Under the Nigerian constitution, all minerals, oil and gas in Nigeria belong to the federal government. Oil extraction outside the framework of an agreement with the federal government is illegal, as is the possession of crude oil by anyone not licensed to do so; specific crimes have also been created relating to damage to oil installations (including for the purpose of siphoning off crude oil or petroleum products).
Several
hundred soldiers and sailors are permanently deployed to Delta State, operating
out of the David Ejoor Barracks, Effurun, and Warri Naval Base.
One of their
primary duties is to protect oil installations, regarded by the Nigerian
government as a national security priority.
Following the clash on March 12
that sparked the worst violence in 2003, the government deployed hundreds of
additional soldiers, sailors and mobile police to Warri town and into the
creeks surrounding Warri. In August, the federal government established a new
joint security task force in Delta State
—including
army, navy, air force and mobile police
—known
as “Operation Restore Hope.” By mid-September, when the overall control of the
operation was taken over by Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Alexander Ogomudia from
Brig.-Gen. Elias Zamani, military detachments had begun to be deployed to oil
facilities in the riverine areas.
Nigerian
government security forces of various types are deployed to protect the
facilities of all the oil companies operating in Nigeria, and this security is
stepped up at times of violence such as that in Delta State during 2003. The
oil companies contribute to their upkeep while they are deployed at oil
facilities, but they remain under the command control of the Nigerian
government.
In the case of SPDC, for example, around 400
unarmed “supernumerary” police, whose wages the oil companies also pay, are
deployed in the company’s Western Division (into which Delta State falls), as
well as around 265 armed doghandlers and mobile police. Under normal
operations, some one hundred army or naval personnel are deployed to SPDC oil
facilities designated by the government as of national security importance
(such as the major crude export terminals); but as of October 2003 around 350
Operation Restore Hope task force personnel were deployed at or near SPDC’s
main facilities in the swamp area.
.80The commanding officer (CO) of the 7th Battalion,
based in Effurun, Lt.-Col. Gar Dogo, would not tell Human Rights Watch how many
soldiers were deployed in Delta State, though press reports indicate the total
may be in the region of 2,000, supported by 900 mobile police.
81 The
naval CO, Capt. Olufemi Ogunjinmi, stated to Human Rights Watch that there were
800 sailors based at Warri Naval Base and throughout the creeks. Some of these
were deployed at oil facilities for “static security,” others were on patrol.
The navy has reportedly recently acquired two helicopters for surveillance of
the creeks.
82 Though
the cost to the Nigerian government of this security deployment is large, the
additional expenditure itself benefits individuals in government in general and
the security forces in particular. In September 2003, a Delta State official
indicated that the additional cost to Delta State of the security force
deployment in response to the crisis was of the order of x200 million
(U.S.$1.43 million) a month.
83 State
governors are the chief security officers for their states, and the manner in
which this money is spent is therefore largely within Governor Ibori’s
discretion. The individual soldiers, policemen and sailors deployed also
benefit from their combat duties: they are paid substantially increased wages
when they are on active duty.
84 For
the illegal oil bunkerers to operate, they must also pay off those who are
supposed to be stopping them to turn a blind eye; more senior officers in the
army, navy, and mobile police thus also benefit from the theft of oil.
While
the deployment of additional security forces, including army and naval troops,
has in some cases contributed to the restoration of order, they have too often
failed to offer any real protection to civilians threatened either by organized
armed ethnic-political militia, or by “sea pirates,” those engaged in armed
robbery for purely criminal gain. Residents of both the Itsekiri community
Koko, and the Urhobo Okumagba estate in Warri, reported to Human Rights Watch
how soldiers either ran away at the first sign or trouble or were mysteriously
withdrawn from the area immediately before an attack by opposing ethnic
militants. In both cases, they asserted that the attacking group
—whether
Ijaw or Itsekiri
—had
paid the soldiers to leave and allow free rein to the aggressors. Ijaw leaders,
meanwhile, accuse the security forces of bias, of giving tacit or even active
support to the Itsekiri militia. Itsekiri, Urhobo and Ijaw all see the failure
of the state government security forces to protect them as criminal and accuse
them of bias. For example, a Koko resident told Human Rights Watch:
The state governor should resign, because he has
failed to protect us. We think that he has his hands in the fight, because he
saw what happened in 1997 [when Koko also attacked during the first “Warri
crisis”] but didn’t do anything to stop it. He is in support of the Ijaw. I
want to define this as not being crisis: this is war.
85 The
army and navy have strenuously denied any suggestion of bias in their
operations.
As
during past deployments, the security forces themselves have also carried out
serious abuses. In 1999, the Nigerian army completely destroyed the town of
Odi, Bayelsa State, killing hundreds of people, after a dozen policemen were
killed by youths in the town. In 2001, soldiers killed more than two hundred
unarmed civilians in several towns and villages in Benue State, in
central-eastern Nigeria.
86 No
soldier has been arrested, prosecuted, or disciplined, to Human Rights Watch’s
knowledge, in respect of these massacres. Soldiers and mobile police deployed
anywhere in Nigeria, especially in emergency situations, routinely extort money
from passing motorists, commercial vehicles, and motorbike taxi drivers
(okadas); and often beat those who cannot or will not pay or force them to do
frog jumps or other humiliating activities. These practices are carried out
openly, without attempting to conceal them from passing journalists or human
rights researchers. Sometimes, those who do not pay are simply shot dead. The
same is true in the creeks of the mangrove forest areas.
There
have also been other much more serious abuses in Delta State. Human Rights
Watch interviewed eyewitnesses who described how soldiers under the command of
a major burnt down the Idama Hotel Warri, belonging to Urhobo and PDP leader
Chief Okumagba on Sunday February 2, 2003, in the disturbances surrounding the
PDP primaries
.87 The soldiers flogged staff working
in the hotel and detained a staff member for five days. The attack took place
despite the fact that twenty mobile police had been billeted in the hotel for
several years and were present at the time. Although the attack was reported to
the police, no action had been taken.
In
August 2003, three mobile policemen were arrested by the army on charges of
selling arms to and fighting on the side of one of the ethnic militia, but
cleared after an internal police investigation
.88 These are serious allegations that
deserve urgent investigation by the appropriate authorities, including not only
internal army or navy inquiries but also by the civilian police, and by a
public judicial inquiry into the crisis in Warri. Unlike previous inquiries,
the report of such an independent investigation should be made public, and its
recommendations acted upon.
During 2003, the U.S. government has delivered
to the Nigerian navy three (the total will be five) former coastguard “buoy
tenders,” 180-foot flat-bottomed boats of World War II vintage, unarmed at the
time they were handed over. The donation of these boats has been in the
pipeline since 2001, and, according to the U.S. Embassy, was not connected to
the crisis in Delta State. Two of the boats have been moved to Warri naval
base, and have had some weapons mounted on them, but they have not apparently
been deployed in the riverine areas. The U.S. Embassy told Human Rights Watch
that there was no basis whatsoever for reports in the Nigerian press that U.S.
marines would be deployed to oil facilities in the Niger Delta.
80 SPDC
letter to Human Rights Watch, October 17, 2003. ChevronTexaco would not respond
on the record to Human Rights Watch on this point (CNL letter to Human Rights
Watch, November 4, 2003) and EPNL did not respond to Human Rights Watch’s
queries before this report went to print.
81 Abraham
Ogbodo, “Delta Govt Spents x200 m Monthly to Keep Soldiers in Warri,” Guardian, September 14, 2003.
82 Muyiwa
Odu, “Illegal bunkering: navy arrests 2 ships, 15 expatriates,” Daily Champion (Lagos), September 2, 2003.
83 Abraham
Ogbodo, “Delta Govt Spents x200 m Monthly to Keep Soldiers in Warri,” Guardian, September 14, 2003.
84 Figures
cited to Human Rights Watch were that the supplement is up to x30,000
(U.S.$215) extra each month, but we could not verify this amount with the
authorities.
85 Human
Rights Watch interview, September 8, 2003.
86 See
Human Rights Watch reports: “The Destruction of Odi and Rape in Choba,”
December 1999 and “Military Revenge in Benue: A Population Under Attack,” April
2002. On Odi, see A
Blanket of Silence: Images of the Odi Genocide (Port Harcourt: Environmental
Rights Action, 2002). For violations in the delta, see also, The Price of Oil; “Crackdown In The Niger
Delta,” A Human
Rights Watch Short Report, May 1999; “Update on Human Rights Violations in the Niger
Delta,” background briefing, December 2000; and “The Niger Delta: No Democratic
Dividend,” A Human
Rights Watch Short Report, October
2002. All available at www.hrw.org/africa/nigeria.php.
87 Human
Rights Watch interviews, September 12, 2003.
88 Sunny
Ogefere, “Police clear officers over alleged arms deals in Warri crisis,” Guardian, August 27, 2003; Austin
Ogwuda, “Police Commissioner clears men of complicity in Warri crisis,” Vanguard, August 27, 2003.
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