Amnesty In Jeopardy

At the weekend, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, MEND, announced through the internet that its fighters had attacked and destroyed the Agip trunk line at Brass in Bayelsa State. The statement posted online was signed by its spokesman who claims to be Jomo Gbomo.

Although there was no immediate official response from Agip that its facilities had been compromised by MEND, the attack was least expected in view of the fact that there has been relative calm in the region since 2009 when the amnesty programme started, with lots of the ex-militants being sent overseas for skill acquisition training after their rehabilitation at their Obubra camp in Cross River State. It was the late President Umaru Yar’Adua who initiated the amnesty programme to stem the crippling attacks on oil facilities in the restive Delta region.

The security agencies might have also been caught napping by the sudden attack which MEND claimed is to remind the authorities of their “presence in the creeks of the Niger Delta and a sign of things to come.”

Though MEND gave various reasons for the attack, one of which is the failure of the President Goodluck Jonathan administration to address the “serious national issues facing the nation and its citizens,” the group’s threat to reduce Nigeria’s oil output to zero and chase away “the thieving oil companies,” must have jolted the government and key players in the oil industry.

How the government responds to this new threat will ultimately determine whether the nation’s oil industry will be thrown back into those turbulent pre-amnesty days when bombing of oil facilities was a frequent occurrence and the kidnap of expatriate oil workers by militants was the easiest way to make good and quick money through the collection of ransom. During that period, oil production in the region was reduced by half and this adversely affected the foreign exchange earnings of the Federal Government.

With Nigerians still smarting from the Boko Haram scourge, the recent attack by MEND will definitely compound the current security challenges facing the country. We do not want to believe that the resurgence of MEND attack has anything to do with the purported threat by the former governor of Bayelsa State, Timire Sylva, that if he is not given the governorship ticket of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, for the election coming up this Saturday, 11 April, he will cripple oil exploration activities in the Niger Delta region. But if the latest attack is the handiwork of his ‘boys’ in the creeks of Bayelsa, as some have alleged, we say it is not the best way to settle scores with his perceived political enemies.

As for Asari Dokubo who said no harm should befall Jonathan in the heat of the protest against the removal of subsidy on petrol in January, what will he now make of the renewed hostilities by MEND in the Niger Delta region? Are the activities of members of MEND, who are Jonathn’s kinsmen, not capable of destabilising his government? Shouldn’t Asari Dokubo call MEND’s bluff now and defend Jonathan whom the group pilloried in their statement after Saturday’s attack?