURGENCEY

The history of struggles over oil in the Niger delta, and the complex politics
(violent and nonviolent) that surround them, have a deep history, long pre-
ceding Ken Saro-Wiwa’s famous Ogoni movement (see Figure 4). The 1966
revolt of Major Isaac Adaka Boro and the Niger Delta Volunteer Service
(NDVS) over the deprivation and neglect of the Ijaw areas of the Niger Delta
marked a sharp thrust in agitations in the area. Delta political leaders from

Figure 4: Integrated graph documenting Nigerian oil resources, phases of conflict and
militancy, and key political events. (Color online only.)
 8 Michael J. Watts and Ibaba Samuel Ibaba

the region had made presentations in which they expressed fears of domina-
tion and neglect in postindependent Nigeria, which led to the establishment of
the Willink Commission by the colonial government. The commission was to
“(1) ascertain the facts about the fears of minorities in any part of Nigeria
and to propose means of allaying those fears, whether well or ill founded;
(2) To advise what safeguards should be included for this in the constitution
of Nigeria.”17 Although the commission acknowledged the fears of domina-
tion and possible neglect to development (particularly because of the harsh
geographical terrain that makes development initiatives more expensive and
difficult), it disagreed with the preferred solutions to create separate states.
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Therefore, it recommended that the region be declared as a special area for

development and suggested the creation of a special body for that purpose. In
response, the Nigerian government established the Niger Delta Development
Board (NDDB). However, democratization, a fundamental requirement made
by the commission for the enhancement of development and mitigation of
ethnicity-based political domination, was not realized in postindependent
Nigeria. Consequently, the Niger Delta was neglected and deprived.
Authoritarian rule, which expressed itself in military governance and the
use of the Nigerian state to pursue the interest of the custodians of state power,
exacerbated the development plight of the ND. The gradual reductions in the
derivation component of revenue allocation from 50 percent at independence
to 1.5 percent in 1984, the proliferation of states and local government areas,
and the introduction of other criteria of revenue allocation such as need, pop-
ulation, and equality of states denied the Niger Delta area adequate funds for
development.18 The marginalization of the region provided the context within
which protests and popular agitations transformed from one phase to another,
as shown in Table 1.
The protests and agitations were initially peaceful, but they escalated for
a number of reasons. First, policies of the transnational oil companies and
government and the arrogance and insensitivity of some government func-
tionaries. The oil industry, in addition to neglecting their corporate social
responsibilities in the areas of development assistance and environmental pro-
tection, invited security operatives to quell protests. The security responses
led to violence and the visitation of terror on the local population in many
instances. This incensed the people and led to counterviolence. Government
functionaries fueled the conflict with insensitive comments and remarks. One
of such statements credited to Mr. Philip Asiodu is the following:

Like in many areas of the world, the regions here oil is found in this coun-
try are very inhospitable. They are mainly found in the swamps and creeks.
They require massive injection of money if their conditions and standards of
living are to compare with what attains elsewhere in the country where pos-
sibilities of agriculture and diversified industry are much greater. There is a
 Turbulent Oil 9
Table 1: Phases of conflicts in the Niger Delta

Period

Pre-independence Agitation for special developmental attention because of

unique ecological difficulties
1966 Militant insurgent engagement by Adaka Boro and the
NDVS. Separation or autonomy was the goal of
engagement.
1970s Agitations by host communities against oil TNC’s
demanding for basic social infrastructure/amenities and
payment of compensation for damages to land and
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property.
Mid 1980s Conflict between host communities and oil. MNC’s
overpayment of adequate compensation for damages
to property. Litigation was the instrument of engagement.
1990–1996 (a) Emergence of civil, community, ethnic, and regional
groupings in response to state and oil TNC’s insensitivity
and repression.
(b) Peaceful demonstrations by host communities and
occupation of oil production facilities, demanding for
adequate compensation for damages and
development attention.
1997–2009 (a) Militant and militia actions against 0il TNC’s
(b) Demand for resource ownership and control by civil,
political, and militia groups
(c) Violent confrontations and low intensity war between
militia groups and the military

Source: Adapted from Ibaba and Ikelegbe33

nudging acceptance of the special needs of oil producing areas in the last pro-
posals being discussed by the government, but I believe there is a long way to
go to meet the claims of the oil producing areas which see themselves as losing
non-replaceable resources while replaceable and permanent resources of agricul-
ture and industry are being developed elsewhere largely with oil revenue. Given
however the small size and population of the oil producing areas, it is not cyni-
cal to observe that even if the resentments of the oil producing areas continue,
they cannot threaten the stability of the country nor affect its continued economic
development.19

Mr Asioudu, who made this statement at a public lecture in 1980, later became
the chief economic adviser to former president Olusegun Obasanjo during his
tenure as Nigeria’s elected leader from 1999–2003. This statement incensed
the people and became an instrument of mobilization against the state and
the oil industry. This arrogance probably explains the contempt with which the
Niger Delta has been treated by past Nigerian leaders, a contempt that deep-
ened the development plight of the people and created the objective conditions
for protests and agitations to continue.20
 10 Michael J. Watts and Ibaba Samuel Ibaba

A second reason for the escalation of the conflict was corruption. The
protests in the region, which is largely led by the youths, yielded some results
as the derivation of revenue was increased from 1.5 percent to 3 percent
in 1992 and later to 13 percent in 2000. The Oil Minerals Producing Areas
Development Commission (OMPADEC) was established in 1992 to manage the
3 percent fund for the development of the region. But as it is widely known, cor-
ruption and related factors inhibited the efficient use of the funds. The Niger
Delta Development Commission (NDDC), which replaced the OMPADEC in
2000, has also been immersed in a number of corruption allegations. A signif-
icant point to note is the huge funds that flowed into the Niger Delta when
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the 13 percent derivation fund was implemented. Available data shows, for
instance, that in 2007, the six Niger Delta states of Akwa-Ibom, Bayelsa,
Cross River, Delta, Edo, and Rivers states, received $4 billion out of the total
of $11 billion distributed among the 36 states which make up the Nigerian
federation.21 The flow of monies through state and local government has done
little to improve living conditions, meaning that the problems of develop-
ment such as the lack of potable water, health facilities, electricity, poverty,
unemployment, etc. that drive the conflict have not been attended to. The
allocation of funds neglects the provision of basic social amenities and infras-
tructure, as huge funds are spent on white elephant projects such airports, new
government houses, etc., which facilitates the stealing of public funds.
The third point is the availability of arms in the region. In 2004, the Rivers
state government embarked on arms for cash deal to help restore peace. In that
exercise, the following firearms were submitted. See Table 2.
Comparably, in 2010, the federal government amnesty committee reported
that over 287,000 different types of ammunitions—about three thousand mag-
azines, two thousand explosives and dynamites, and eighteen gun boats22 —
were submitted by different militia groups and their members, who accepted
the amnesty. Although, in the two cases cited previously, the widespread view
is that not all firearms in the creeks and hands of militia groups were sub-
mitted, this is not the issue for debate here. But the large volumes of arms
surrendered show their centrality in the violence. The question is what moti-
vated the proliferation of arms in the region. In short, the commoditization
of violence in the Nigerian electoral process, interethnic conflicts such as the
type between the Ijaws and Itsekiris in Warri Delta state, intra- and inter-
community conflicts, and chieftaincy squabbles have been noted as motivating
factors.23
The identified costs and sources of the aforementioned firearms provide
further insights into the dynamics of weapons proliferation in the Niger
Delta.24 In terms of costs, firearms are relatively affordable. For example,
rough costs for some weapons are: shotgun ($570); Kalashnikov rifle ($850),
and bazooka ($2,150).25 Money to procure such items is easy to come by
given the huge incomes from oil theft (bunkering), kidnapping, and corrupt
 Turbulent Oil 11
Table 2: Firearms submitted during the arms for cash
deal in rivers state in 2004

Type of firearm Number submitted

Assault Riffles 778

AK-47’s 324
Czech SA Vz 58 429
HK C3 22
FN-FAL 22
Shotguns 3
Light Machine guns 19
Berretta 125 12
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MAT 49 2
Czech model 26 2
Sten MK 2 7
Machine guns 1
Czech model 59 (Rachol) 2
MG 36 1
Hunting Rifles 3
Pistols 9
Revolvers 4
Craft weapons 17
Shotguns 10
Revolvers 7
Air guns 1
Total 1675

Source: Osaghae, Ikelegbe, Olarinmoye and Okhomina34

government officials and other conflict profiteers. As for sources, arms are
provided through a number of channels, namely security personnel, partic-
ularly those who served in peacekeeping operations in Liberia and Sierra
Leone; politicians who provide funds and contacts to buy arms for their
supporters during the electoral cycle; traditional rulers who arm youths for
self-protection; militia groups that exchange stolen oil with firearms with their
collaborators; and cult/gangs and militia groups that attack and capture arms
from security operatives or actually buy them from “leaky” military institu-
tions. The ease with which firearms are acquired is captured by the following
quote:

One group leader claims that arms are available from vessels moored just
off the coast of Rivers State, and can be purchased by anybody who can afford
them. For example, Asari Pointed out that “we are very close to international
waters, and it’s very easy to get weapons from ships, we have AK-47s, general-
purpose machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades” Warri, the capital of Delta
State, is also known as a major arms trafficking hub. Smugglers from Guinea-
Bisau, Gabon, and Cameroon reportedly use speedboats to reach offshore ships
and purchase guns that they then sell to their respective communities in Warri,
where they are often trafficked elsewhere.26
 12 Michael J. Watts and Ibaba Samuel Ibaba

The fourth point is the militarization of the region. In response to the strong
state security presence, many militia groups (armed nonstate groups) emerged
to engage the security operatives in armed confrontation. The Movement for
the Emancipation of The Niger Delta (MEND), an umbrella body for numerous
militia groups, stands out as the most prominent. Related to this is the freedom
that came with the return of democracy in Nigeria in 1999. With the end of
military dictatorship, the atmosphere for protests became conducive, and this
also encouraged the formation and proliferation of militia groups. A signif-
icant feature of the militia-led violence was the “capability and willingness
of the people to directly confront federal and state security forces, through
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a skillful deployment of the sophisticated firearms at their disposal in the

mangrove creeks.”27 The modus operandi of these groups include attacks on
oil facilities/equipments and disruption of oil production, targeting security
operatives, kidnapping and hostage taking of oil company personnel, and oil
theft/illegal oil bunkering. Such activities coupled with the proliferation of
arms by militia groups have endangered national and human security (see
Figure 5). It is estimated that as of 2008, about one thousand lives have been

Figure 5: Kidnapping incidents in the Niger Delta, 2006–2009

 Turbulent Oil 13

lost to the militia conflict, and another three hundred taken hostage.28 This
excludes the lives that have been lost due to attacks by security operatives.
A classic example is Umuechem community in Rivers state, where reprisal
attacks by the mobile police force in October 1990 led to the destruction of
495 houses and several deaths.29 The police had earlier lost a colleague when
they were called in to quell an oil-based protest in the community. Another
example is Odi community in Bayelsa state that was completely destroyed by
the Nigerian military in November 1999. Again, this was a reprisal attack over
the killing of eight police personnel by militant youths based in the commu-
nity. One fundamental outcome of such destructions and oppressive security
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presence is forced migration, population displacement, deprivation, violation of

fundamental human rights such as freedom of movement and fear of insecurity.

FROM INSURGENCY TO AMNESTY

The April 2007 elections were recognized as perhaps the most corrupt
in Nigerian history. Nowhere was electoral fraud and intimidation more
pronounced than in the Niger Delta. Nonetheless, deeply flawed elections and a
victory by the ruling People’s Democratic Party produced a Ijaw vice president,
Goodluck Jonathan, an ecologist from Bayelsa state, with strong connections
to a younger generation of activists and civic groups. Umaru Musa Yar’Adua,
the new Nigerian president—a machine politician from an influential Katsina
political family in northern Nigeria—clearly put some stock in his Niger Delta
running mate’s capacity to address the insurgency. Initially there were some
positive signs. For example, in June 2007 Ijaw leader Asari Dokubo was
released from detention and, in the following month, Chief Alamieyeseigha
met key demands of many of the Ijaw militants, which included the release of
Dokubo and Alamieyeseigha. Alamieyeseigha, the former governor of Bayelsa
state, was apprehended in London for money laundering but escaped, dressed
in drag, to triumphantly return to the Delta, wherein some quarters of the
Ijaw community hailed him as a freedom fighter. Whatever their respective
track records, both are seen as Ijaw heroes to many across the Delta.
None of this is made easier by the constant drumbeat of U.S. geopolitics
and regional militarization. In February 2006 Nigeria’s vice president, Atiku
Abubakar, unsuccessfully requested two hundred patrol boats and a military
package from the United States. In turn, Nigeria appealed directly to China
for military aid, citing that the United States was slow to support them in
this area. The Financial Times cited the Africa director at the Washington-
based Center for Strategic and International Studies, Stephen Morrison, to
the effect that the “Chinese are very competitive players and we have to come
to terms with that. They are going to places that really do matter.”30 It is in
the intersection of a more aggressive scramble for African oil by China and
 14 Michael J. Watts and Ibaba Samuel Ibaba

the U.S. twin concerns of secure oil supply (national energy security) and the
global “War on Terror” that a perfect storm of political volatility is created.
American energy security has always been military in tone since at least
the 1930s, but after 9/11 it was merged into the portfolio of the global “War
on Terror” (GWOT). What distinguishes this military incorporation is a trio of
forces: first, a proactive counterterrorism effort rather than training for peace-
keeping and human rights; second, the growing role of China in African oil
zones; and third, bureaucratic competition among the regional commands of
the U.S. military. Former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld offered a new
strategic doctrine, force transformation, which emphasized flexible mobility
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operating through a network of “lillypads” in conflicted zones such as the Gulf

and thereby reinforced the strategic shift to counterterrorism in Africa. In
short, the GWOT offered the U.S. European Command (USEUCOM) strate-
gists an opportunity to compensate for lost opportunities by looking southward
and repositioning and redeploying their forces to the Sahel and the Gulf of
Guinea. All of this was facilitated by an unholy alliance of energy lobbyists,
politicians, and right-wing activists who promoted the new energy security–
military fix.31 The establishment of the African Command (AFRICOM) is 2007,
while draped in the double-speak of humanitarian assistance, development,
military professionalization, and so on, is rooted in the need to police what
the U.S. military calls the “ungoverned spaces” in which political Islam and
oil insurgents can flourish.32 The geopolitical issues provided a sort of ether in
which the complex dynamics of the Niger delta unfolded, and they contributed
directly to the widely held beliefs in the creeks that the Nigerian government
was not interested in resource control or indeed anything other than acquiring
the oil by any means necessary.
In practice, it was internal rather than foreign intervention forces that
dominated the landscape of contemporary oilfield conflicts. On July 2, 2007,
the federal government inaugurated a twenty-member Peace and Conflict
Resolution Committee for the Niger Delta with Senator David Brigidi and
Hon. Kingsley Kuku as chairman and secretary respectively. The committee,
inaugurated by Vice President Goodluck Jonathan, facilitated the cessation of
hostilities by militants and release of hostages. But the activities of the Brigidi
committee were hampered by the composition of the committee and the overar-
ching mistrust between government officials and the militants. As a result, the
situation continued to deteriorate. In response, in September 2008, the federal
government set up a forty member technical committee on the Niger Delta that
produced a report that emphasized the question of good governance and laid
out a clear plan of action. Unfortunately the recommendations in the report
went unheeded. Meanwhile, in absence of true action, the militancy continued
to escalate. By May 2009 many oil fields were in effect barely functional.
The intensification of militancy resulted in government efforts, led by
the Joint Military Task Force, to launch counterinsurgency attacks that were
 Turbulent Oil 15

carried out mainly in the Western Delta along the so-called Warri axis. This led
to considerable displacement of people, loss of life, and even greater impacts on
oil production, which cut into much needed oil revenues. To quell hostilities, by
June 2009 President Yar’Adua announced a 60 day (from August 6 to October
4, 2009) amnesty package for ex-militants in which militants were expected to
disarm and forswear violence. Arms collection centers and withholding camps
were established, and some twenty thousand militants including most “com-
manders” accepted the amnesty. A budget of $430 million was allocated to a
Presidential Monitoring Committee on Amnesty headed by the Presidential
Adviser on Niger Delta Mr. Timi Alaibe. As part of the program, ex-militants
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were promised monthly stipends of 65,000 NGN (Nigerian naira), roughly

$420, as well as the opportunity to have access to training camps where they
could receive employment training and conflict mediation counseling.
What appeared to be a program with promise was quickly put into jeop-
ardy upon the announcement of President Yar’Adua’s poor health in November
2009, prompting his sudden departure to Saudi Arabia for treatment. Reports
on his condition were minimal, even after he returned to Nigeria in February
2010. During this time Delta native Vice President Goodluck Jonathan became
the acting president until May 2010 when Yar’Adua passed away. Thus, dur-
ing this volatile and uncertain period the amnesty process laid in the hands
of Mr. Jonathan who was grappling with political paralysis in Abuja due to
Yar’Adua’s condition, unrest in the northern city of Jos, and finally an amnesty
process in the south that was wrought with difficulties. Indeed, at this time
there were many speculations that many militants had not taken the amnesty,
that the disarmament process was woefully incomplete, and that many of the
militants who had been waiting in holding camps for months were about to
return to the creeks. Such is the situation in August 2010 with the final if
rather shambolic training camps finally beginning. It is a very delicate situa-
tion, and whether the “Big Four” militant leaders—Asari, Ateke, Farah, and
Boyloaf—will be prepared or indeed able to simply receive state payments
and try and keep their boys from a renewal of militancy remains a very big
question. In March there was the bombing in Warri aimed at the postamnesty
meeting; in August disgruntled militants staged protests in Warri, Yenagoa,
and Abuja; in October an attacked occurred in Abuja on Independence Day;
and more recently attacks on oil infrastructure and energy sector employees
have begun to resurface. The picture is not rosy.

THIS SPECIAL ISSUE

With the aforementioned discussion serving as a backdrop, the March 2010
international conference on “Natural Resource, Security and Development
in the Niger Delta” was convened to interrogate these among other issues.
 16 Michael J. Watts and Ibaba Samuel Ibaba

This meeting, hosted by the Niger Delta University in Yenagoa, sought to

bring scholars of the Niger Delta together to debate the myriad security
and development issues in the region as well as the implications for energy
security. Scholars from various disciplines—ranging from political science to
anthropology—used this platform to highlight trends, propose solutions, and
critique past attempts to bring peace in the region. In this special issue of the
Journal of African Security, we selected papers that bring to light not only the
debates and discussions that were had at this meeting but that also represent
the issues addressed, more broadly, within the resource conflict literature and
the Niger Delta. This issue also aims to bring to light some of the excellent
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scholarship in the region. Many of the authors are either from universities in
Nigeria and/or originate from Nigeria.
In the first paper, Elias Courson of the Niger Delta University, Nigeria,
maps in a systematic manner the emergence of the Movement for the
Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) militia in the Niger Delta. The
paper describes the MEND insurgency as a complicated conflict with var-
ied complex dimensions that cannot be explained merely in terms of greed
and grievance binary and adopts a political economy perspective to the
MEND insurgency, which is sensitive to the deeper history of resource strug-
gles, the relations between the state and the rise of violent politics, and
the geography of the Niger Delta itself (especially the differences between
the east and the west). The analysis highlights the intricate connections
between land dispossession, marginalization, deprivation, political repres-
sion, and insurgency, and it concludes that the resort to the military option
has over the years not only aggravated the problem but has also made the
military part of the problem. The paper calls for a nonviolent, participa-
tory resolution of the conflict and notes that this would set the stage for
dismantling armed local resistance and building sustainable peace in the
region.
The second paper, authored by Mark Davidheiser of Nova Southeastern
University (United States) and Kialee Nyiayaana of the University of Port
Harcourt (Nigeria), the authors examine the amnesty program in the Niger
Delta and argue that rather than achieving demobilization, the program may
end up remobilizing militia groups. The paper argues that essential component
of disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) are peace negotia-
tions and agreement between combatants and the government, but it notes
that the amnesty program was not precede by negotiation, thus creating a gap
that threatens its success. In their view, the amnesty has been constructed as
a gift to the militants and has therefore ignored the fundamental causes of the
conflict. This neglect and the failure to negotiate and agree on the framework
for the amnesty they contend will undermine its success, and thus the article
calls on the Nigerian government to embark on comprehensive negotiations to
redefine the amnesty program.
 Turbulent Oil 17

In the third paper by Adeoye O. Akinola of Obafemi Awolowo University

(Nigeria) examines the nexus between militant’s insurgency in Nigeria’s Niger
Delta and instability in West Africa. The study analyzes the history of conflict
in the Niger Delta and argues that the last decade of violence in the region
has revealed a convergence between militancy and security in West Africa.
It explores how this convergence is seen through the spillover effects of mili-
tancy across Nigerian borders and into the Gulf of Guinea, the impact that the
violence has had on regional energy infrastructure exploration and produc-
tion activities, and the overarching impact on Nigeria’s ability to contribute to
peacekeeping operations and regional partnerships. It notes, for instance, that
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Nigeria’s dwindling oil revenue constrains its investment in peace building in

the subregion as well as the country’s capacity of production, which is essen-
tial for the success of integration programs in West Africa. The paper sees the
tackling of the fundamental issues that triggered the conflict as the most likely
way out of this emerging quagmire.

NOTES
1. Ryzsard, Kapuscinski, “Unraveling the Carbon Web,” 2006, www.platformlondon.
org/cabonweb.
2. A. Rowell, J. Marsiot, and R. Stockman, The Next Gulf (London: Constable, 2005).
3. Cited in Ecumenical Council for Corporate Responsibility (ECCR), “Shell in the
Niger Delta: A Framework for Change-Five Case-studies from civil society,” EECR
Report 34, (2010). Accessed at http://www.eccr.org.uk/module-htmlpages-display-pid-
78.html (2010).
4. “At Last Oloibiri Gets Its Due,” This Day, December 9, 2005. Accessed at http://
www.thisdayonline.info/nview.php?id=179717
5. Joseph Singh, David Moffat, and Olof Linden, Defining an Environmental
Development Strategy for the Niger Delta, (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 1995).
6. A. Ikelegbe, “The Niger Delta and National Security.” Presented at the Workshop
on the Relationship Between the National Assembly and Security Agencies in Security
Management, organized by the National Assembly, Abuja and National Defence
College, Abuja, at Protea Hotel, Asokoro, Abuja, August 19–20.
7. Ibaba, S. I. “Violent Conflicts and Sustainable Development in Bayelsa State,”
Review of African Political Economy 36, no. 122 (2009): 555–573.
8. C. 1. Obi, “Nigeria’s Niger Delta: Understanding the Complex Drivers of Oil-related
Conflict,” Africa Development 34, no. 2 (2009): 3–128.
9. C. I. Obi, “Structuring Transnational Spaces of Identity, Rights and Power in the
Niger Delta,” Globalizations 16, no. 4 (2010): 477.
10. Ibid.
11. Niger Delta Technical Committee Report, November 2008, 19–21.
12. C. I. Obi, “Oil Extraction, Dispossession, Resistance and Conflict in Nigeria’s Oil-
Rich Niger Delta,” Canadian Journal of Development Studies 30, nos. 1–2 (2010):
19–236.
 18 Michael J. Watts and Ibaba Samuel Ibaba

13. P.M. Lubeck, M. J. Watts, and R. Lipschutz, “Convergent Interest: U.S.

Energy Security and the ‘Securing’ of Nigerian Democracy,” Internal Policy Report.
Washington: Center for International Policy, 2007.
14. Owen, Segun, “Militants Threaten Nigerian Oil Industry After Double Car
Bombing,” The Independent, March 16, 2010, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/
world/africa/militants-threaten-oil-industry-after-double-car-bombing-1921834.html.
15. “Car Bomb Attacks on Nigeria’s Independence Day Kill 10,” The Telegraph,
October 1, 2010, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/
nigeria/8037584/Car-bomb-attacks-on-Nigerias-independence-day-kill-10.html.
16. A. Ikelegbe, Violence and Crime in the Resource Conflicts of the Niger Delta Region
of Nigeria: Towards an Explanatory Framework (Benin City: University of Benin, n.d.).
Downloaded by [Dalhousie University] at 08:11 31 May 2013

17. The Willink Commission Report, “Report of the Commission Appointed to Enquire
into the Fears of Minorities and the Means of Allaying Them,” presented to Parliament
by the Secretary to State for the Colonies by Command of Her Majesty, Her Majesty’s
Stationery Office, London, 1958.
18. G. A. Mbanefoh and F. O. Egwaikhide, “Revenue Allocation in Nigeria: Derivation
Principle Revisited,” in Fedealism and Political Restructuring in Nigeria, eds. K.
Amuwo, S. Suberu, A. Agbaje, & G. Herault (Ibanan: Spectrum Books Limited, 1998).
19. Kimse Okoko and Johnson Nna, “Ethnic Minorities and National Question: The
Case of Southern Minorities,” Journal of Nigerian Affairs 2, no. 1 (1997): 1–9.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibaba, “Violent Conflicts and Sustainable Development.”
22. Eghosa Osaghae et al., “Youth Militias, Self Determination and Resource Control
Struggles in the Niger-Delta Region of Nigeria,” Research Report for the Consortium for
Development Partnership Module 5 (2007): 20.
23. S. Joab-Peterside, “On the Militarisation of Nigeria’s Niger Delta: The Genesis of
Ethnic Militia in Rivers State,” African Conflict Profile 1, no. 2 (2005); U. Ukiwo, “From
‘Pirates’ to ‘Militants’: A Historical Perspective on Anti-State and Anti-Oil Company
Mobilization among the Ijaw of Warri, Western Niger Delta,” African Affairs 106, no.
425 (2007): 587–610.
24. E. Osaghae, A. Ikelegbe, O. Olarinmoye, and S. Okhomina, “Self-Determination
and Resource Control,” 19–21.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid.
27. M. J. Watts, “Petro-Insurgency or Criminal Violence? Conflict and Violence in the
Niger Delta,” Review of African Political Economy 114 (2007): 637–660. Withdrawals
from the excess crude account have continued until this year. Although not on a
monthly basis, revenue shortfalls cased by declining oil revenue has always led to such
withdrawals. The last was in April 2010.
28. Chris Ajaero, “Nigeria’s Lost Trillions,” Newswatch, May 4, 2009, p.1, (see: www.
newswatchngr.com). For additional analysis see: Ken Wiwa, “Death Rules the Delta
in Battle to Control Oil,” The Guardian, March 5, 2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/
business/2006/mar/05/oil.worldnews; Nicholas Schmidle, “The Hostage Business,”
New York Times, December 4, 2009, http://www.nvtimes.com/2009/12/06/magazine/06
kidnapping-t.html?pagewanted=all
29. Henry E. Lapiki, “The Environment and Sustainable Development: National and
Global Concerns,” in The Nigerian Political Process, ed. Alapiki (Port Harcourt, H.E
Emhai Printing and Publishing Company, 2001).
 Turbulent Oil 19

30. Dino Mahtani, “Nigeria Turns to China for Defense Aid,” The Financial Times,
March 1, 2006, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ef8dbc30-a7c6-11da-85bc-0000779e2340.html
#axzz1857VD11G
31. Against a backdrop of spiraling militancy across the Delta, U.S. interests have
met up with European strategic concerns in the Gulf in the establishment of the
Gulf of Guinea Energy Security Strategy (GGESS). By December 2005 the American
ambassador and the managing director of the NNPC agreed “to establish four special
committees to co-ordinate action against trafficking in small arms in the Niger Delta,
bolster maritime and coastal security in the region, promote community development
and poverty reduction, and combat money laundering and other financial crimes,” see:
See Mike Oduniyi and Onyebuchi Ezigbo, “Nigeria, US Sign Security Deal on N/Delta,”
This Day, December 9, 2005, http://www.thisdayonline.info/nview.php?id=35267 ; Not
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surprisingly, the oil companies–facing losses of 500,000 barrels per day and more –also
put their shoulder to the wheel. A senior maritime analyst at the U.S. Office of Naval
Research revealed to participants at a conference in March 2006 at Fort Lauderdale
that “Shell led a group of oil companies in an approach to the U.S. military for protec-
tion of their facilities in the Delta” and warned that “Nigeria may have now lost all
ability to control the situation” (Carbon Web 2006: 5). The establishment in 2007 of the
African Command (AFRICOM) and the desperate search by the United States for coun-
tries in which to locate forward bases is seemingly the capstone for the new African
energy security policy.
32. P. M. Lubeck, M. J.Watts, and R. Lipschutz, “Convergent Interest: US Energy
Security and the “Securing” of Nigerian Democracy.”
33. S. I. Ibaba and A. Ikelebge, “Militias and Pirates in the Niger Delta,” paper pre-
sented at Institute of Security Studies (ISS) South Africa, Workshop on Militia and
Rebel Movements–Human Insecurity and State Crisis in Africa, April 20–21, 2009,
Pretoria, South Africa.
34. E. Osaghae, A. Ikelegbe, O. Olarinmoye, and S. Okhomina, S., Youth Militias, “Self-
Determination and Resource Control Struggles in the Niger-Delta Region of Nigeria,”
Research Report, Consortium for Development Partnership Module 5 (2007), 20.