By:
Idumange John
Deputy President, Niger Delta Integrity Group
Being a Paper presented @ the Investiture of Hon. Kingsley Kuku–Special Adviser
to the President on the Niger Delta & Chairman, Presidential Committee on
Amnesty as the Maritime Man of the Year 2011 organized by the Board &
Management of Maritime Media Limited
Date: Friday, March 30th, 2012
Venue: Lagos Oriental Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos
Time: 6.00p.m Prompt
EXCEPTS OF THE PAPER
A survey conducted by the Niger Delta Integrity Group, NDIG in 2011 shows that
among all the Development Agencies in the Region, the Amnesty Programme under
Hon. Kingsley Kuku has created more impact on the lives of the people than all
other agencies put together, in the area of capacity-building. This finding has
been corroborated by other active civil society organizations in the Region.
Generally, attempting any discourse on the human capacity building efforts in
the NDR, bristles with three fundamental challenges. The first and the most
obvious challenge is the familiar picture of poverty in the midst of
plenty–which has generated renewed interest in the historiography of the
Region, by local and international researchers. The repertoire of literature
generated from these studies constitutes another battle ground for researchers.
Verily, it has even become very trendy for some armchair critics and amateur
researchers to engage in a blanket stigmatization of the NDR as volatile and
restive – with flashpoints of conflict threatening the very fabric of the
nation’s stability.
The second challenge is that of the resource curse hypothesis – which hinges on
the e very solar-plexus of the type of strange federalism we operate. In his
“Economies of Violence: Governable and ungovernable spaces in an oil nation”
Michael Watts chronicles how the vile trinity of naked aggression, genocide and
the violent law of the corporate frontier conspired to bear out the fearsome
dialectics of blood and oil. Earlier Anderson (2001) posits that the power of
fossil fuel and the politics of the capitalist West when he said “blood may be
thicker than water, but oil is thicker than either”
The third challenge the fact that Nigeria is categorized as a failed State.
Presently, Nigeria is widely regarded as a failed State even though the
politicians may think otherwise. A failed state is one characterized
non-provision of public services; widespread corruption and criminality;
economic refugees and involuntary movement of populations; sharp, economic
decline and mismanagement of public resources and wide spread poverty. Since
2005, the index has been published annually by the United States think-tank,
Fund for Peace and Foreign Policy. Table II places Nigeria on the 14th position
among 18 failed States. It is doubtful if our leaders are perturbed by
belonging to this unenviable club of failed States.
Presidential Amnesty Programme & Capacity Building
Any discussion on the HCB in the NDR cannot be complete without a reference to
the Amnesty Program. At the wake of 2009, militancy in the Niger Delta had
reached its apogee and had virtually crippled Nigeria’s economy. Investment
inflow to the upstream sub-sector of the oil industry had dwindled drastically.
The frequency of hostage taking and violation of oil facilities had reached a
frightening dimension. Invariably, foreign investors felt that since Nigeria’s
capacity as Africa’s highest crude oil producer had been threatened, Angola and
Ghana and South Africa were preferred as investment destinations to Nigeria.
Intense militancy reduced Shell Petroleum Development Company’s production drop
from one million bpd to about 250,000 bpd. Other oil majors such as ExxonMobil,
TotalFina Elf, and Nigerian Agip Oil Coy also experienced heightened violation
of their facilities. Apart from sabotage, oil siphon oil siphoning rackets and
kidnappings Oil workers unions often embarked on strike to protest to protest
insecure working environment or the release of kidnapped workers. In 2008
alone, it was estimated that Nigeria lost over 3 trillion Naira as a result of
militancy in the Niger Delta.
It became imperative for Government to stabilize, consolidate and sustain
security conditions in the Niger Delta as a pre-condition for promoting
economic development in the area. Accordingly, the late President of Nigeria,
the Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua on June 25, 2009, proclaimed and granted
unconditional amnesty to combatants in the Niger Delta. The principal terms of
the amnesty included the willingness and readiness of militants to surrender
their arms, unconditionally, renounce militancy and sign an undertaking to this
effect. In return, the government pledged its commitment to institute programmes
to assist the disarmament, demobilization, rehabilitation and reintegration of
repentant militants.
The Federal Government gave unconditional amnesty to militants in the zone who
agree to lay down their arms and assembled at screening centres within 60 days.
Those willing to take part were offered a presidential pardon, participation in
a rehabilitation program, and education and training in exchange for turning
over their weapons. For three months, militant warlords held disarmament
ceremonies, bringing out thousands of their followers and stacking their guns
in public places. Rocket-propelled grenades, guns, explosives, ammunition and
even a gunboat were all dumped. At the expiration of the 60-day grace period -
by Sunday October 4, 2009, 20,192 Niger Delta militants had accepted the offer
of amnesty.
Amnesty dialectically implies to restore the upset tranquilitas ordinis created
by militancy, a restoration of moral equality has to be effectuated through a
legal paternalism that reforms militants As Amstutz remarks: “This is achieved
when offenders acknowledge their responsibility and victims refrain from
vengeance and acknowledge empathy towards the former enemy” (Amstutz, 2005:
69). In the case before us the acclaimed offenders, namely, the militants acknowledged
their responsibility by denouncing militancy, returning of arms, and resolved
to be integrated into the community through rehabilitation. On the other hand,
the victim – the Federal Government acknowledged this gesture and refrained
from legal retribution and also extends a hand of friendship to the militants.
The amnesty offer accepted by of amnesty by the repentant militants was also
predicated on the promise by government that the ex-militants would be reformed
and reintegrated into civil society. The Federal Government also stated its
determination to confront head-on the neglect and sundry developmental
challenges that had bred the insecurity and militancy in the Niger Delta.
While it may be true that the PAP pursues national reconciliation, it does not
squarely address the root of the crisis, namely marginalization, poverty of oil
bearing communities, corruption and moral culpability of MNOCs. Again,
government inability to address the issues of true federalism implies that
Nigeria’s ruling elite and its profitable relationship with MNCs. In the words
of Soyinka: “At such rare moment memory ceases to be a burden. It becomes a
quiescent stock-taking, an affirmation of existence in the present and a
resolve in defense of unborn generations” (Soyinka, 2000: 35).
From a humble beginning October 4th, 2010, the Presidential Amnesty Office has
placed 2,185 ex-militants who have passed through the Obubra Camp till date
about over 26,000 ex-combatants had undergone the non-violence training. Their
placements were based on their expressed interests in areas such as pipeline
welding, underwater welding, ocean diving, crane operations, oil drilling,
automobile technology, fish farming and entrepreneurship – grocery, building
materials, recharge card retailing and business centers operations.
Under the Special Adviser to the President and coordinator of the PAP Hon.
Kingsley Kuku administration, the range of capacity building programmes has
been extended to postgraduate studies in the natural and environmental
sciences, training in piloting, shipping and other disciplines. While some of
the youths who did not initially embrace the PAP allege that non-agitators are
benefiting from the programmes, it should be appreciated that the programme was
designed to rehabilitate youths from the Region.
Idumange (2011) opined that many militants missed the window from August to
October 2009 and were not included in the amnesty programme. According Idumange
(2010) there was widespread suspicion that the offer of amnesty was a trap and
those who came forward would be arrested or executed, but once the benefits of
the programme became apparent they wanted to join
The Programme Chief Hon. Kingsley Kuku has adopted a three-pronged approach.
Firstly, he has mounted a vigorous campaign to rise of a class of intermediate
manpower in under-water (Algon welding), piloting, seafaring and marine
engineering. Most of the skills and vocations include: auto mechanics, Boat
building, Safety programmes and ICT. Secondly, the Amnesty is bent on
sponsoring Niger Delta Youths who are interested in acquiring higher education.
Accordingly, the Programme has fully paid the fees of ND Students studying in
the UK. Ukraine; Russia, South Africa and the United States. This kind gesture
is to complement the various scholarship programmes embarked upon by the
various States. Thirdly, the overriding objective is to train an army of middle
and high caliber manpower to provide services in the various oil, gas and
agro-allied industries. When these people are fortified with skills, the Region
will not depend on crude oil alone as a source of foreign exchange.
The fact that the Amnesty programme is designed to diversify the economy is a
unique development that appears to be reversing the Resource Curse in the ND
Region. It is against this background that the Kingsley Kuku led Amnesty
Programme has changed the economic contours of the Niger Delta Region. Indeed,
the Amnesty Programme should be emulated by other development agencies such as
the Niger Delta Development Commission, the Basin Development Authorities and
other international development partners such as UNDP, UNESCO, UNICEF,etc. The
principal goal is to create jobs for the youths, which has stifled development
in the Region.
In discussing the fruits of the PAP, most people point at the primacy of
economic benefits of increased oil production and relative peace in NDR.
However, there are other intangible benefits that far outweigh the economic
boom heralded by the PAP. The transformational activities offered by the PAP
have extinguished the belief of the ex-agitators that resort to violence is
more powerful than nonviolence. Ex-combatants have been relieved of the burden
of violence and now, youths have been given the opportunity of ccareer guidance
to realize their aspirations in terms of education, vocational and
entrepreneurial skills.
With peace restored in the Region, oil companies and associated companies
reopened shut-in wells. The result is that Nigeria’s oil production increased
from 800,000 Barrels per day to 2.7 mbpd. With cessation of hostilities,
government has assured the international community fill its OPEC quota and be
trusted by major consumer nations to meet its contractual obligations. Oil
bunkering reduced Signs that the process would succeed accelerated economic
development across the nation. With renewed confidence in the international oil
market, Nigeria has started to exercise enormous influence in OPEC. The
increase in Nigeria’s quota of oil production is a result of reduced incidence
of kidnapping, which provides the right environment for the repairs of oil and
gas infrastructure damaged during the period of militant agitation. It has also
provided ample opportunity for contractors handling developmental projects a
lee-way to fast-track sustainable development in the NDR.
