The climate of fear

A climate of fear – pervasive, dull and inexorable – has descended on much of Nigeria. It is like the harmattan season of the northern part of the country – cloudy, chilly and, for most categories of people, oppressive. This fear is palpable, clear and unpretentious. You can see it everywhere – in homes, markets, hospitals, on the roads, etc. – showing on people’s faces even if not expressed by words of mouth.

In years gone by, we used to hear stories of things that caused fear in far-flung countries like Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Colombia, Northern Ireland, Palestine, etc. We used to hear, in the mass media, about bombs going off in public places, including worship centres, causing numerous deaths. They were like fairy tales, those stories, told by media that appeared as alien to us as the stories they told. Suicide bombings were the most outlandish occurence in those tales. A man (or woman!) strapping himself to a bomb and tweaking the control button, killing himself instantly in a blast? No, it could only happen in those lands. Here, we could not have anyone desperate enough as to take their own lives. Men with Kalashnikovs exchanging fire with policemen or even soldiers? Only members of the Cosa Nostra could do that – mostly in the movies or James Hadley Chase thrillers. Or, at worst, armed robbers somewhere in Lagos or the old Bendel.

Things have since changed. We have joined the global village. We are not neighbours to the village, but its occupants. Bombs started to go off in Maiduguri which, to many Nigerians, was another far-flung place somewhere on Planet Earth. A place tucked away near the border with Chad. Indeed, to many Nigerians, when you said Maiduguri they would wonder whether it was a city in Adamawa state, or even Katsina state. You had to tell them it was in Borno state. Yes, they have read the word Kanem-Bornu in their history books. And they could imagine that Borno was one of the states in Nigeria.

Now Nigeria is one big village itself. Reason: the killings we used to hear about are happening in our own neighbourhood, bringing Maiduguri closer home. Someone bombed the police’s national headquarters in Abuja. Another bombed the UN house in the nation’s capital. Bombs have gone off in Suleja and Madalla, killing Christian worshippers. Bombs went off in Kaduna, Damaturu, Bauchi, and Kano. And gun duels have taken place between angry militants and security forces in many towns in the north. In fact, as I wrote only two paragraphs of this piece, a friend who is fond of updating me on the ongoing violence in Kano phoned me from that city and said gunfire was being exchanged “as I’m talking to you” in the Na’ibawa area of the city.

The people of Kano live more in fear than others because a war is going on in their streets. The harmattan of fear in the region’s most populous city is like a heavy cloak that has descended on the people’s reluctant shoulders, forcing a belly-numbing chill that has refused to go away. Muslims go to mosques in fear. Yesterday, according to reports, most Christians stayed at home, fearing that they could be attacked in their churches. Igbo traders, who arguably constitute the majority of non-indigenes in the city, live virtually with their hearts in their mouths. Their ancestral leaders back home, recalling the pogroms of the late 60s, have asked the trading adventurers to start returning home. Even the President has said that these terrible times are akin to the Civil War years. No wonder the under-reported exodus of Nigerians from various parts of the country is continuing unabated in spite of assurances by community leaders.

The Kano killings of a fortnight ago have shown that the bombings and shootings can be indiscriminate. At least over half of the over 200 persons reported to have died in the mayhem were civilians who were caught in the deadly crossfires of the militants and the security forces. They were not carefully selected, but found themselves in the thick of the violence.

A terrible aspect of this saga is that this numbing and perpetual fear is multidimensional: soldiers and policemen now fear civilians and vice versa, the former because they cannot distinguish between an innocent passerby and a bomb-wielding militant. You can see the fear in their eyes at police stations or the check-points. They are not sure of who you are as they scrutinise you, their fingers hovering restlessly over the trigger as you open your car boot. In Kaduna last week, I learnt that many policemen have stopped wearing their uniforms. At police stations, the usual petty ‘cases’ are no longer being entertained. “Go and sort yourselves out,” was the usual refrain by cops to complainants. “We have bigger issues on our hands.”

Civilians fear security men because they know that if a soldier or a cop decides to shoot, no one would accuse him of anything, much less charge him for murder. It seems our security men have acquired emergency powers that they can use at will. They can detain a suspect for longer than is allowed by the laws of the land – or even kill him under one excuse or the other. They can invade a house or an office and ransack everywhere and take whatever they like. Many people live in fear of being accused of knowing a militant or of being one. In this climate, mutual suspicion is legion.

The cost of this fear is unquantifiable. To businesses, to development projects, and to politics and governance, the cost is gargantuan. Our roads and streets have become war zones, with blockades and check-points everywhere. Traffic snarls are a familiar eyesore, as well as their attendant waste of time, energy and resources. The biggest cost, however, is the loss of lives, innocent lives, lives that could contribute to the progress of the nation. People are dying without anyone accounting for their death. In government, no one is resigning for their failure in forcing the present circumstance on the nation. They have to be pushed out. The only fall guy (so far) is Hafiz Ringim, who smilingly handed over the reins of his office to the new inspector-general of police on Thursday. He will not account for anything, including the strange escape of the now mythical Kabir Sokoto.

Shall we ever see the end of this climate of fear? Your guess is as good as mine. But whatever your guess is, it should accommodate the notion that we are not on the road out of this dark and chilly tunnel. So, what do you do when you are caught in a tunnel wherein clouds of fear are thick and menacing? Just one thing: pray.

Published in my column in BLUEPRINT today

Above pix: MD Abubakar, Acting Inspector General of Police

Do we really have a government?

Yes, we do have a government. But which type may be a more appropriate question. Nevertheless, the first question is germane to the debate over the worsening security situation in the country, especially after Friday’s massacre, through coordinated bombing of Kano in five places and the simultaneous shooting of uncountable people –leading to the death of hundreds of people. It has since been accepted by all and sundry that the weekend war on Kano was the worst attack ever carried out by Boko Haram, both in terms of destruction and casualty figure.

The way the attackers succeeded in carrying out the deed and the crass failure by all security agencies under any name to pre-empt or stop it have spawned the question nationwide and in social media whether we really have a government in this country. Many Nigerians have asked the question knowing that a government is supposed to secure the life and property of all citizens. But for years now our government has failed to provide the basic security needed for any Nigerian to exist in his motherland. Violent crimes such as armed robbery and assassination (which still occur unabated) have since been overtaken by Boko Haram’s insurgency.

The attack on Kano was the clearest proof that our government, together with its money-guzzling security outfits, is at its wit’s end about the Islamic sect. That any armed group could visit such a horrific and devastating blow on innocent and unsuspecting residents of the north’s most populous city was hitherto unthinkable.

Nigerians are thoroughly disappointed in this government for its ineffectual handling of many things, especially three issues – free and fair elections, the economy and security. Though all three have a potential for causing violent death, security, which takes the lion’s share of the national budget, is nowhere to be found.

The existence of structures like police and military formations no longer provides any comfort to the taxpayers who sponsor them. They do not give value for money. They are becoming a drainpipe on our scarce resources.
The man we identify as the President of Nigeria, Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, appears helpless and clueless in the prevailing circumstance. He tends to believe that he is operating alone, probablywith a few trusted aides. This is evident in his recent resignation to fate, moaning that there are Boko Haram members in his government. Even though he has not named names, it is easy to guess the type of person the President meant: a Hausa/Fulani, Muslim, from the north. And we all know who is a Hausa/Fulani, Muslim, northerner in the administration, starting from the VP downwards.

Now, a government which has “terrorists” in its hierarchy is no government. It is a cult or a nest of vipers who are prepared to bomb and destroy its citizens in order to achieve some morbid agenda. Since the President believes that there are Boko Haram members in his government, then, does he really have a government? Shouldn’t we assume, by his own confession, that certain of his top lietenants are not only undermining the administration but are also causing the death of thousands, thus commiting treason and a sundry crimes? Shouldn’t we also believe that the President knows these people and is afraid to name them, much less have them arrested and prosecuted? And if he really knows the members of Boko Haram in his government, is he not an accessory to their deeds?

This brings us to the widely held belief in Nigeria that there is Boko Haram and there is a ‘Boko Haram’ – the original one with headquarters in Maiduguri and another one with headquarters in Abuja or any other secret location.

Many today believe that some of these killings ascribed to the original BH are being commited by another shadowy group with aims and objectives far removed from instituting Sharia law all over Nigeria. The agenda of the second– and probably more ruthless – BHis believed to be the destruction of Nigeria as a single entity, in line with a U.S. agency’s prophesy that Nigeria may cease to exist by 2015. This theory is being widely shared today, more so with the increasing sophistication of the bombings and the growing desperation of the attackers. The almighty God, who is All-knowing, is seeing all.

In the meanwhile, Jonathan needs to prove the conspiracy theorists wrong in order to salvage what remains of the credibility of his government. He has been destroying it bit by bit through a series of avoidable missteps. His promised “fresh air” has since become foul and suffocating. His blunders are legion, from violently wrestling a presidency which his party had zoned to the north through anon-election, to the mishandling of the current insurgency, the removal of fuel subsidy and its attendant somersault and being impolitic with his utterences.

One big misstep is his failure to fulfill his promise of restructuring the security agencies soon, beginning with changing their chiefs. We are witnessing the worst security situation in the history of the country under the very noses of these security (?) chiefs. While each one of them holds fast to his office, the killings have continued. Because the word ‘honourable resignation’ is absent in the lexicon of Nigerian political appointees whose offices have been tainted by one scandal or the other, Jonathan should have had the courage to wield the big stick against the failed agencies as a way of injecting public confidence into them.

His biggest challenge today is getting round to sorting out the Boko Haram conundrum. As I had cause to argue in this column a few months ago, the solution to Boko Haram, in the face of failure of intelligence, is not police action or military onslaught but political brinkmanship. The Boko Haram leadership may seem to be invisible, but it is now known to be headed by Imam Shekau. The leadership once named certain Muslim clerics that it agreed could help broker a parley with them. So, who has ever reached out to those malams as a first step towards starting a dialogue?

Jonathan, who is trying to act macho, is losing grips on all fronts by not toeing this line. I understand that the security chiefs, who feed fat on the ugly situation, want the administration to continue toeing the tough-guy line even though the price is the bloody encounters we are witnessing all over the north. If the agenda is not really to balkanize Nigeria as the ‘fake Boko Haram’ is seen to want, the President should stop listening to any aide asking him not to dialogue with Boko Haram. The Kano killings of three days ago have proved that Jonathan is clearly at his weakest point now.

If you are down, dialogue is the best option. This is not the time for playing Jason Statham or Arnold Schwarzenegger, please. Leave the action heroes to the movies; we are in the real world.

Published in my column in Blueprint today

Can we really fight a religious war?

Of recent, especially since the horrendous bombing of the Madalla church allegedly by Boko Haram, many commentators have made the prospect of a religious war breaking out in this country to loom larger by the day. Only the equally horrendous removal of fuel subsidy by Dr Goodluck Jonathan – arguably the most hated president Nigeria ever had – eclipsed that prospect. However, while one joined the rest of Nigerians to sound alarm, dismay and rejection of the government’s thoughtless reflex action, one was also unable to dismiss the thought of the ‘religious war’ from one’s mind. Reason: before the subsidy catastrophe befell us like a bag of damnation from the heavens, the issue of a shooting battle between Christians and Muslims in the country was conceivably a fait accompli. What with the President of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Pastor Ayodele Joseph Oritsejafor, angrily urging Christians to stop turning the other cheek and return fire for fire.

It is easy – and even excusable – for certain elements to express extreme outrage at such wanton killings in places of worship, or any other place for that matter. Only a person of extreme wickedness and inhumanity would bomb a church (or a mosque), killing worshippers – people who most probably have nothing to do with the killer’s grouse or kind of politics. When such murders occur, it is only fair to expect the action to draw extreme outrage even from sedate members of the society.

But when otherwise informed people warn of the country slipping into a religious war, one wonders just where the shootings would begin. Some even display their ignorance about the cultural composition of Nigeria. A ‘religious war’ must have clearly defined enemies whose locations must be recognisable and mutually exclusive. In Nigeria, no matter how outraged we are over the unacceptable actions of some of us, such enemy lines are not clearly identifiable.

The biggest error I always read in news reports by Western media on the Nigerian crisis is where they unavoidably claim that Nigeria is “roughly divided between a Christian south and a Muslim north.” This statement is painfully wrong because Nigeria is not divided along a north-south line when it comes to religious enclaves.

Start from my state, Katsina. One would say it is a mainly Muslim state. But that does not mean there are no Christians who are indigenes of Katsina state. They are Hausa like the rest of the Muslims in the state, or even more so. They are not ‘settlers’ but dyed-in-the-wool indigenes. As such nobody can say, on the day a ‘religious war’ breaks out in Nigeria, that they should start moving to the “Christian south.” Many of them may have probably never travelled out of their vicinity or beyond Zaria.

Same thing goes for many other “Muslim states” in north. Zamfara, Kano, Kogi, Niger, Kwara, Borno and Adamawa are other examples of states where there are indigenes who are as Christian as the man in the Niger Delta. And in Christian-dominated states like Plateau and Benue, there are Muslim indigenes who cannot be expelled till kingdom come.

If you move down south, what would you do with all those Yoruba Muslims? Some of them are obas or even the governors of their states – and they are not ‘settlers’! In some of the south-west states, Muslims are in the majority. So, just because somebody wants us to fight a religious war, should the Muslims in all the Yoruba states, as well as those in southern states like Edo (around Auchi) hire lorries and buses and pack to the “Muslim north”? Even among the more homogenous Igbo people in the south-east there are quite a few Muslims.

To stretch the argument further, what would you do about states in the north where Christians are in the majority – like Plateau, Taraba and Benue? Should the majority of the people in these states migrate to the south and start life anew, build new civilisations and try to blend with their brothers and sisters in faith there?

Recently, while reading the autobiography of the highly respected Prof. Adamu Baikie, I found the ‘religious war’ notion an increasingly bigger fallacy, concocted by largely southern commentators and their ignorant collaborators in the Western media. I saw how families not only in the north but also in the south are inextricably meshed together through intermarriages across tribes and religions. I saw how in a family there are followers of both faiths, all living together in peace and harmony. Later, in a discussion with a Yoruba friend, I realised that this meshing of creeds is even more rampant among the Yoruba, where some children of the same parents can follow different faiths – and without killing each other for it. The question, then, is that on the day of our religious Armageddon, should such siblings start massacring each other because of the blandishment of some religious bigot? Should a Muslim married to a Christian woman just kill her because a religious war has begun? Should a son professing Christianity send his aged Muslim mother in downtown Abeokuta to the great beyond because the pundits have said so?

Thus, it is simply foolhardy to believe that a war based on religious sentiments could be successfully prosecuted in Nigeria. The fabrics of our nation are so meshed into each other, not only through political alliances, business partnerships, marriages or workplaces but also through the faiths we individually profess. Of course, some idiots may bomb a mosque or a church thinking “it is the other people’s”, but at the end of the day they may unwittingly be murdering someone from their family, tribe or village. Instead of a religious war, therefore, people may fight based on tribal lines or in exclusive and clearly defined enclaves like the ones you find in Plateau or Kano.

What Nigerians need to fight is militancy, terrorism and bigotry. God, whom we all worship in spite of differences in creed, has a purpose for bringing us together as one nation. He knows why we have this unique diversity, the type you only find in multicultural societies like America. We should find strength in it and oppose those who want to forcefully take it away from us.

Published in my column on the back page of BLUEPRINT, today, January 16, 2012

Above picture is Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor

The North’s regression

Slowly and inexorably, the north is becoming like Somalia. The only small difference between us and Somalia is that whereas the latter has spent decades without a functional government, there are structures on the ground and people in the north whom we call leaders. Nevertherless, Compared to the south, the north as a political entity is fast sliding back into prehistoric times in terms of development and, indeed, worse than the colonial times in terms of home-grown violence. The situation is so bad that many a frustrated northern youngster is yearning for the British to return and recolonise the country in order to bring back the halcyon times. The solution to our problems is, of course, far from recolonisation. But if it isn’t, then, what is?

For the north, there have been four epochs in the march to (or away from) civilisation. There was the precolonial time when our forefathers engaged in internecine wars and the self-immolating practice of slavery. But then, in parts of the north, the Sokoto jihad came and put aright many things through the institutionalisation of Islamic law. Then came the Europeans, who colonised the area, imposed their crafty system of ‘indirect rule’ through which they milked the nation’s resources and pretended to be developing our people. But a word for colonialism: in spite of its self-serving ends, it put some sense into our people’s understanding of leadership and built a foundation for future progress, such as the railways, literacy and structures for democratic governance. Of course, the colonialists ultimately served themselves, at times employing brute force, while pretending to be serving the natives’ best interests. Hence the stiff resistance against it and the campaigns that uprooted it.

During the third epoch, the post-independence era, it was the natives that took over the mantle of leadership and used state resources in the service of the commonweal. In the north, proofs of their selfless service are legion even today. Even though they were called names by their opponents, we can see, in retrospect, that their dedication to serving the general populace was a thousand and one times better than that of our current leaders.

The fourth milestone is, indeed, today. This dates roughly from the end of the Nigerian civil war to the current reality. It is the worst span in the history of the region. After the violent eradication of those patriotic nation-builders and the 30-month civil war, came the various “corrective” military regimes that pretended, more than the colonialists, to be working in the interest of the nation. The truth is that, apart from the brief spasms of the Murtala and, later, the Buhari/Idiagbon regimes, they worked more for themselves. They institutionalised corruption, cronyism and nepotism. Most of them turned out to become among the richest and, by implication, the most influential people in the country. Because they benefited from a corrupt system, they sustained it and injected their bile into latter day rulers who came in civilian garbs. And because the civilians who inherited the mantle of leadership have been adequately coached in the dark arts of corruption, divisiveness and cronyism, they have carried on, marching within the system and resisting any move to change or overthrow it.

The cycle of violence the north is witnessing, including some of the worst yesterday, is a fall-out of the ruthless system foisted on the region by its selfish rulers of the military and post-military era. Many analysts have pointed at the crying poverty in the region as the primary reason for these volcanic eruptions that are causing the death of hundreds of innocent people, destroying edifices and disrupting the peace. Now what is the cause of the poverty itself? Is it not the tunnel vision – if there is vision at all – of the region’s leaders who have failed to unify the common people through their divisive politics and the misuse of the region’s resources?
The north is fast regressing in all indices of human development. Apart from poverty, illiteracy is growing; so also joblessness among the youth, with concomitant problems such as drug abuse and strange criminality (with many youngsters killing their own parents); collapse of morals and ethics, education, health care, etc. A combination of these problems has created a deep well of despondency among most youth in the region, who have lost confidence in the leadership. They are asking for a change – even away from democracy. Many are saying let’s go back to the sharia law which did well for the region under the Sokoto caliphate, not minding the cultural mix of the present times. Unsure of their success in such agitations in the face of resistance from the state’s coercive powers, many have resorted to hugely violent attacks.

What is the response of our so-called leaders to all this? They shirk their responsibility by simply passing the buck and engaging in histrionics. Appeals to conscience. Calls to prayers. Blandishments. Rhetoric. Trading blames. Peace conferences. Yesterday, all the chairman of the Northern Governors Forum, Governor Aliyu of Niger state, could do was an effeminate call on President Jonathan to “urgently convene a national security summit.” We have heard that before, and it won’t work. We are tired of talk shops. Northern leaders should develop the north. Rebuild the infrastructures bequethed to them by the post-independence leaders. Provide jobs. Educate the youth. Stop all the divisive politicking. And stop all the stealing. Try these, and see if the violence and the regression will not disappear fiam – one time!

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My column in today's Blueprint

Are we glorifying gangsterism?

It can only happen in Nigeria. Two armed gangs, both outlawed, converge on two strategic locations, spewing threats against public peace. Police men look on helplessly, pleading with the men to sheath their swords, in manner of speaking, and go back home. The gangs insist on playing out their game to the end, on their own terms, insisting that it is their birthright to do what they must do. As of your laws, stuff them in your mouth and flush them down your dirty gullet.

This happens in Nigeria all the time. Because we have become used to gangsterism in every shade, we scarcely notice that some people are breaking the law with impunity.

It happened last Thursday. Two militias, as if by common acclamation, came out en masse in order to “protest” what they regarded as an abuse of their right. The first gang consisted of “former” Niger Delta militants, operating under disparate organisations jointly known as MEND. About 1,600 of them travelled upcountry in long buses and cars and were only accosted by the police at a bridge in Kogi state. The cops prevented them from reaching their destination – the nation’s capital. One of the militants’ leaders, one “General Ramseh,” had the patience to tell reporters and the police that his group was going to Abuja to ask the President why he failed to fulfill his promise to the men who agreed to stop destroying oil installations. The promise is a mouth-watering rehabilitation package for the militants who agreed to lay down their arms, come out of the creeks and receive training for a better civil life. The amnesty programme, as the package is best known, is floundering – judging from the General’s complaints – and the ‘boys’ are no longer being cared for. “While we have embraced the amnesty programme, but the federal government is frustrating it by refusing to pay us, and we don’t want to go back to the creeks or pick up arms any longer,” Ramsey told Blueprint in a story published on Friday.

Many newspapers reported about how these supposedly former fighters blocked the Lokoja-Abuja road for hours, causing a disturbing traffic gridlock, for which commuters suffered. The policemen who stopped the gang from reaching Abuja were apparently courageous, or lucky, as to be able to turn the tide of the hitherto dreaded militants back to whence they came. Not until the men of MEND, who seem to have been quietened down since Dr Jonathan assumed power, grabbed the headlines the following day. Their message has nonetheless sunk in: give the big boys more cash or else.

The second gang hit town in Lagos. Fighters of the Odu’a Peoples Congress (OPC), not less notorious or dreaded, held a big demonstration in the city. Their grouse, however, was not money – yet. Their leader, Dr Frederick Fasheun, explained that they were out to denounce the activities of the ‘north’s own’ militia, the Boko Haram. Fasheun said his gang was ready to defend the south against infiltration by the Maiduguri-based Islamic sect. The OPC’s threat was obviously a reaction to reports that BH may try to visit a devastating blow on a metropolis down south. As in the case on the Lokoja bridge, the police could only look on as the mainly Yoruba militia performed its show. No one was arrested.

In a normal country, the activities of these militias would be resisted, especially since they are not recognised by any section of the constitution. They are armed groups which the laws of the land have banned. They are becoming more dangerous by flying the ethnic and regional cards. Across time, they have been transformed by their leaders and supporters into cultural units of the communities in which they originated. A report in the Sunday Tribune yesterday even lamented that the OPC are not enjoying enough financial and moral support from the Yoruba elite. This claim, though disputable, clearly illustrates our dilemma as a nation that wishes to solve the intractable problems sectionalism (ethnic, religious and regional) has thrust on us. We are glorifying the actions of people that should otherwise be arrested and put behind bars. The Sunday Tribune report aptly summarised the problem this way: “When gun-totting youths besiege the streets in broad daylight, the action should rather be seen as a social problem that requires urgent attention. The daring display of gangsterism on the streets of Lokoja and Lagos is not merely a matter of security helplessness but a resultant effect of socio-economic problem in the country.”

These sectional gangs are indeed growing not only due to the economic problem, but also greatly due to the collapse of morality. Here is a nation where injustice and immorality fester, its leaders refusing to do much to ameliorate the difficult living conditions while illegally helping themselves to the commonweal and refusing to punish proven criminals. The youth should be helped out of militancy, of course, but that task ought to begin with the leaders. You cannot pretend to have the moral right to remove a speck from my eye while I know that there is a big log in yours.

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Published in my column in BLUEPRINT today.
Above photo: MEND members on Lokoja-Abuja road. Photo by Momoh Obansa

The Canonisation Of MEND

MEND is not a terrorist organisation- President Jonathan

For a week now, the refrain in Nigeria has been about who to blame for the October 1 bombings in Abuja in which 16 persons were killed. Days before the criminal act, the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND) had issued a warning that it was going to detonate explosive devices during the ceremony marking the 50th independence anniversary. Apparently, the warnings were ignored by the government because there was a lot at stake: it would be a gargantuan embarrassment after so much work - and money - had been put into the preparations and foreign dignitaries were already in town for the ceremony. MEND, in its characteristic braggadocio, said effusively after the dastardly act that the government should be blamed for the loss of lives because it did not heed the well publicised warnings.

This admission of guilt by MEND was responsible for the universal shock at Jonathan's hasty exoneration of the militant group. The President's rush to judgement was ill-advised as it was fatuous. His further claim that MEND was not a terrorist organisation was a poor, outrageous attempt to rewrite Nigerian history, given the activities of the group in the last five years. He made a poor portrayal of himself as president giving the impression that he must defend MEND because he is representing the South-South only.

The timeline below, obtained from Wikipedia, shows some of the activities of MEND since 2006. It should remind us that it is absolutely wrong to place MEND on the same footing as the African National Congress as Jonathan tried to do.

2006

•Nine officials of the Italian petrol company Eni SpA are killed in Port Harcourt. MEND militants briefly occupied and robbed a bank near the Eni SpA base, leaving at about 3:30 p.m, about an hour after they showed up.

•May 10, an executive with the United States-based oil company Baker Hughes is shot and killed in Port Harcourt by MEND.

•June 2, a Norwegian rig offshore Nigeria was attacked and 16 crew members were kidnapped.

•Aug. 20, 10 MEND members are killed by the military. The members were working on releasing a Royal Dutch Shell hostage. In an email to Reuters, MEND states, "Our response to Sunday's killings will come at our time, but for certain it will not go unpunished."

•Oct. 2, 10 soldiers are killed off the shore of the Niger Delta in their patrol boat by a MEND mortar shell. Earlier that day a Nigerian/Royal Dutch Shell convoy was attacked in the Port Harcourt region resulting in some people being wounded.

•Oct. 3, MEND abducts four Scots, a Malaysian, an Indonesian and a Romanian from a bar in Akwa Ibom State.

•Oct. 4, 9 soldiers are killed when they attack a MEND camp.

•Nov. 22, a soldier is killed when soldiers attempt a rescue of kidnapped oil workers.

2007

•May 1, at 4:15 a.m., MEND attacks Chevron's Oloibiri floating production, storage, and offloading vessel off the coast of Bayelsa State. After one hour of fighting with security boats, resulting in the death of 10 people, MEND seizes six expatriate workers, consisting of four Italians, an American and a Croat. On the same day, MEND publishes photos of the captives seated on white plastic chairs in a wooden shelter around the remains of a campfire.

•May 3, MEND seizes eight foreign hostages from another offshore vessel. It releases them less than 24 hours later, stating they had intended to destroy the vessel and did not want more hostages.

•May 8, three major oil pipelines (one in Brass and two in the Akasa area) are attacked, shutting down oil production and cutting power to a facility run by Italian oil company Agip, part of the ENI energy group. An e-mail statement from a MEND spokesperson says, "Fighters of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) attacked and destroyed three major pipelines in Bayelsa State... We will continue indefinitely with attacks on all pipelines, platforms and support vessels."

•Sept. 23, MEND spokesperson Jomo Gbomo announces, through a communiqué to the Philadelphia Independent Media Center, that media reports of his arrest and detention were false; and then further informs that MEND has officially declared war, effective 12 midnight, September 23, and that they would be commencing "attacks on installations and abduction of expatriates."

•Nov. 13, MEND militants attack Cameroonian soldiers on the disputed Bakassi peninsula, killing more than 20 soldiers.

2008

•May 3, MEND militants attack Shell-operated pipelines, forcing the company to halt 170,000 barrels a day of exports of Bonny Light crude.

•June 20, MEND attacks the Shell-operated Bonga oil platform, shutting down 10% of Nigeria's oil production in one fell swoop.

•Sept. 14, MEND inaugurates "Operation Hurricane Barbarossa" with an ongoing string of militant attacks to bring down the oil industry in Rivers State.

•In Sept., MEND releases a statement proclaiming that its militants have launched an "oil war" throughout the Niger delta against both pipelines and oil production facilities, and the soldiers that protect them. In the statement MEND claims to have killed 22 soldiers in one attack against a Chevron-owned oil platform. The government confirms that its troops were attacked in numerous locations, but says that all assaults were repelled with the infliction of heavy casualties on the militants.

•Sept. 27, a week after declaring war and destroying several significant oil production and transportation hubs in the delta, MEND declares a ceasefire until "further notice" upon the intervention of Ijaw and other elders in the region.

2009

•Jan. 30, MEND calls off its ceasefire.

•Equatorial Guinea blames MEND for an attack on the presidential palace in Malabo on February 17, which resulted in the death of at least one attacker.

•May 15, a military operation undertaken by JTF begins against MEND. It comes in response to the kidnapping of soldiers and foreign sailors in the region. Thousands of Nigerians flee their villages and hundreds of people may be dead because of the offensive.

•June 18-21, MEND attacks pipelines on three oil installations belonging to Royal Dutch Shell. In a campaign labelled by the group as "Hurricane Piper Alpha", it also warns Chevron that it would "pay a price" for allowing the Nigerian military use of an oil company airstrip.

•June 18, MEND blows up a Shell pipeline as a warning to Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, who is arriving Nigeria the next day, and to any potential foreign investors.

•July 6, MEND claims responsibility for an attack on the Okan oil manifold. The pipeline was blown up at 8:45 p.m. The militants claim that the manifold carries some 80 percent of Chevron Nigeria Limited's off-shore crude oil to a loading platform.

•In a separate action on the same day, the group says that three Russians, two Filipinos and an Indian were seized from the Siehem Peace oil tanker about 20 miles from the port city of Escravos.

•July 11, MEND carries out its first attack in Lagos. Rebels attack and set on fire the Atlas Cove Jetty on Tarkwa Bay, which is a major oil hub for Nigeria. Five workers are killed in the strike.

•Oct. 17, Jomo Gbomo says MEND will resume its hostilities against the oil industry, the Armed Forces and its collaborators with effect from Oct. 16.

•Oct. 25, MEND announces unilateral truce and accepts the government's amnesty.

2010

•Jan. 30, MEND calls off its unilateral truce and threatens an "all-out onslaught" against the oil industry.

•March 15, Two bombs explode at Government House, in Warri, during the Post Amnesty Dialogue, killing eight people and injuring six more. The explosion damages the Government House and other buildings in the area. MEND claims responsibility.

•October 1, Two bombs explode in Abuja during the 50th independence anniversary parade, killing 16 and injuring 17.

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Published in LEADERSHIP WEEKEND, Saturday, October 9, 2010