Banditry in the Niger Delta

The activities of militants in the Niger Delta area are getting out of hand and it is worrying that the renegades seem to be having it easy and sometimes cosy. And that is enough to wonder whether the authorities are really feeling embarrassed by the havoc that these young men have caused in the oil producing enclave.

Perhaps, Nigerians should begin to appreciate that the activities of these people are no longer what will continue to be treated as mere stirrings of angry young men. Their effrontery has graduated to something akin to terrorism.

Their latest onslaught in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, was more than irritation of agitating nationals. It was a bare-chested urban terrorism, on a new year’s day. Reports said the New Year serial attack on the police and their stations started about midnight along Aba Road where they were said to have opened fire on a police patrol team, injuring two of the policemen. They then headed for the Trans-Amadi Police Station.

On their way, they ran into some policemen on stop-and-search duty wherein they opened fire on the police, killing an Inspector and a 25 year-old man. The reports further said, not satisfied with their devilry so far, they went ahead for another police patrol team and fired repeatedly at their van, shooting the driver in the head.

After that, they were said to have headed to and attacked the Presidential Hotel where a security supervisor was killed. Not done, the militants boarded their vehicles and headed for the Borikiri Police Station where they ran into a police Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC).

They had encounter with the APC after which, according to the State Commissioner of Police, Felix Ogbaudu, “they moved into the Police Station and threw dynamites, they freely fired at the station and at the end of the day, they killed three more policemen.” On the whole, between 12 and 14 people were killed that night, including four of the gunmen.

Such criminality has now become the feature of the militants’ engagements in the area. Last year, some other gunmen sacked the Bayelsa Government House in such brazen fashion. Vice President Goodluck Jonathan’s house in Bayelsa was later burnt down. Such ugly incidents have continued to assault Nigerians on a daily basis in the media. The Nigerian nation cannot allow this to continue. This has gone far beyond rights agitation. What we now have is plain criminality, of local war-lords who are holding the states, nay the nation, by the throat. They have been working all manners of evil – from wantonly blowing up of oil pipelines to kidnapping.

We insist that government at both state and federal levels must be decisive in dealing with this new dimension of militants’ activities in the Niger Delta, just as they must find enduring solutions to the larger problems of the area.

We want to believe that the frequent militant stirring there has festered because the peculiar problems of the region have remained unresolved. In such a confused and volatile milieu, it is always convenient for all types of criminal elements to operate and in this instance, under the guise of agitating for a new lease of life for the people. It is time the government distinguished between genuine agitators and common bandits who now resort to hostage-taking and urban terrorism. Each should be dealt with accordingly.