Arms Race is not synonymous with arms proliferation. You need rival armed groups amassing weapons with hostile intents to have arms race. A private Military Company is euphemism for a mercenary group. The Asari Dokubo initiative, first of its kind, ushered Nigeria into the Age of Mercenaries.
Apartheid means separate but unequal developments for different demographic groups. It conforms with the Fanonian starved “native town” for blacks versus satisfied “settler town” for whites. The All Progressives Congress, APC, government of Muhammadu Buhari introduced apartheid; effectively creating Two-Nigeria: The favoured North East/ Central/West and South West that voted for him versus the neglected South East and South South that didn’t. The former was privileged in appointments and development to the exclusion of the latter. Apart from making unanimity of purpose impossible, apartheid violates Section 14 (3) of the 1999 Constitution (as Amended) on Federal Character.
On August 12, 2023, the media reported an Ijaw nationalist, as saying, “I don’t have an army but I have a private military company that was engaged by the Nigerian government and I have been doing the work for the Nigerian state. Private military companies exist all over the world; we have Black Waters, we have Wagner; we have so many private military companies.
“So, I have a private military company that is engaged by the government and we are fighting side by side with the Nigerian military in many places. Like Niger, Plateau, Abia, Imo, and parts of Rivers State. We were in Anambra too. We are doing a good job and we are being commended by the host communities.”
General Onyema Nwachukwu, Director Army Public Relations, swiftly debunked the claim but Nigerians contradicted him: In 2021 young virgins were abducted and killed by ritualists in the forests of Etche Local Government Area, LGA, of Rivers State. Unconfirmed reports claimed the mercenaries invaded the forests and purged it of criminals. In the absence of state police, the mercenaries complement the efforts of our gallant but over-burdened military fighting insurgents on multiple fronts. What Nigerians are strongly against are rogue private military companies abducting citizens for ransom.
Our thesis is that the current arms race by opposing criminal gangs in the creeks of Niger Delta is recipe for social instability. By posing three fundamental questions covering the period, 1800-2023, in which this phenomenon repeatedly occurred, we stand to understand it better. To tackle it we understudy how militancy was defeated in 2009 by the Dr Chris Ekiyor-led Ijaw Youth Council, IYC.
Provenance of regional arms race
Question One: How did arms race originate in the Niger Delta prior to British colonialism,1800-1900? The great Harold Dappa-Biriye adequately addressed this question in “Causes of Communal Violence in Rivers State.” He identified three factors that made arms race the norm. Firstly, the quarrelsome nature of the minority man meant he must create an enemy to fight even when he had none. Secondly, as gateway to the world the region was flooded with cheap ordinance by foreign merchants. And thirdly, availability of weapons fueled trade disputes among the Ijaw City-States of old.
“With the Rivers man there is inherent belligerency plaguing him all the time,” Biriye observed. “This bogey arose from Arms Dealers who flooded our society for centuries with scrap guns in payment for palm oil products which overseas merchants had purchased from us. Such nefarious facilities naturally motivate their holders to antagonise their neighbours on very slight pretexts.
“Considerable internecine wars characterised the relationships among the City-States of old which ill-will has descended into succeeding generations in varying degrees. Some of these belligerent sources in the 19th Century and the collective punishment systems used during that era can be seen in Paragraph 19 of the Report of Mr. Justice G.G. Robinson on the 1945/50 Kalabari/Okrika fishing disputes”
Arms race in post-Kaiama declaration
Question Two: If Western incursion led to arms race prior to British colonialism, what then triggered it in the post-Kaiama Declaration Niger Delta, 1999-2009? The answer is recoverable in the Odi Massacre of 1999. According to Goddey Niweigha, chairman of Odi community, the tragedy was traceable to political thuggery by the Asawana Boys, “The gang was formed by a group of thugs used by late former Bayelsa Governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha. He recruited them for the 1999 governorship elections. He bought them guns they used but after winning the election, the former governor abandoned them in Yenagoa, the state capital so they became violent and notorious.”
The police killed scores forcing them to retreat to Odi where they killed 12 policemen, including a Deputy Commissioner of police, in retaliation. President Olusegun Obasanjo authorized military action. In the invasion that followed hundreds were killed and 1,240 houses torched. This genocide angered Ijaw youths into militancy as they massively procured weapons against the military. The greatest arms race ever witnessed in the region just started. In the ensuing Oil War thousands were killed, especially in Gbaramatu, forcing International Oil Companies, IOCs, to relocate to Lagos.
Arms race in post-amnesty
And Question Three: If political thuggery gave rise to arms race in the post-Kaiama Declaration Niger Delta, then what resuscitated it in post-Amnesty, 2015-2023? Poverty and despondency occasioned by Buhari’s apartheid are squarely to blame. For instance, he built brand new Lekki Deep Seaport, Lagos, and Dala Inland Dry Port, Kano; but refused to address aspirations for Ibom Deep Seaport for Akwa Ibom and Aba Inland Dry Port for Abia.
In the name of the 36 states and Abuja, Buhari took foreign loans to modernize the railway. After building the Western and Northern rail lines he took the materials meant for the Eastern line to build rail for Niger Republic instead. But the short changed South East and South South, rather than the benefiting Niger Republic, are repaying the loans, anyway. The Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, is deliberately yoked with compromised Sole Administrators compared to the substantive management boards running the holy North East Development Commission, NEDC. That poverty fuels this arms race explains why criminal kidnappers, rather than terrorist kidnappers, rules in the region.
To be continued tomorrow
Eke: email:[email protected]; phone: 081 3515 9313, takes full responsibility for his own opinion.
