Nigeria's Deadly Days

(2 of 4)

Downriver, it's easy to see the cause of this deadly hostility. Since the 1950s, when oil was first found in recoverable quantities, the Delta and the waters off Nigeria's coast in the Gulf of Guinea have made the country and oil majors such as Chevron, Agip, ExxonMobil and Shell hundreds of billions of dollars. Nigeria currently earns more than $3 billion a month from oil — which accounts for some 95% of its export earnings and 40% of its gdp. But the vast majority of the people of the Delta still live in severe and visible poverty.

One of the first activists to speak out against this imbalance was businessman, TV writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, from the Ogoni region, east of Nigeria's oil capital Port Harcourt. Saro-Wiwa preached nonviolence, but Nigeria's then military government charged him with having "counseled and procured" the murder of four Ogoni elders, and in 1995 hanged him, to international condemnation. Despite the return to democracy and government promises to improve the lives of Delta dwellers, little has changed. Today in Oporoza — the traditional center of the Gbaramatu kingdom in whose backwaters, locals say, mend has its bases — villagers gather in a meeting hall and list their grievances. "Poverty is the major problem we are facing here," says Odiki Miebi, a local chief.

True, some of the houses in the village are built of brick and concrete — much more substantial dwellings than the flimsy reed huts that are home to many people in the region. And there is a school, though it has been seriously vandalized, its rooms emptied of furniture donated by Shell. But the village, about 90 minutes from Warri by fast speedboat, is hardly thriving. A water tank installed about a decade ago doesn't work, forcing people to scoop their water from a muddy hole. Worst of all, complains Macaulay Elekute, another elder, there are no local jobs.

Violence in the Delta is nothing new. Tribal conflict has plagued the region for years. Well-armed and organized gangs have been present almost as long as the oil companies, making tens of millions of dollars in "bunkering" operations in which oil is illegally siphoned off (and causing, oil companies have long maintained, most of the local environmental damage as a result). The gangsters have also extorted money by kidnapping oil workers and supplying "security" services in exchange for not attacking installations. In some ways, the situation has been exacerbated since Nigeria's return to civilian rule. According to local lawyers and international human-rights groups such as Human Rights Watch and the London-based Stakeholder Democracy Network, ruling-party politicians have armed local youths — many of them gang members — to ensure that votes go their way. Weapons flooded the region before the 2003 poll, which in many parts of the Delta was less an election than an armed contest. Commonwealth observers found that in the Rivers state and other areas there was "serious violence, intimidation and vote rigging." Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, one of the youth leaders armed by politicians, later turned on Nigeria's security forces and engaged them in gun battles in the streets of Port Harcourt. After Dokubo-Asari called for the breakup of Nigeria last year he was arrested for treason — a charge he denies. Some of his followers are also mend members, according to activists in Port Harcourt and Onengiya Erekosima, spokesman for the political wing of Dokubo-Asari's organization.