Tensions Arise in Port Harcourt Oil Region as MEND declares "Hurricane Obama"

Tensions Arise in Port Harcourt Oil Region as MEND declares "Hurricane Obama"

Residents front the unruly, oil-producing Niger Delta region of Nigeria are bracing for increased violence in the area. Over what might you ask? Over oil. Rebels from the area have said they called off a ceasefire in response to a alleged attack by the Nigerian army on one of its territories.
The Nigerian army, being ill-equipped in both knowledge and equipment, has trouble in avoiding ambushes in the creeks and swamps of the Niger Delta, where the popular rhetoric of the militants has won them the support of the people in the area.

To further add to their problems, the Spokesperson for the main militant group, MEND (the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta), the group that has been holding two British citizens hostage for more than a month, has warned the oil industry to prepare for what it called "Hurricane Obama," beginning Saturday. January 31, 2009. It comes 5 months after the operation codenamed "Hurricane Barbarossa" in September 2008 in which they targeted oil units and directly attacked the JTF (Joint Task Force) of the Nigeria Niger Delta.

The Spokesperson stated that "Hurricane Obama"

“...will traverse the entire Niger Delta region and the attacks will be unconventional…Many of them (soldiers) will not see 2010 (and) it will begin Hurricane Obama. The government is complicating the already volatile situation by its extra-judicial killings and arrests."

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He also stated that the beginning of "Hurricane Obama" would mark the end of the ceasefire completely.

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Securing the Niger Delta

The Niger Delta, Africa's largest gas and oil industry, has been filled with violence over the past three years. This violence has caused a decrease in Nigeria's oil production by 20%. Rebels are fighting for a greater share of the country's oil network and are going as far as murder and kidnapping. Recently, the Nigerian military has cracked down on violence, and reduced most crimes. Kidnappings are becoming rare, and hopefully, all threats to the oil industry will soon be eliminated, bringing the oil infrastructure back to normal.

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In Nigeria, the outbreak of crimes is lessening, bringing the uncontrollable violence to a stop. Previous crimes have slowed down the economy of the oil industry. The tighter and stricter military enforcement should help ease the insecurities. The fight for a share of the country’s natural resources is coming to an end, reducing civil unrest throughout Nigeria.

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Women's Rights rally condemened in northern Nigeria

Islamic authorities from the northern Nigerian city of Kano have blocked a protest organized bya women's rights group for divorced women. The group has agreed to reschedule their rally for January 29. Many women's rights activists complain that divorced women are often left homeless and without custody of their children, and as a result, these women often slip into poverty. The head of the Sharia police called the planned protest an "embarrassment", and reffered to it as "un-Islamic".The northern Nigerian city of Kano is one of twelve northern Muslim-majority states governed by Sharia law. The Hisbah are in charge of maintaining the morals of the Islamic religion and making sure they are "Sharia-compliant" One of the Hisbah's main duties is to reconcile spouses that are divorce-prone, but divorce is very common in the polygamous northern Nigeria.
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This article reveals the tensions between womem's rights groups and the Muslim-majority states governed by Sharia law. It also reveals the limitted rights of women and women's rights groups in Nigeria. It also shows how a their religiously dominated government affects their society.

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Distribution of Oil Income not Equal

Nigeria's income from oil revenue is huge. But much of that wealth does not reach the common people. This article features some of the groups that have come out on the losing end of this unequal arrangement - the Rumuekpe Youth Council, comprised of armed young people from the formerly-inhabited town of Rumuekpe, and the Rumuekpe Justice Fighters, a more organized group of men from the same town who relocated to Port Harcourt, the regional capital. Both groups agree that the four multi-national oil companies opperating in Rumuekpe did not invest in the community and are willing to react, an example of pressure from the bottom up, if revenue is not, in their opinion, distributed fairly. The oil producers argue that they are paying the rightful owners of the land they opperate on.
There is no question that oil has the potential to boost Nigeria's local economies. What is in question is the method of delegating these revenues. The Rumuekpe Justice Fighters claim that the current method of paying landowners divides the community against itself, a coinciding cleavage, and that the only way to peacefully repopulate Rumuekpe is to distribute funds directly to the community.

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Religious Violence in Jos

The Nigerian city Jos, capital of Nigeria's Middle Belt that spans across Muslim and Christian communities, has been a point of religious violence for countless years. Recently, deadly riots broke out being "the worst Nigeria has seen in at least four years." Over400 bodies were found dead, but many still remain in the churches and houses that were torched by outraged and armed Muslims and Christians.

This sudden clash was a result of elections in Jos. "Elections have not been held in Jos for years, in part because of fears that the political parties would split along religious lines, which is in fact what happened." Nigeria's Population of 140 million people is evenly divided between Northern Muslims and Southern Christians. Besides religious differences, violence is due to disagreements over land and political power. Riots have also been cause by what seems as insignificant but actually very serious matters. In 2002, an unintended insult towards Islam was made during a beauty pageant which left hundreds dead. In 2006, a Danish cartoon had controversies leading to almost 200 deaths.

Regardless of the long history of violence through this disputed capital, many officials believe Jos had come a long way in relieving religious tensions. However, this recent riot has brought progress to a stop. Mr. Salihu, a Muslim, said, "The violence threatened to undo years of careful bridge building between the communities. As someone who has been involved in a peace work between Christians and Muslims, this has set our work back 10 years. It will take us a very long time to rebuild the confidence."

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This article shows how changes in democracy and government elections have effects on society. The religious tensions were already dangerous already, but when elections came into the picture it disrupted the peace that was still in tact and led to deadly riots.

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Pirates in Nigeria Attack Again

In the report it is announced that The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) recently attacked a tanker carrying diesel right off the coast of Rivers state coast. This attack is unusually rare because most piracy attacks are typically on oil service boats and not large tankers like the recent incident occurred on. In addition to attacking the tanker, MEND has also kidnapped the Romanian crew that was on board at the time of the attack but promise that the men will be ‘released unharmed’.

The militant groups in Nigeria say they have resorted to piracy in order to achieve a fairer distribution of oil wealth in Nigeria and their efforts have actually cut oil production by a fifth in the past three years. But it is also known that many other armed groups make money out of oil theft under some powerful corrupt political figures in Nigeria.

This is not the first act of piracy form MEND (Nigeria's most public armed group), and the United Kingdom has decided to aid Nigeria and give the country military training in order to help the government stop the growing problem.

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The article contains first hand examples of the social cleavages between classes in Nigeria. The group, Mend, says their purpose is for equal distribution of oil wealth which illustrates that most of the wealth in the country probably goes to the rich and prominent leaders, and not the mass majority of citizens. Also, because of the pressures from below like armed organizations that undermine the rule of law and adopt piracy, oil production has been cut mostly because of the violence caused by those groups. The groups also can be seen as part of a civil society, making up a “third sector” that is fighting for equal treatment of all citizens that give a voice to people who also believe that distribution should be equal to all.

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