The Bombing of Bonga

Before it declared its unilateral ceasefire in its battle with the Federal Government, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) raised the stakes of militancy by blowing up the installed offshore oil facility in Bonga. Some hours later, Chevron’s Abiteye Olero pipeline was destroyed by persons identified by MEND as militant youths.

Both attacks were directed at the jugular of Nigeria’s economy. The Bonga oil field devastation shut in an estimated 225,000 barrels per day of crude oil production. The destruction of Chevron’s Abiteye Olero pipeline further cut back oil production by 125,000 barrels per day. For a country that is wholly dependent on oil, both attacks would be seen as sabotage that was intended to hurt its economy and threaten its survival. But they were even more than that as the attack on Bonga, especially, took the violent agitations of the Niger Delta militants a notch higher. It was an attack that queried the sovereignty of the country.

It is, however, disturbing that the attacks were done with relative ease. Travelling in three speedboats, 20 militants sailed the open sea unnoticed for a distance of 75 kilometres to deal such a deadly blow on such a strategic facility. They were not seen, let alone apprehended, by Nigeria’s naval force or even the military intelligence before they could wreak such a deadly havoc.

Could a country leave its major source of income unprotected like that to be debased by insurgent groups? What would have happened if the attack had been masterminded from abroad in form of external aggression? How did the militants and similar other groups come about the weapons they deploy against their country?

The answers to these questions will, no doubt, reveal the lackadaisical approach to governance and maintenance of law and order by the present administration and its perfunctory approach to the resolution of the Niger Delta problem. Of course, this administration inherited the problem of the Niger Delta from its predecessors, including the military regimes, but it would seem as if its approach to this long-standing restiveness and rebellion in the Niger Delta is too unrealistic for the urgency which the problem of the Niger Delta deserves.

This is further worsened by the fact that arms are, somehow, easily getting into the hands of disenchanted members of the Nigerian society without the government being able to either monitor or stop the flow. The situation is worrying and it speaks volumes about the security of the country, especially by questioning the level of commitment of its security agencies.

In one of its recent programmes on the world output of crude oil, an expert on the Cable Network News (CNN) gave a detailed account of the world output and he provided figures on even war-torn Iraq but he was unable to be definite about the situation in Nigeria because of the activities of the militants in that volatile geopolitical zone of the Niger Delta. This position has even been corroborated by the country’s Minister of State for Finance who recently confirmed that Nigeria loses 84 million dollars per day to militant activities.

The picture painted as regards the prosperity of the country is, therefore, gloomy and it is worrying even to contemplate the repercussions of the negative but legitimate agitations of the Niger Delta militants; agitations which date back to Isaac Adaka-Boro. There are however lessons to be learnt from the bombing of Bonga.

The first is that the Federal Government should resolve the conflict in that region expeditiously. It should come up with acceptable proposals for the resolution. The Federal Government should come up with a better workable plan to win the peace in that region as a matter of urgency.

Second, it is dangerous and suicidal to premise the prosperity of a whole country on one resource, oil, found mostly in the Niger Delta. It inexorably opens the country, which is not sincere about the federation, to blackmail as it has happened in Bonga. The country should develop other resources as a matter of urgency.

The resolution of the Niger Delta crisis will, no doubt, task the wisdom of the present administration but we believe that with diplomacy, the issues can be confronted and peace can be restored in that region permanently. The alternatives are dangerous and should not even be contemplated.

THESE ENEMIES ARE CUSTOMARY

SOME people do not like the face of Hamman Bello Ahmed, the new Controller General (CG) of Nigeria Customs Service and are desperate in their bid to get rid of him or so Ahmed claimed. In a report published in the Sunday Independent edition of June 22, 2008, some people who claimed to be importers said the new CG was their very good friend and congratulated President Umaru Yar’Adua on appointing their “man”.

THE “friends” of Ahmed said the CG was a reputable importer of ethanol and that he also owned a company known as Dozzy Oils. They nurse the hope that with their “man” at the helm of Customs’ affairs, import and export operations would become very easy because Ahmed was also a stakeholder.

BUT Ahmed has denied having such friends. He insisted that those well-wishers did not wish him well at all, that they were enemies who were bent on tarnishing his image. He said it was true he had handled ethanol but not as an importer. He was the porter, he claimed, who stopped the illegal entry of the chemical substance into the country at the nation’s ports.

IT may be true that Ahmed has many enemies. But Nigerians are too familiar with the image of the organisation he heads to be taken by surprise by any story whether real or imagined. They know that the nation’s borders are so watertight that only lorries carrying contraband can pass through them. It is also said that the only thing that cannot escape the attention of those manning the borders is a bribe or how else could fake drugs, banned textiles and other such contraband have found their way into the country?

THOSE enemies who are blackmailing Ahmed should know that such a shot in a country like Nigeria is very cheap. Nobody pays any attention to such things here. After all, is it not too long ago that some stakeholders in a sector of the economy sent emissaries to the nation’s authorities that they wanted a particular person, whom the public wished would be relieved of such a weighty responsibility, to carry on as the sector’s regulator in order to continue the shortchanging of Nigerians? The customs’ boss has nothing to fear; his enemies, as is customary, may not show their faces.