Understanding kidnapping of expatriates in Nigeria as a political instrument: implications for national security

Submitted to Dr. Rob Huebert

Understanding kidnapping of expatriates as a political instrumentimplications for national security

Ayo Petershaskayne school of business

UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY

APRIL 11, 2016

Ayo Peters Strategic Studies Submitted to Dr. Rob Huebert

Understanding the Kidnapping of Expatriates as a Political Instrument in the Niger-Delta

of Nigeria

The Nigerian state is facing problems of unprecedented proportions. Boko Haram, a deadly sect

that is bent on Islamizing the country, has destabilized the northeastern part of the country,

killing, maiming, and displacing hordes of people from their abodes. In Lagos and the major

cities, frequent turnover of university graduates without the institutional mechanisms to support

their absorption into the workforce has increased the rate of unemployment to alarming levels. In

Abuja, the seat of government, institutions are so weak that corruption has been institutionalized.

More worryingly, kidnapping of expatriates in the oil-rich Niger-Delta region has added to the

twists of insecurity bedevilling the Nigerian state in space and scale.

Of the challenges enumerated, kidnapping in the Niger-Delta as a phenomenon deserves urgent

scrutiny. Other security challenges faced by Nigeria, although important, have a veiled

connection to the violent developments in the Niger-Delta. The region is the goose that lays the

golden eggs of the Nigerian state. Indeed, 90 percent of Nigeria’s foreign earnings comes from

the sale of crude oil explored from the region. It is from the revenues from the region that other

challenges afflicting the nation receives concomitant resource attention. Therefore, ensuring the

unfettered production of oil while guaranteeing the safety of oil workers is not only important to

the Nigerian state but at the core of its survival. This paper is thus saddled with the task of

examining the political nature of kidnapping and disaggregating it kidnapping for other means

(crime) as well as implications for strategic studies.

The last decade of the twentieth century marked a watershed in the history of the struggle to

control resources in the region. Armed insurgency became the new normal and seen as a tactic to

even the odds against multinational oil corporations who, from time immemorial, colluded with

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the Nigerian state to shortchange the people of the region. Thus the region became an

amphitheatre for highly dangerous, homegrown militant groups to unleash mayhem on Nigeria’s

and multinational corporation’s oil facilities, infrastructure and architecture. The vandalization of

pipelines, occupation of oil facility and illegitimate oil bunkering became the order of the

day.1Led by groups such as the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger-Delta (MEND) and

the Niger-Delta Peoples’ Volunteer Force (NDPVF),2 kidnapping in the region was portrayed

within the orbit of a regional social movement that is bent on using kidnapping of expatriates as

a tactic to right historic wrongs associated with economic and resource exploitation as well as

environmental degradation of the Niger-Delta region. Amid the wanton destruction of oil

infrastructure and kidnapping of expatriates, it is puzzling that the Nigerian government has not

been able to nip the act in the bud. Attempts to placate insurgent groups by granting them

amnesty and placating them have been partially successful.3 Against this backdrop, Western

multinational corporations, led by Shell, and fearing for the lives of its foreign workers, have

begun to divest from Nigeria and their place usurped by local and oriental firms.4 Reflecting on

1 Tope Oriola, Criminal Resistance? The Politics of Kidnapping Oil Workers (Ashgate, 2013), p. 32 I beamed my searchlight on these two organizations for the following reasons: the groups are largely constitutive of the Ijaw ethnic group; MEND can be seen as a subsidiary of NDPVF because it broke off from the latter; they employ different but reconciliatory tactics aimed at weakening the Nigerian establishment: NDPVF’s forte is pipeline vandalization and illegal oil bunkering while MEND is concerned with kidnapping. This paper is convinced that they both work in concert and not unthinkable that NDPVF carried out some form of kidnappings, too. This point is given concrete significance by the fact that MEND is “faceless” and little is known of its organized structure. Although it has a website and well-oiled organogram, no one can be definitive about who their leaders are. More so, they often make demands such as advocating for the release from detention of leaders of NDPVF. This paper, therefore, sees the two organizations as one. 3 Iyabobola Ajibola, “Nigeria’s Amnesty Program: The Role of Empowerment in Achieving Peace and Development in Post-Conflict Niger Delta” Sage Open (July 2015)4 Martin Yeboah, “Oil and Gas: Local firms replace majors in Nigeria’s Delta” The Africa Report (November 2014) http://www.theafricareport.com/West-Africa/oil-and-gas-local-firms-replace-majors-in-nigerias-delta.html accessed January 26, 2016

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these developments, one cannot but wonder: why expatriates and why has the Nigerian

government found kidnapping intractable to quell?

The Niger-Delta and a Chequered History of Violence

The history of the Niger Delta in the twentieth century is a constellation of violence.

Consequently, near identical reasons have been advanced by academic scholars as pivotal to

understanding violence activities in the region. Michael Watts, whose research cuts across the

political economy of Africa has been at the forefront of scholars that have attempted to explain

violence in the Niger Delta focusing on endogenous and exogenous variables.5 Watts’, in one of

his works on the Niger Delta with Ike Okonta and Von Kemedi, is concerned with why “oil

producing communities in the Niger Delta… the site of intense conflict and violence”?6 Styled

“petro-violence”, the authors attribute conflict in the Niger Delta to lack of concrete governance

at the municipal level occasioned by the menacing activities oil corporations in the region.7 One

recurrent theme in all of Watts’ works on the Niger Delta is that peace in the region was

endangered by historic marginalization, lack of democratic rule at the municipal level, corporate

5 See Michael Watts, “Tipping point: slipping into darkness. Niger Delta.” Economies of Violence Working Papers, No. 23, Institute of International Studies, University of California (Berkeley, 2009); Michael Watts, “Crude politics: life and death on the Nigerian oil field. Niger Delta” Economies of Violence Working Papers, No. 25, Institute of International Studies, University of California (Berkeley, 2009); Michael Watts, “Imperial oil: The anatomy of a Nigerian oil insurgency. Niger Delta” Economies of Violence Working Papers, No. 17, Institute of International Studies, University of California (Berkeley, 2008); Michael Watts, Ike Okonta, and Von Kemedi, “Economies of Violence: Petroleum, Politics and Community Conflict in the Niger Delta, Nigeria” Economies of Violence Working Papers, No. 3, Institute of International Studies, University of California (Berkeley, 2004) 6 Michael Watts, Ike Okonta, and Von Kemedi, “Economies of Violence: Petroleum, Politics and Community Conflict in the Niger Delta, Nigeria” Economies of Violence Working Papers, No. 3, Institute of International Studies, University of California (Berkeley, 2004), p. 17 Michael Watts, Ike Okonta, and Von Kemedi, “Economies of Violence: Petroleum, Politics and Community Conflict in the Niger Delta, Nigeria” Economies of Violence Working Papers, No. 3, Institute of International Studies, University of California (Berkeley, 2004), p. 2

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irresponsibility, and institutionalized corruption by the Nigerian state.8 Without question, Watts

provides a template for understanding violence in the Niger Delta. While his works are anchored

on causality, he makes no genuine attempt to conceptualize kidnapping as a political act. Other

works on the Niger Delta have often followed similar trajectories.9

In the same vein, there have been attempts to find causality between kidnapping and politics.

Mark Turner notes that throughout human history, did not bear resonance with politics. He finds

that infusing political motives into kidnapping started in the 1970s. In his classification of

kidnappings, he differentiates between political and non-political kidnappings.10 Though this

work classifies kidnapping using a binary approach, the author and a few others have found that

it is difficult to separate economic motivations from political kidnappings.11 What these authors

have failed to do, however, explore kidnappings that hurt the interest of the modern state. As a

result, this paper casts doubt on earlier works on political kidnapping as a useful recipe for

understanding the security and survival of the modern state in the 21st century. A proper attempt

to conceptualize kidnapping within state apparatus thus deserves our attention.

What is Kidnapping?

Contextualizing kidnapping within the field of contentious politics is an arduous exercise. This

problem is further compounded when the term is substituted with terms such as hostage-taking

8 Michael Watts, Ike Okonta, and Von Kemedi, “Economies of Violence: Petroleum, Politics and Community Conflict in the Niger Delta, Nigeria” Economies of Violence Working Papers, No. 3, Institute of International Studies, University of California (Berkeley, 2004), p. 39 Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, “Resource rents, governance, and conflict,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 49, No. 4 (2005), pp. 625-633; Aderoju Oyefusi, “Oil and the Probability of Rebel Participation Among Youths in the Niger Delta of Nigeria,” Journal of Peace Research Vol. 45, No. 4 (July 2008), pp. 539-555 10 Mark Turner, “Kidnapping and Politics,” International Journal of the Sociology of Law Vol. 26 (1998), pp. 145-16011 Mark Turner, “Kidnapping and Politics,” International Journal of the Sociology of Law Vol. 26; Richard Clutterbuck, Kidnap and Ransom: The Response (Faber and Faber, 1978)

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and hijacking.12 At best, kidnapping cannot be contextualized without an understanding of the

motivation behind the act. As such, whatever judgment the reader will accord the context should

be situated within the spectrum of the ‘incentive’ to kidnap. One place to start is Diana

Concannon’s contextualization of Kidnapping.13 Drawing on her work, Oriola identifies six

forms of kidnapping: domestic kidnapping, which takes within a family; political kidnapping,

which is seen as a means to a political end; predatory killing of an adults and minors; kidnapping

for profit; kidnapping as a form of reprisal; and “staged kidnapping.”14 Concannon’s work,

which is an inductive examination of 100 randomly selected cases of kidnapping in the United

States offers a template but insufficient to fully comprehend the rationale for kidnapping of

expatriates in the Niger-Delta. Despite this submission, one must, however, understand that

Concannon drives home the point that kidnapping is an antisocial activity that drives fear into the

hearts of its victims. A more useful classification, as Oriola has suggested, is Nseabasi Akpan’s15

classification of kidnapping, which helps understand and amplify the Nigerian situation.

Akpan, citing the work of Mark Turner16 traces the origin of the term “kidnapping” to 17th

century England where children were “kidnapped” and traded as slaves to colonial officers and

farmers.17 He nonetheless admits that the term has been expanded to accommodate associated

behaviours. Reflecting on the Niger-Delta, Akpan sees “kidnapping as a general liberation

struggle” owing to the government’s overt and covert inability to respond to agitations of

12 Richard Clutterburg, Kidnap, Highjack, and Extortion: The Response (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1987)13 Diana Concanon, Kidnapping: An Investigator’s Guide to Profiling (London: Elsevier, 2008), p. 414 Oriola, Criminal Resistance? op.cit. p. 415 Nseabasi Akpan, “Kidnapping in Nigeria’s Niger Delta: An exploratory study” Journal of Social Sciences, 24, 1 (2010), pp. 33-4216 Mark Turner, “Kidnapping and Politics” International Journal of the Sociology of Law, 26 (1998) 145-16017 Akpan, op.cit., p.33

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marginalization of residents and lack of development of the region; “kidnapping for economic

reasons” in which foreign oil workers are seen as “demand” and the ransom paid by

multinational corporations as “supply”; “kidnapping as a political tool” where kidnapping is

orchestrated out of political considerations but with a proviso that victims are released in

exchange for ransoms; and “kidnapping as a new form of crime” in which ordinary citizens are

captured in order for the victims to part with their hard earned money.18

Explicating Akpan’s classification, his classification is more useful as it clearly addresses why

kidnapping of expatriates has been the modus operandi of insurgents. Akpan is right to

organizations such as MEND and NDPVF see their struggle as one against state oppression and

exploitation by multinational corporations – trends that predated Nigeria’s independence. In fact,

when MEND claimed responsibility for the abduction of Shell foreign oil workers in 2006, it

demanded among other things that the federal government of Nigeria abrogate all laws

associated with land and resource ownership in the Niger-Delta, the Niger-Delta should be

allowed to control its resources, and funds be set aside to morph the region of environmental

degradation caused by years of oil exploration.19 Although this paper focuses on the linkage

between kidnapping and politics, we cannot exclude the economic incentives that heralds the

aftermath of the act. Oriola, citing Matthew Harwood, reflects that oil workers paid a ransom of

an average of $250,000 to release each expatriate20 and that the oil industry expended $3 billion

on security at the zenith of insurgents’ activities between 2007 and 2009.21

18 Nseabasi Akpan, “Kidnapping in Nigeria’s Niger Delta: An exploratory study”, pp. 38-4019 Nseabasi Akpan, “Kidnapping in Nigeria’s Niger Delta: An exploratory study”, p. 820 Matthew Harwood, “Perils amid profits in the Niger Delta” Security Management (September, 2007) https://sm.asisonline.org/migration/Pages/perils-amid-profits-niger-delta.aspx accessed on April 8, 2016; Tope Oriola, Criminal Resistance? p.121 Tope Oriola, Criminal Resistance? pp. 1-2

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While this paper agrees with Akpan, Stephanie Hanson suggestion that kidnapping in the region

is essentially a political act bears more resonance.22 Again, we cannot discount the economic

value that has accrued to insurgents since kidnapping and associated ills began.23 But we can

conclude that some criminals have drawn inspirations from kidnapping in the region to further

their agenda. Kidnapping as a political act is, however, gaining currency the world over. The

kidnap and subsequent release of Robert Bergdahl, an American soldier in exchange for 5

Taliban members held at Guantanamo Bay is a case in point.

Attempts to understand kidnapping in the Niger-Delta region requires its delineation from other

forms of the act. Indeed, other forms of kidnapping in Nigeria have been identified since Shell

workers were first kidnapped in 2006 by Niger-Delta militants. Most of these types had

economic dimensions to them. In addition, most occurred in the southeastern part of Nigeria.

Here, Rodanthi Tzanneli appears useful. For him, “policy and risk assessment milieux

discursively construct it [kidnapping] as a ‘threat to society’, and administrative studies have

focused on classifications that describe the phenomenon.”24 He is convinced that understanding

kidnapping should mirror all the “characteristics of a rationalized system of exchange, based on

rules and regulations reminiscent of legitimate business.”25 What Tzanelli has done is to place

22 Stephanie Hanson, “MEND: The Niger-Delta’s Umbrella Militant Group”, Council on Foreign Relations (March 22, 2007), http://www.cfr.org/nigeria/mend-niger-deltas-umbrella-militant-group/p12920 accessed on January 26, 201623 MEND and NDPVF have at different times vandalized oil installations and participated in oil bunkering, selling it to neighbouring countries. See Ludovica Laccino, “Nigeria’s oil war: Who are the Niger Delta militants?” International Business Times (September 24, 2015) http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/nigerias-oil-war-who-are-niger-delta-militants-1520580 accessed on April 8, 2016 24 Rodanthi Tzanelli, “Capitalizing on Value: Towards a Sociological Understanding of Kidnapping” Sociology, Vol. 40(5): 92925 Tzanelli, op. cit., p.929

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kidnapping within the context of psychology by placing kidnappers’ motivation at the epicentre

of his discourse. He also accords primacy to the economic nature of the act.

While not discounting the fact that kidnappers in the Niger Delta get ransom as a reward for

kidnapping foreign oil workers, this reward is a just an add-on, not an end in itself. Without

mincing words, and as Charles Tilly has pronounced,26 kidnapping in its form and substance, is a

“continuation of policy [politics] by other means.”27 Of course we cannot see kidnapping in the

Niger Delta as constituting war from the strategic standpoint but Clausewitz’s definition of war

applies to our situation: “War is therefore an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to

fulfill our will.”28 And for Clausewitz, war is essentially political.

No one in their right senses can say that kidnapping in the Niger Delta is not a violent act with

the intent to cow the Nigerian government and multinational oil corporations into submitting to

the demands of kidnappers. Most of these demands are political. Consequently, these insurgents

have seen kidnapping as a political instrument to achieve their objectives. Whether or not these

insurgents have achieved their objectives is open to scrutiny and beyond the purview of this

paper.

The State, Multinational Corporations and Insurgents: A Triad of Uneasy Relationship.

The Niger-Delta sits in the southern part of the Nigerian map and constitutes approximately 7.5

percent of Nigeria’s land mass. Its place in the history of Nigeria as its economic nerve centre is

uncontested. Paradoxically, the region has been marred by tension between state apparatus bent

on controlling the resources of the region and resistance, sometimes violent, by a section of the 26 Charles Tilly, The Politics of Collective Violence (Cambridge University Press, 2003)27 Michael Howard and Peter Paret, eds. Carl Von Clausewitz On War (Princeton University Press, 1989), p. 8728 Michael Howard and Peter Paret, eds. Carl Von Clausewitz On War (Princeton University Press, 1989), p.75

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population. The region gained prominence for its role in the supply of agricultural produce to

industries in Western cities such as Liverpool, Manchester, Hamburg and Paris in the now

infamous “legitimate trade.” The history of legitimate trade has been treated elsewhere29 but

what is relevant to our study is that, owing to the vast agricultural riches of the region, the British

in 1884 signed a treaty with the people of the Niger-Delta culminating in the establishment of the

“Oil Rivers Protectorate.”30 The essence of naming the Niger-Delta a protected area was to

provide an unfettered access of the region’s palm produce to industries in Europe. This

exploitation without redress soon drew condemnation from some kingdoms in the Niger-Delta

who sought means to curb this massive exploitation. King Jaja of Opobo of Opobo kingdom,

Chief Nana Olomu of Itsekiri, and Eyo Honesty I’s resistance was met by superior military might

and a high level of trickery31 that not only humiliated these important leaders of their respective

kingdoms, but one in which they never recovered from. The British then went on to conquer the

whole of the Niger-Delta. By 1900, its incorporation into modern day Nigeria was complete.

The full significance of kidnapping in the Niger-Delta cannot be fully grasped without an

excursion into the history of the discovery of oil in Nigeria and politics associated with it. As

suggested in the preceding paragraph, the allure of the region’s fertile lands and rivers brimming

29 J. C. Anene, Southern Nigeria in Transition (Cambridge, 1966); Dike Kenneth Onwuka, Trade and Politics in the Niger Delta, 1830-1855 (Oxford, 1956)30 John Mukum Mbaku and Mwangi Kimenyi, “Rent Seeking and Policing in Colonial Africa” The Indian Journal of Social Science, Vol. 8, No. 3 (1995), p. 29031 J. C. Anene, “Ja Ja of Opobo” in Kenneth Dike, ed., Eminent Nigerians of the Nineteenth Century (London, 1956); David Dafinone and Peter Ekeh, ed., Warri City and British Colonial Rule in Western Niger Delta (January 2005) pp. 40-43; Rosalind I. J. Hacket, Religion in Calabar: The Religious Life and History of a Nigerian Town (Walter de Gruyter: January 1, 1988)

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with fish32 proved irresistible to the British. The discovery of oil in the twentieth century and its

attendant environmental impact truncated the region’s economy.

Oil prospecting started in the region in 1908 with a German company, Nigerian Bitumen

Company leading the sway.33 The company’s oil prospecting, however, had to come to an abrupt

end with the defeat of Germany34 in World War I (WWI) and the war guilt clause placed on the

country. Exploration did not resume until after the Great Depression. By this time, the British

Government, through the Colonial Mineral Ordinance35 in 1937, had granted D’Arcy Petroleum

(later styled Shell BP) the exclusive rights to the prospecting and exploration of oil in Nigeria.

With Nigeria’s as its oyster, the company retreated to the Niger-Delta.36 It is unclear why D’Arcy

narrowed its operations to the Niger-Delta but it is probable that the company did so because it

was on the coast, its role during legitimate trade, and because of the fact that the British had

established an administrative centre in Calabar, another city east of the Niger-Delta. Thus, we

can argue that D’Arcy wanted to keep open the lines of communication that had been established

32 Owing to the nature of the region, the primary occupation of the people was predominantly farming and fishing. 33 For a discussion of the company and the regulation that gave it license to operate in the Niger-Delta, see A.O.Y. Raji and T. S. Abejide, “The British Mining and Oil Regulations in Colonial Nigeria: C. 1914-1960: An Assessment”, Singaporean Journal of Business Economics and Management Studies Vol. 2, No. 10 (2014), pp. 62-7534 Douglas Yates, The Scramble for African Oil: Oppression, Corruption and War for Control of Africa’s Natural Resources (Pluto Press, 2002), pp. 207-8.35 The Ordinance was formulated by Lord Lugard, Nigeria’s first colonial governor-general. The Ordinance gave sole rights to British interests to prospect oil in the region. Part VI of the Ordinance reads, “No lease or license shall be granted except to a British subject or to a British company registered in Great Britain or in a British colony and having its principal place of business within her majesty’s dominion, the chairman and managing director (if any) and the majority of the directors of which are British subjects.” Quoted in A.O.Y. Raji and T. S. Abejide, “The British Mining and Oil Regulations in Colonial Nigeria: C. 1914-1960: An Assessment”, Singaporean Journal of Business Economics and Management Studies Vol. 2, No. 10 (2014), p. 6636 Douglas Yates, The Scramble for African Oil, op. cit., p. 209

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by the British colonial oligarchy in the region. Be that as it may, and as Yates has submitted, the

incursion of D’Arcy Petroleum into the Niger-Delta heralded “a new age of toxic oil pollution.”37

D’Arcy soon discovered oil in the region though not in commercial quantity. But it was clear to

observers and analysts that it was a matter of time before oil was discovered in commercial

quantity in the region. It is thus not surprising that by the 1950s, American might had broken all

barriers ceding exclusive rights to British oil companies to prospect in the region. By 1965, oil

behemoths such as Mobil, Chevron, Texaco, Safrap (later renamed Elf), and Agip38 had staked

their claims to the Niger-Delta thus ushering in the birth of multinational oil corporations

(MNOCs) in the region. These corporations, responsible for over two-thirds of Nigeria’s crude

oil production, discouraged the diversification of the industry into downstream production. The

result was a Nigerian state that became a rentier state saddled with the task of producing crude

oil and exporting it to the world capitalist economy.

Increase in crude oil production correlated with the increase in gas production. Since the

Nigerian economy and indeed, the Niger-Delta was rural, gas production was wasted. According

to Yates, “more than 90 percent of associated gas was ‘flared’ into the air.39 This has resulted in

various economic, health, and environmental complications for the region.40

37 Douglas Yates, The Scramble for African Oil, op. cit., p. 20938 Mobil (1955), Chevron (1961), Texaco (1963) are US-owned corporations. Agip (1962) is Italian and Safrap (Elf) is French. 39 Douglas Yates, The Scramble for African Oil, op. cit., p. 20940 Anslem Ajuwo, “Negative Effects of Gas Flaring: The Nigerian Experience”, Journal of Environmental Pollution and Human Health 1.1. (2013): 6-8; Temi E. Ologunorisa, “A review of the effects of gas flaring on the Niger-Delta environment”, International Journal of Sustainable Development and World Ecology 8.3 (2001): 249-55. Some of the effects range from the rise in global warming to the destruction of lakes and streams in the region as well the region’s vegetation. Soil nutrients have been depleted thereby destroying the people’s means of livelihood.

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Oil exploration and its negative impact on the Niger-Delta soon became unbearable to the

inhabitants who had had their means of livelihood destroyed. Worryingly, oil exploration in the

region had midwifed a range of health complications. As Nigeria approached independence, the

fear of the people of the Niger-Delta became heightened. A commission set up by the

government and headed by Harry Willink, the colonial secretary in Nigeria, to investigate this

fear confirmed that the fear of minorities was well justified.41 Attempts by the people of Niger-

Delta to appeal to the Nigerian government before independence fell on deaf ears. The results

were dissenting voices ready to champion the cause of the region. Led by Isaac Adaka Boro, the

region witnessed an organized onslaught on the Nigerian state. For Boro, the Nigerian state had

colluded with MNOCs to marginalize and exploit the region. On February 23, Boro positioned

himself at Tontoubau, a thick forest in Kaiama, in Rivers (now Bayelsa State) with one-hundred

and fifty-nine militants.42 Before declaring the region “the Niger-Delta Peoples Republic”, Boro

made a statement that resonated with his group’s objective:

Today is a great day, not only in your lives, but also in the history of the Niger Delta.

Perhaps, it will be the greatest day for a long time. This is not because we are going

to bring the heavens down, but because we are going to demonstrate to the world

what and how we feel about oppression. Remember your 70-year-old grandmother

who still farms before she eats; remember also your poverty-stricken people;

remember, too, your petroleum which is being pumped out daily from your veins;

41 Richard Sklar, Nigerian Political Parties: Power in an Emergent African Nation (Africa World Press, 2004), p. 13842 Nseabasi Akpan, “Kidnapping in Nigeria’s Niger Delta: An exploratory study” Journal of Social Sciences, p. 37

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and then fight for your freedom.43

Boro’s rebellion was subsequently crushed after a twelve-day battle with the Nigerian military.44

The quashing of Boro’s rebellion, notwithstanding, there are important lessons to be learned. Just

like the resistance by the leaders of kingdoms in the Niger Delta in the nineteenth century, Boro

framed his struggle as an attempt to liberate the people of the Niger Delta from perceived

injustice and exploitation. Unlike his predecessors, Boro’s struggle was well organized and

coordinated. The Adaka Boro uprising thus signposts the beginning of organized violent and

nonviolent struggles against the Nigerian state and MNOCs operating in the Niger-Delta.

One other precursor to kidnapping in the region was the activity of Ken Saro Wiwa and the

Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP). Nigeria’s maximum ruler, General

Abacha’s ascendance to the pinnacle of government in Nigeria in 1993 occurred pari passu with

the aspirations of the Ogoni people for the redress of ecological injustice and economic

marginalization perpetrated by prospecting transnational oil corporations in the Niger Delta.

Although the Ogoni numbered no more than half a million, their land produced oil receipts upon

which the Nigerian government feasted. For four decades, Shell, while paying rents to the

Nigerian government, had explored Ogoni land. The people, however, had nothing to show for

this except the environmental degradation of this fishing and farming community, and blanket

poverty whose net effects were visible in the life expectancies of the Ogoni, one of the lowest in

Nigeria.45 While transnational corporations were established to make profit, with the state

responsible for the provision of social infrastructure for its citizens, Wang Chuali and Dong

43 Quoted in Tope Oriola, Criminal Resistance? op.cit. p. 4944 Nseabasi Akpan, “Kidnapping in Nigeria’s Niger Delta: An exploratory study” Journal of Social Sciences, p. 3745 Ike Okonta and Oronto Douglas, Where Vultures Feast: Shell, Human Rights and Oil (London: Verso Publishers, 2003), 19

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Gang observed that “the society lacks supervision to their (transnational corporations)

management status, honesty, compliance with the laws”, and that transnational corporations have

been enmeshed in different indignities, all these making people to review their stance on these

corporations, asking that the corporations be responsible to their host society.46It is within this

framework that the Ogoni demanded that Shell pay it compensation for prospecting on its land.

Led by Ken Saro-Wiwa, an environmental rights campaigner, journalist, script writer, and

former public official, the Ogoni people decided to address this open sore. The result was the

birth of the Ogoni Bill of Rights,47 a document itemising the rights of the Ogoni to live a

healthier life by making Shell to be accountable for degrading Ogoni land as well as providing

economic opportunities for the Ogoni People.

The Ogoni’s agenda was at variance with that of the Nigerian military government which wanted

oil receipts unfettered from transnational corporations, most notably, Shell. But Shell had been

declared a persona non grata in Ogoni land unless it found solution to the environmental

problems bedevilling the area, and could no longer explore in Ogoni land. This development

caused the Nigerian government to lose money. Consequently, it deployed soldiers on Ogoni

land to quell dissension and facilitate the resumption of drilling operations by Shell.48 The

deployment of soldiers by the Nigerian government to safeguard Shell staff ominously reveals

whose side the allegiance of the government was. The highpoint of this melodrama, however,

46 Wang Chuali and Dong Gang, “Social responsibilities of transnational corporations”, Frontiers of Law in China 2(3), (Higher Education Press and Springer-Velag, July 2007), 378-40247 Sanya Osha, “Birth of the Ogoni Protest Movement”, Journal of Asian and African Studies, vol. 41, 1-2 (April, 2006), 13-38; Di Stefano Paul, “Remembering Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni Nine”, Peace Magazine vol. 22, issue 1 (March, 2006), 12 48 Ike Okonta and Oronto Douglas, Where Vultures Feast: Shell, Human Rights, and Oil (Verso Publishers, 2003), pp. 87-115

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was the hanging of Ken Saro-Wiwo after the Nigerian military junta laid phantom charges at his

feet.49

The rise and demise of Ken Saro-Wiwa proved to nationalists in the Niger Delta that nonviolent

means as a tool was not that useful if the region was to force MNOCs and the Nigerian

government to hearken to its voice. If anything, it revealed the deep fissures that existed between

the Niger Delta and the Nigerian state on one hand and on the other hand, laid threadbare, the

conspiracy between MNOCs and the Nigerian government.50 Little did the Nigerian state and

MNOCs realize that their strategy of killing Saro-Wiwa and subjugating the region was a

dangerous one that would soon backfire. As Armand Feigenbaum reflected six decades ago, the

cost of quality can be greater when the initial product does not meet ethical thresholds.51 That is,

the cost of improving the product may have been unnecessary if adequate efforts had been put

into making it acceptable to a vast majority of stakeholders in the first place. The Niger Delta

question entered a dangerous turn because Saro-Wiwa was killed, but his message could not be

killed.52 The spate of violence that ensured in the region afterwards was a stark reminder that

MNOCs need a social license to operate unhindered.

Enter NDPVF and MEND: Towards Conceptualizing Kidnapping as a Political Instrument

49 Ike Okonta and Oronto Douglas, Where Vultures Feast: Shell, Human Rights, and Oil (Verso Publishers, 2003), pp.50 Ed Pilkington, “14 years after Ken Saro-Wiwa’s death, family points finger at Shell in court,” The Guardian (May 27, 2009) http://www.theguardian.com/business/2009/may/27/ken-saro-wiwa-shell-oil accessed on April 11, 201651 Armand Feigenbaum, “Total Quality Control”, Harvard Business Review 34, 6 (November-December 1956), 52 Ike Okonta and Oronto Douglas note that the killing of Saro-Wiwa ushered in violent activities from organized groups that threaten oil exploration in the Niger Delta. As a result, Shell was the first to suspend some of its loading operations at a terminal in Forcados, Bayelsa State. Similarly, Elf shut down oil production at Obagi field, close to Warri, Delta State. See Ike Okonta and Oronto Douglas, Where Vultures Feast, p. 155

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Perhaps the emergence of the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force (NDPVF) and the

Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) owe to the Kaiama Declaration,53 a

terse document that highlighted decades of marginalization of the tribes in the Niger Delta by the

Nigerian state. The document, which had a ten-point resolution, remains the working documents

of both the NDPVF and MEND. It is not surprising that NDPVF and MEND were predominantly

of the Ijaw tribe extraction. After all, the declaration was framed as an Ijaw Declaration, in

substance and in form.

The NDPVF was founded in 2003. It is unclear how the organization was formed. But what is

clear is, the organization embraced all the resolutions of the Kaiama Declaration. What is equally

clear is the fact that the organization’s tactic was violent in nature. Led by Alhaji Mujahid Asari

Dokubo, a bully-looking Ijaw national who had to convert to the Islamic faith in order to lead an

“all out war” against Nigeria and MNOCs.54 His arrest in 2004 – and possibly, internal

dissension – led to a breakaway faction that founded MEND in 2005.55 Since then, these two

53 Kaiama is one of the important cities in the Niger Delta and the Ijaw tribe the most populous and dominant in the region. The choice of Kaiama is symbolic because Isaac Adaka Boro made his declaration in the same city some four decades prior. The Declaration notes the alleged injustice on the Ijaw nation and issued a 10-point declaration, the highlight of which was the derecognition of the rights of MNOCs to continue to explore oil in the region as well as urging Ijaw youths “to set up the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) to coordinate the struggle of Ijaw peoples for self-determination and justice”. See https://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/nigeria2/Ngria993-02.htm accessed on March 25, 2016 and http://www.unitedijaw.com/kaiama.htm accessed on March 25, 2016. 54 Levinus Nwabughiogu, “Asari Dokubo: ‘I became radicalized after converting to Islam’” Vanguard (June 14, 2014) http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/06/dokubo-asari-50-became-radicalised-converting-islam/ accessed on April 8, 201655 Stephanie Hanson, “MEND: The Niger-Delta’s Umbrella Militant Group”, Council on Foreign Relations (March 22, 2007), http://www.cfr.org/nigeria/mend-niger-deltas-umbrella-militant-group/p12920 accessed on January 26, 2016

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http://www.unitedijaw.com/kaiama.htm%20accessed%20on%20March%2025


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organizations have become allies, partners engaging in all sort of nefarious activities christened

war of liberation.56

One notable feature of the activities against established institutions since the days of Isaac Adaka

Boro was the framing of these activities. Groups that tended to challenge the political and

economic orthodoxy saw themselves as social movements organizations bent on exerting

political and economic concessions from established institutions. In hindsight, it is only plausible

that groups in the Niger Delta saw themselves as social movement groups. This was the fad of

their age. Social movements such as the Civil Rights Movement, the Anti-War Movement in the

aftermath of the Vietnam war,57 and the Italian Social Movement in the 1950s58 had given civil

liberties a new nomenclature. Unlike these movements in organized societies, however, most of

groups in the Niger Delta since the 1960s were sparsely coordinated and organized. But if these

groups portrayed themselves as social movements, are they social movements? In other words,

what are social movements and what are the characteristics of social movements?

One recurrent theme in the literature on social movement organizations (SMOs) is that SMOs

seek to exploit some political opportunity in the national space.59 The literature suggests a sort of

political cleavage whose void SMOs tend to fill. While this point sounds plausible, I contend that

56 Elias Courson, “Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND): Political Marginalization, Repression and Petro-Insurgency in the Niger Delta” The Nordic African Institute, Discussion Paper 47 (Uppsala, 2009), p. 2057 Blythe Gillespie, “10 Protest Movements that Changed America,” Minyanville, November 4, 2011, http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/10-movements-that-changed-america-movements/11/4/2011/id/37721 accessed on March 25, 2016. 58 Mayer N. Zald and John David McCarthy, ed. Social Movements in an Organizational Society: Collected Essays (Transaction Publishers, 1987), p. 31459 Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics, Second Edition (Cambridge University Press, 1998), p.2; Craig J. Jenkins and Bert Klandermans, “The Politics of Social Protest,” in Craig J. Jenkins and Bert Klandermans, eds., The Politics of Social Protest: Comparative Perspectives on States and Social Movements (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1995), pp. 3-13; Clare Saunders, Environmental Networks and Social Movement Theory (Bloomsbury, 2013)

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it is not just SMOs that attempt to exploit political opportunities within a state. All forms of

organized pressure groups – from the teachers’ union to the labour movement to the association

of journalists – tend to exploit political opportunities in a state. For the purpose of this paper,

however, I will include political opportunity as a defining criterion for understanding SMOs.

For Tarrow, we cannot offer a definition for SMOs without situating these organizations within

the ambit of contentious politics. Contentious politics, for him, is amplified when evolving

political opportunities and constraints “create incentives for social actors who lack resources on

their own.” These actors then oppose the state through overt and covert means. “When backed by

dense social networks and galvanized by culturally resonant, action-oriented symbols,

contentious politics leads to sustained interaction with opponents. The result is the social

movement.”60

While elements of Tarrow’s description of SMOs can be found in Jenkins and Klandermans’

conception, the authors are more comfortable using Charles Tilly’s definition of SMOs.61 They

see social movement organizations as groups that have “a sustained series of interactions” with

the state.62 Saunders, however, would not be drawn into providing an explicit definition of

SMOs. She contends that SMOs means different things to different scholars operating in

different research paradigms. To some, SMOs are institutionalized. To others, they are not. Still,

to some group of scholars, SMOs and pressure groups are synonyms. To others, they are not – a

view this paper shares. But like Tarrow, Jenkins and Klandermans, Saunders believes that SMOs

60 Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics, Second Edition (Cambridge University Press, 1998), p.2 61 Charles Tilly, “Social Movements and National Politics” in Charles Bright and Susan Harding, eds. Statemaking and Social Movements (Ann Arbour: University of Michigan Press, 1984), pp. 297-317 62 Craig J. Jenkins and Bert Klandermans, “The Politics of Social Protest,” in Craig J. Jenkins and Bert Klandermans, eds., The Politics of Social Protest: Comparative Perspectives on States and Social Movements, p.5

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interact and network with the established order.63 Thus, in her work on how social movements

can help us understand environmental organizations in the UK, she focuses on the interaction

and features of social movements64 rather than to be drawn into the ‘definitional war.’

Juxtaposing these authors’ positions on SMOs, some salient features they have identified are

germane to our understanding of the NDPVF and MEND. These works contend that SMOs

interact with the state, are collective in outlook, have an overarching agenda they intend to

accomplish, attempt to mobilize consensus by drawing sympathy from their locale by fostering a

common identity, have a long history, and for Tarrow, “changes in political opportunities and

constraints create the most important incentives [by SMOs] for initiating new phases of

contention.”65

It is doubtful that the NDPVF and MEND fit these descriptions in their entirety. It is true

political opportunities and constraints provide incentives for NDPVF and MEND to articulate

their contentions, it is equally true that the overarching agenda of these organizations is

somewhat problematic. NDPVF had in the past declared “all out war” against the Nigerian state.

It had equally argued for resource control in a confederated Nigeria as well as for secession from

the Nigerian state.66 MEND, on its part, claims it is fighting a war to liberate the people of the

Niger Delta from the yoke of neocolonialism while it had continually collected ransom from

MNOCs for foreign oil workers kidnapped although it has continued to deny this.67 Although

these organizations wanted to draw the attention of the Nigerian state and the international

63 Clare Saunders, Environmental Networks and Social Movement Theory, p. 664 See Clare Saunders, Environmental Networks and Social Movement Theory65 Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics, Second Edition (Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 766 Stephanie Hanson, “MEND: The Niger-Delta’s Umbrella Militant Group”, Council on Foreign Relations (March 22, 2007), http://www.cfr.org/nigeria/mend-niger-deltas-umbrella-militant-group/p12920 accessed on January 26, 201667 Tope Oriola, Criminal Resistance? pp. 1-3

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community to its plight, it is not out of place to say that their objectives have not been well

articulated. At best, these organizations have conflicting objectives. More so, these organizations

were only formed about a decade ago and do not signify any real continuity with previous

struggles by organized groups in the region against the state. Both groups profess Ijaw

nationality and are not representative of the numerous ethnic groups in the Niger Delta. As

Oriola has shown, it not unthinkable for these organizations often coerce the Niger Delta

community to buy-in into their operations.68 From these standpoints, this paper does not consider

NDPVF and MEND to be SMOs.

While some of the groups in the Niger Delta such as Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni

People (MOSOP) and Ijaw Youth Congress (IYC) qualify as social movements, others such as

NDPVF, MEND, and Egbesu youths, although have the trappings of social movements, their

crude, primitive, and violent tactics disqualify them from being elected into the corpus of social

movements in democracies that are responsible to their people. If NDPVF and MEND have the

tracings of social movements but do not fully qualify, are they then bandits?

Eric Hobsbawm’s works provide illuminating responses into the thorny puzzles we are

attempting to unravel. In Primitive Rebels, Hobsbawm investigated nascent movements of

protest that fell outside the conventional patterns of labour and civil rights and concluded that

these “unconventional movements” and the people peddling them were “social bandits.”69

Hobsbawm sees two extremes of outlaws: “the classical blood-vengeance outlaw of, say,

Corsica, who was not a social brigand fighting the rich to help the poor, but a man who fought

with and for his kin (including its rich) against another kin (including its poor). At the other

68 See chapter four of Oriola’s work, ibid. pp. 83-12269 Eric Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels: Studies in Archaic Forms of Social Movements in the 19th and 20th Centuries (W.W. Norton and Company, 1959)

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extreme we have the classical Robin Hood who was and is essentially a peasant rebelling against

landlords, usurers, and other representatives…”70 While his idea of social banditry resonates with

the activities of NDPVF and MEND, it will be premature to label these groups as bandits. The

reader should bear in mind that the scope of Primitive Rebels was Western and Southern Europe,

with focus on Italy around the time the French Revolution began.71 Besides, his identification of

two types of social bandits poses serious problematic for putting the NDPVF and MEND into

context. We have to remain cognisant that the factors that were responsible for the rise of

primitive rebels and social bandits in Andalusia or Corsica were different from the factors that

triggered violent activities in the Niger Delta. Putting things into context, is, therefore, important.

His follow-up work, Bandits, detailed the characteristics of “social bandits” or groups that

exhibited such social misdemeanour. This work is equally important for it makes a veiled

reference to Africa being the next hub of social banditry.72 For Hobsbawm, anyone affiliated to a

group whose purpose is to attack and steal with sheer violence is a bandit. These bandits, to

Hobsbawm, are criminals who are reviled by the state but are “considered by their people as

heroes, as champions, avengers, fighters for justice, perhaps even leaders of liberation, and in

any case as men to be admired, helped and supported.”73 Hobsbawm believes banditry is

symptomatic of “pauperization and economic crisis” and that it is visible in rural societies. More

so, banditry could be the outcome of war or weak government. “They may reflect the disruption

70 Eric Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels: Studies in Archaic Forms of Social Movements in the 19th and 20th Centuries, pp. 3-471 Eric Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels: Studies in Archaic Forms of Social Movements in the 19th and 20th Centuries, p.1 72 Eric Hobsbawm, Bandits (London: The Trinity Press, 1969), p. 19; Tope Oriola, Criminal Resistance? p. 5273 Eric Hobsbawm, Bandits (London: The Trinity Press, 1969), p. 13

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of an entire society, the rise of new classes and social structures, the resistance of entire

communities or peoples against the destruction of its way of life.”74

It is clear that the NDPVF and MEND exhibit some but not all attributes of bandits as enunciated

by Hobsbawm. Without hesitation, these groups attack and steal with violence and are ‘loved’

and loathed by the state. While these groups have claimed to be fighting for the people by

articulating to the Nigerian state and MNOCs demands that needed to be met, there is little

evidence to suggest that the people of the Niger Delta have benefitted from their wanton

activities. Hobsbawm’s claim that banditry manifests itself during periods of economic strains

and stresses is rendered invalid because the year in which NDPVF and MEND started their

operations was one of the most profitable for the Nigerian state in terms of oil receipts. But with

fairness to the Niger Delta, the region has been a beehive of violence for decades and there has

been little increase in the prosperity of the people of the region relative to increase in oil receipts

and national wealth. As such, this paper rejects the notion that the NDPVF and MEND are

bandits.

If these groups are neither social movements nor bandits, what are they? Why do they continue

to exist? Why has the Nigerian government and the international community not securitized

these existential threats? At least, north of the Niger Delta rages the menace called Boko Haram.

Not only has Boko Haram drawn international condemnation and has been securitized, its leader,

Abubakar Shekau is an internationally-wanted fugitive with a $7 million bounty dangling on his

head.75 As John Campbell, the Ralph Bunche Senior Fellow for Africa Policy Studies at the

Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) has noted, apart from the 2014 attack on the United Nations

74 Eric Hobsbawm, Bandits (London: The Trinity Press, 1969), pp. 17-875 Saeed Ahmed, “Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau: A ruthless leader with a twisted ideology”, CNN, May 7, 2014. http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/07/world/africa/abubakar-shekau-profile/ accessed on April 1, 2016

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building in Abuja, Boko Haram has focused on desecrating the Nigerian state.76 NDPVF and

MEND’s objectives are quite similar yet the United States and the international community do

no see its threat as highly existential.

NDPVF and MEND are a hybrid of an organization. They straddle between the wishes of the

people of the Niger Delta and operate like bandits, though not in its entirety. Even though their

mission mirrors the aspirations of the region, it is clear that these groups are not representative of

the teeming ethnic groups in the Delta. Besides, there are other groups77 in the region who

employ similar violent tactics and represent other ethnic groups in the region. NDPVF and

MEND are, therefore, Janus-faced. Part social movement; part banditry.

On why these organizations have continued to exist, the Nigerian government deemed it so. It is

not out of place to submit that the Nigerian government lacks the political will to do so. Rather

than focus on human security and address environmental challenges in the Niger Delta, the

Nigerian government only decided to introduce palliative measures. On assumption of office,

erstwhile Nigerian president, late Umar Musa Yar’ Adua sensed that youths in the Niger Delta

were at the vanguard of these militant organizations. Pronto, he introduced Amnesty Program, a

measure intended to demobilize, disarm, and reintegrate (DDR) the youths into the society. As

Iyabobola Ajibola has opined, the amnesty program is a long way off the success it was intended

76 John Campbell, “Nigeria’s Abubakar Shekau Is Back, If He Ever Left”, Council on Foreign Relations (August 18, 2015) http://blogs.cfr.org/campbell/2015/08/18/nigerias-abubakar-shekau-is-back-if-he-ever-left/ 77 A Working Paper by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) shows that there are forty-eight recognizable groups in the Delta “boasting more than 25,000 members and with an arsenal of approximately 10,000 weapons.” See Judith Burdin Asuni, “Understanding the Armed Groups of the Niger Delta” Council on Foreign Relations (September 2009). p. 3. Some of the groups are Niger Delta Vigilante (NDV), Federation of Niger Delta Ijaw Communities (FNDIC), Klansmen Konfraternity (KK), and Egbesu Youths.

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to be.78 Rather, what the amnesty program has succeeded in doing is raising militant oligarchs.

Leaders of NDPVF and MEND, Alhaji Asari Dokubo and Government Tompolo have made

huge fortunes79from their nefarious activities.

It is striking that the international community especially the United States does not see parallel

between insurgent groups in the Niger Delta and Boko Haram in Northeastern Nigeria. Barry

Buzan makes the point that in the 21st century, international security will evolve and that the

world will witness “the rise of a multipolar power structure in place of the Cold War’s bipolar

one,” “a much lower degree of ideological and rivalry,” “the global dominance of a security

community among the leading capitalist powers,” and “the strengthening of international

society.” For Buzan, these changes will alter the periphery in the following ways: “political

security,” “military security,” “economic security,” “societal security,” and “environmental

security.”80 It is still not clear how Buzan’s synthesis of the dominant thesis (bipolar) of the

twentieth century creates an antithesis that explains the Niger Delta question. Some of Buzan’s

observations are adept at explaining situations in Europe and North America and possibly, the

Asian Pacific. But it is an open secret that western powers do not have the interest of Africa at

heart and care less about its challenges. This is amplified when we consider NDPVF and

MEND’s reasons for engaging in violence. The United States has taken a backseat because it is

gradually gravitating towards energy security, or so it says. Western governments’ positions on

78 Iyabobola Ajibola, Nigeria’s Amnesty Program: The Role of Empowerment in Achieving Peace and Development in Post-Conflict Niger Delta” Sage Open (July-September 2015), pp. 1-1179 Drew Hinshaw, “Nigeria’s Former Oil Bandits Now Collect Government Cash,” Wall Street Journal (August 22, 2012) http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304019404577420160886588518 accessed on April 9, 2016 80 Barry Buzan, “Security in the Twenty-First Century” in Christopher W. Hughes and Lai Yew Meng, eds. Security Studies: A Reader (Routledge, 2011), pp. 365-374

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Boko Haram fits the wider narrative of “war on Islamic terror” while it is not in western interests

to perceive insurgent groups in the Delta as threats. Perhaps, as long as the Nigerian government

and MNOCs are able to settle “insurgents” and MNOCs are still able to make sizable profits and

satisfying their shareholders, it is business as usual for western governments, globalization, and

international security.

To the uninitiated, violence in the Niger Delta is a Nigerian affair. This is a naïve view. Nigeria’s

population of 180 million dwarfs the whole of West-African states combined. Nigeria’s GDP of

approximately 522 billion dollars is not only the biggest in Africa, the total GDP of West-

African states in nowhere near it.81 Nigeria oversees West-Africa’s economy through the

Economic Community of West African States and superintends over regional security through

the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG). The United

States, Europe, and Canada see Nigeria as central to their Africa’s policy.82 A destruction of oil

facilities in the Delta could lead to a failed Nigeria which could severely undermine western

interests in Africa. It could lead to difficulty in seeking cooperation from African leaders to

prosecute, successfully, the war on terrorism. A failed Nigeria will ultimately lead to chaos in the

international system. The mammoth humanitarian crisis that will follow will threaten the New

World Order and challenge international institutions to their utmost limits. A safe and secure

Nigeria should thus be in the interest of everyone. Buzan correctly notes that “the logic of

security almost always involves high levels of interdependence among actors trying to make

81 http://statisticstimes.com/economy/african-countries-by-gdp.php accessed April 11, 2016.82 http://www.state.gov/p/af/ci/ni/139598.htm; http://www.canadainternational.gc.ca/nigeria/bilateral_relations_bilaterales/canada_nigeria.aspx?lang=eng; https://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/countries/nigeria_en all accessed on April 11, 2016

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http://www.state.gov/p/af/ci/ni/139598.htm

http://statisticstimes.com/economy/african-countries-by-gdp.php


themselves secure.”83 Kidnapping in the Niger Delta requires an interdependent and international

panacea, a genuine and concerted effort to addressing human security concerns in the region.

There is another reason why the government lacks the political will to address problems in the

Niger Delta on s sustained basis: militants are a willing political tool. Militants claim that sitting

governments in the Niger Delta arm militant groups to disrupt the electoral process in order for

political incumbents to win elections. As such, elections in the Niger Delta are between ballots

are bullets. It is not unusual to see gun-totting militants pointing to where the electorates should

cast their votes.84

The Political Nature of Kidnapping

While most forms of kidnapping are inherently political in outlook, it is important to understand

the motivations of the actors. Some kidnappings constitute a means to an end. Others –

especially kidnappings for undue economic advantages – are ends in themselves. Kidnapping in

the Niger Delta falls into the former category. Bizarrely, scholars, especially in the field of

sociology are hasty to label kidnappers as criminals.85 This scissors and paste approach to

understanding a complex phenomenon in a turbulent political economy such as Nigeria offers

83 Barry Buzan, “The National Security Problem in International Relations” in Christopher W. Hughes and Lai Yew Meng, Security Studies: A Reader (Routledge, 2011), p. 1884 Thomas Horn Hansen, “The Lull Before The Storm: Maritime Piracy and Election Violence in the Niger Delta,” Journal of Energy Security (March 2011) http://ensec.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=285:the-lull-before-the-storm-maritime-piracy-and-election-violence-in-the-niger-delta&catid=114:content0211&Itemid=374 accessed on April 9, 2016; Arodiegwu Eziukwu, “Niger Delta Militants meet in Yenagoa, threaten war should Jonathan lose election,” Premium Times (January 24, 2015) http://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/175532-niger-delta-militants-meet-yenagoa-threaten-war-jonathan-lose-presidential-election.html accessed on April 9, 201685 One of such is Rodanthi Tzanelli, “Capitalizing on Value: Towards a Sociological Understanding of Kidnapping” Sociology, Vol. 40, No. 5 (2006), pp. 929-947

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http://ensec.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=285:the-lull-before-the-storm-maritime-piracy-and-election-violence-in-the-niger-delta&catid=114:content0211&Itemid=374




little explanation for solving the problem in question. Context matters. Specificity is important.

Conceptualizing kidnapping as a political act can thus be located within the prism of the state.

One of the biggest indictments of the theory of the state is that it is seen as a monolith. But as J.

P. Nettl argues persuasively, the state should be seen as a “conceptual variable.”86 The whole

point of Nettl’s argument is that states exist to provide social services and they should be

assessed based on these functions. Nettl is convinced that these functions are different in

different societies. In his bid to explaining functional variations among states, he asks: “what

functions does the state serve, and, in its absence, how are those functions served in other

societies?”87 It is my contention that functional obligations by the state to its citizens provide a

roadmap for understanding the success or failure of the state. In other words, we can identify

strong and weak states by their responses to social services needs. It is against this framework

that we can properly grasp the motivation behind kidnapping in the Niger Delta and its intrinsic

political nature.

Locating kidnapping as a political act within the orbit of the state necessitates that we delineate

strong states from weak states. Strong states strive to proffer political goods to their citizens

while lessening political marginalization. In his examination of the relationship between war and

state making in Latin America in the nineteenth century, Miguel Angel Centeno notes that state

making in Europe can be understood through what Samuel Finer calls “coercion-extraction”88

sequence. Thus is strong states, we find how group identities and interests shape policies in the

affirmative. As such, strong states have the “capacities to penetrate society, regulate social

86 J.P. Nettl, “The State as a Conceptual Variable,” World Politics, vol. 20 (1968), pp. 559-59287 J.P. Nettl, “The State as a Conceptual Variable,” World Politics, vol. 20 (1968), p. 57988 Miguel Angel Centeno, “Blood and Debt: War and Taxation in Nineteenth Century Latin America,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 102, No. 6. (May 1997); Samuel Finer, “State and Nation Building in Europe: The Role of the Military” in Charles Tilly, ed. The Formation of National States in Western Europe (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1975), pp. 84-163

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relationship, extract resources, and appropriate or use resources in determined ways.”89 In strong

states, we find the efflorescence of social relationships between the state and interest groups.

Since the state’s capabilities are able allocate resources in optimal ways, boundaries that all

stakeholders are bound by are set.

The path is not so clear in weak states. In an attempt to differentiate weak states from strong

states, no one puts it more succinctly that Barry Buzan: weak states have “high level of concern

with domestically generated threats to the security of the government; in other words, weak

states either do not have, or have failed to create, a domestic political and social

consciousness.”90 What Buzan, however, fails to identify, is whether this lack of social consensus

was covert or overt on the part of the state. Cases of kidnapping could and should be

disaggregated and dissected into their specific bits with states at the epicenter. Motivations

should be clearly analyzed. Even though this paper’s abhorrence is unequivocal, it contends that

kidnapping could be a crime somewhere and not a crime elsewhere. When states are seen as the

purveyors of social goods, kidnapping to weaken the state could be seen as crime – treasonable

offence – against the state in responsible societies. But in irresponsible states, kidnapping could

be seen as an instrument to get the irresponsible state to become responsible.

Therefore, Oriola could not have been wrong when he suggests that insurgents in the Delta are

frustrated that the discovery of oil has led to vast exploitation of the Delta occasioned by steep

environmental degradation and decline in quality of living with the government paying little

attention to the plight of the region.91 Oriola’s submission is added fillip by Buzan’s premise that

89 Joel Migdal, Strong Societies and Weak States: The State-Society Relations and State Capabilities in the Third World (Princeton, 1988), p. 26490 Barry Buzan, People, States and Fear: An Agenda for International Security Studies in the Post-Cold War Era, second edition (Hemel Hempstead) p.9791 This forms part of Oriola’s conclusion. See Oriola, Criminal Resistance?

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in the twenty-first century, African countries and their leaders, known for odious leadership will

find it difficult to shift the blame of terrible governance to colonial foundations. Their people

will hold these leaders accountable more than ever.92 Kidnapping in the Niger Delta is a stark

reminder of Buzan’s premises.

Conclusion

The Niger Delta is gradually turning into “The Great Game.” On the one hand are MNOCs and

the Nigerian state and on the other hand are insurgents. These participants continue to battle for

the economic soul of the region. Those who suffer are the residents of the region. Decades of

protests by groups in the region have yielded little results in terms of policy changes. Recourse to

sheer violence and kidnapping has not fared either. Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr’s epigram aptly

sums up the plight of the Niger Delta: “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”

Kidnapping as a political instrument should be analyzed against the concept of the state. Strong

and responsible states tend to formulate agenda that incorporates marginalized groups into the

body politic. Groups that engage in kidnapping in such a social contractual arrangement are

criminals. Exceptions can be made for kidnappings in irresponsible states. NDPVF and MEND

exemplify this sad phenomenon in the Niger Delta. Their cause is noble but their tactic, though

condemnable, was aided by years of neglect by the Nigerian state. Sadly, these insurgents have

turned kidnapping into a bread and butter venture by collecting ransoms93 from MNOCs and

vandalizing oil facilities. Unless there is a genuine attempt by MNOCs to address environmental

challenges and backed by the political will by the Nigerian government to place national interest

92 Barry Buzan, “Security in the twenty-first century” in Christopher W. Hughes and Lai Yew Meng, eds. Security Studies: A Reader (Routledge, 2011), pp. 365-37493 James Bridger, “Kidnapping Resurgent in Gulf of Guinea,” USNI News (March 14, 2014) https://news.usni.org/2014/03/14/kidnapping-resurgent-gulf-guinea-piracy accessed on April 9, 2016

29

https://news.usni.org/2014/03/14/kidnapping-resurgent-gulf-guinea-piracy


above self interests, conflict and associated kidnapping in the Niger Delta may remain intractable

for the foreseeable future.

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Documents

Understanding kidnapping of expatriates in Nigeria as a political instrument: implications for national security