Goodluck Jonathan would in all likelihood, win the presidential election of April 16, in Nigeria, which would be a first for a man from the Niger Delta since independence in 1960. However, this oil-rich region, regularly beset by tension, is far from pacified. Does it succeed, if elected, to curb violence residual MEND activists and preserve a fragile amnesty? Response elements.
Marked by a succession of coups and military dictatorships, including the latest, that of General Sani Abacha (1993-1998), left a grim reminder, the recent history of Nigeria's most populous country in Africa with about 158 million people, has written in the shadow of weapons. South, the Niger Delta area is rich in raw materials, especially oil, has not been spared by the violence.
An ongoing violence, despite the repeated attempts of the federal government to encourage rebels MEND (Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta) to deposit their arms permanently. The sources of conflict: the earth and the black gold The low-intensity conflict that has plagued the Niger Delta has its origins in the 1980s.
Largely deprived of the fruits of oil wealth, which grew in considerable proportions in favor of the oil boom a decade ago, local people organized themselves into a broad protest movement. Their target? The soldiers who raided the black gold and claim land ownership. At the time, the struggle is peaceful.
But already, the foundation of future conflict are flush. "There are two sides in this very political rebellion: it is both a challenge to the Land Use Act of 1978 [which robs local communities of their land rights in favor of the federal State] and the method of redistribution of oil money, which supplies 96% of export revenues of the state, "Marc-Antoine Perouse analysis of Montclos, researcher at the Institute of Development Research and a specialist in Nigeria.
"The oil price is around 100 dollars. Now, produce oil in Nigeria should not cost more than $ 30. The question is therefore how to distribute the value added and released between the Federal State, the Federated States and local communities, "says Jean-Pierre Favennec, oil expert. In terms of the distribution of oil profits, in fact, two opposing schools.
On the one hand that of Equalization (Federal character), under which rich countries pay for the poorest, mainly in the northern Sahelian Muslim non-oil producer, on the other, that of the shunt (shunt principle), which means that the oil regions of the South - the state of Delta, Bayelsa and Rivers - affecting most of the rent, even at the expense of the rest of the country.
Gordian knot of Nigerian domestic politics, this thorny issue is even more difficult to resolve than other criteria come into play, as development needs and education. From the peaceful struggle to an armed insurrection in the early 1990s, the intellectual and writer Ken Saro-Wiwa was the first to give real meaning to the political protests of local communities.
By invoking the pollution that threatens the Delta theme hitherto largely put under a bushel, he manages to make its voice heard alongside major global environmental lobbies. He defended the Ogoni, an indigenous people living in Rivers State, and founded MOSOP (Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People), which he directed until 1995.
That year, after a rigged trial, he was executed by hanging at the initiative of the government of Sani Abacha. This event marks a turning point in the dispute. "From there, many have realized that the face of military and federal power desperately deaf to their demands, the only solution was the armed struggle.
Ijaw The [majority ethnic group in the delta, on more than 250 in the country] therefore took up arms, "says Montclos of Perugia. Since then, MOSOP has given way to MEND, whose radical actions are targeted primarily oil interests. Does this mean that violence is more prevalent than before? On this point, Mr.
Perugia Montclos wants nuanced: "Between 1993 and 1995, during the Abacha dictatorship lasts, the Niger Delta and the area around Port Harcourt were ablaze. The corpses were counted by thousands," recalls it, saying "today we find ourselves in a situation where there is more of a decline in violence." MEND, a nebulous and fragmented headless MEND emerged in late 2005 in response to the imprisonment of Asari Dokubo, founder late 2003-early 2004 of the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force (NDPVF, "People's Volunteer Force Niger Delta ").
The arrest, carried out jointly by police and secret services in Nigeria a year after the separatist leader had been invited to negotiate with President Olusegun Obasanjo in Abuja, Federal Capital, led the various armed groups in the underground. However, the movement has never shown any real unity.
"MEND is more like a nebula, a franchise, like Al Qaeda, but with very different objectives. There is no command structure. This is not a guerrilla war in the true sense of the term, a hierarchy with a chief and the troops who obey, "said Mr. Montclos of Perugia. "If the name of Henry Okah arms supplier has often been cited [as leader of MEND], not necessarily he who sponsored the actions," he adds.
Currently, no one can say exactly how many soldiers fill the ranks of the movement. The only one who accepted and then finally rejected the amnesty in June 2009, John Togo, claimed 186 men in the western delta around Warri. But if we aggregate all the warlords in the villages, the number of rebels is probably much higher.
Only certainty, since its inception, MEND has perfected his fighting technique. With weapons supplied by Henry Okah and profits from the extraction of oil from wild pipelines - a practice known as "bunkering", which, according to Mr. Favennec, represent hundreds of thousands of barrels / day or 10% of daily production - it has "taken a qualitative leap" allowing, for example, to tackle oil platforms a hundred miles offshore.
Antagonism to the springs complex "The conflict in the Niger Delta is more complex than it seems," says Montclos of Perugia, which rejects the binary opposition between a federal state oil companies and oil companies or between and local communities. "The same block formed by oil companies is far from homogeneous: there are the Chinese, Russians, Indians, not forgetting of course the big Western multinationals [Shell, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Total, AGIP], which not necessarily agree with each other.
Moreover, we must not forget that since the 1970s, Nigeria's oil industry was nationalized. Via the NNPC (Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation), the Nigerian state owns between 55% and 60% of the industry. It is the biggest polluter in the country! "He insists. On the oil issue also adds a political dimension, since the rebels who are rampant in the Delta and, for some, the actual feed MEND, often originally been manipulated by local governors to physically eliminate their opponents and, beyond any form of dissent.
Even within the population, finally, fault lines also exist, as between MOSOP and the Ijaw, or even between the coast fishermen and farmers in the hinterland. An amnesty fragile since the amnesty of 26 June 2009, armed groups claimed that MEND has officially filed weapons. In fact, peace remains fragile.
It is mainly driven by the hope aroused by the probable election of Goodluck Jonathan as president, a Christian from Delta (he was born in 1957 in Bayelsa State) . The armed groups, it seems, want to give him a chance. Especially that Henry Okah, their arms supplier, is still languishing in prison in South Africa, where he was imprisoned for terrorism after twin bombings car bomb attack in Abuja on 1 October 2010 (12 dead).
However, a new outbreak of violence is not to exclude more or less short term because the amnesty program is not resolved at the political level. Certainly a law is in preparation, which aims to reform the oil industry, but it does not affect the principles of equalization and differentiation.
"In this context, I do not see why the guns fall silent," said Mr Montclos of Perugia. And conclude in mid-realistic, half-fatalistic: "Once elected, Goodluck Jonathan will have to make compromises at the national level. There are three major oil-producing states in Nigeria and 36 federal states in total.
It is unthinkable that the thirty-three other say we give up the oil money ... " Aymeric Janier 
Marked by a succession of coups and military dictatorships, including the latest, that of General Sani Abacha (1993-1998), left a grim reminder, the recent history of Nigeria's most populous country in Africa with about 158 million people, has written in the shadow of weapons. South, the Niger Delta area is rich in raw materials, especially oil, has not been spared by the violence.
An ongoing violence, despite the repeated attempts of the federal government to encourage rebels MEND (Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta) to deposit their arms permanently. The sources of conflict: the earth and the black gold The low-intensity conflict that has plagued the Niger Delta has its origins in the 1980s.
Largely deprived of the fruits of oil wealth, which grew in considerable proportions in favor of the oil boom a decade ago, local people organized themselves into a broad protest movement. Their target? The soldiers who raided the black gold and claim land ownership. At the time, the struggle is peaceful.
But already, the foundation of future conflict are flush. "There are two sides in this very political rebellion: it is both a challenge to the Land Use Act of 1978 [which robs local communities of their land rights in favor of the federal State] and the method of redistribution of oil money, which supplies 96% of export revenues of the state, "Marc-Antoine Perouse analysis of Montclos, researcher at the Institute of Development Research and a specialist in Nigeria.
"The oil price is around 100 dollars. Now, produce oil in Nigeria should not cost more than $ 30. The question is therefore how to distribute the value added and released between the Federal State, the Federated States and local communities, "says Jean-Pierre Favennec, oil expert. In terms of the distribution of oil profits, in fact, two opposing schools.
On the one hand that of Equalization (Federal character), under which rich countries pay for the poorest, mainly in the northern Sahelian Muslim non-oil producer, on the other, that of the shunt (shunt principle), which means that the oil regions of the South - the state of Delta, Bayelsa and Rivers - affecting most of the rent, even at the expense of the rest of the country.
Gordian knot of Nigerian domestic politics, this thorny issue is even more difficult to resolve than other criteria come into play, as development needs and education. From the peaceful struggle to an armed insurrection in the early 1990s, the intellectual and writer Ken Saro-Wiwa was the first to give real meaning to the political protests of local communities.
By invoking the pollution that threatens the Delta theme hitherto largely put under a bushel, he manages to make its voice heard alongside major global environmental lobbies. He defended the Ogoni, an indigenous people living in Rivers State, and founded MOSOP (Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People), which he directed until 1995.
That year, after a rigged trial, he was executed by hanging at the initiative of the government of Sani Abacha. This event marks a turning point in the dispute. "From there, many have realized that the face of military and federal power desperately deaf to their demands, the only solution was the armed struggle.
Ijaw The [majority ethnic group in the delta, on more than 250 in the country] therefore took up arms, "says Montclos of Perugia. Since then, MOSOP has given way to MEND, whose radical actions are targeted primarily oil interests. Does this mean that violence is more prevalent than before? On this point, Mr.
Perugia Montclos wants nuanced: "Between 1993 and 1995, during the Abacha dictatorship lasts, the Niger Delta and the area around Port Harcourt were ablaze. The corpses were counted by thousands," recalls it, saying "today we find ourselves in a situation where there is more of a decline in violence." MEND, a nebulous and fragmented headless MEND emerged in late 2005 in response to the imprisonment of Asari Dokubo, founder late 2003-early 2004 of the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force (NDPVF, "People's Volunteer Force Niger Delta ").
The arrest, carried out jointly by police and secret services in Nigeria a year after the separatist leader had been invited to negotiate with President Olusegun Obasanjo in Abuja, Federal Capital, led the various armed groups in the underground. However, the movement has never shown any real unity.
"MEND is more like a nebula, a franchise, like Al Qaeda, but with very different objectives. There is no command structure. This is not a guerrilla war in the true sense of the term, a hierarchy with a chief and the troops who obey, "said Mr. Montclos of Perugia. "If the name of Henry Okah arms supplier has often been cited [as leader of MEND], not necessarily he who sponsored the actions," he adds.
Currently, no one can say exactly how many soldiers fill the ranks of the movement. The only one who accepted and then finally rejected the amnesty in June 2009, John Togo, claimed 186 men in the western delta around Warri. But if we aggregate all the warlords in the villages, the number of rebels is probably much higher.
Only certainty, since its inception, MEND has perfected his fighting technique. With weapons supplied by Henry Okah and profits from the extraction of oil from wild pipelines - a practice known as "bunkering", which, according to Mr. Favennec, represent hundreds of thousands of barrels / day or 10% of daily production - it has "taken a qualitative leap" allowing, for example, to tackle oil platforms a hundred miles offshore.
Antagonism to the springs complex "The conflict in the Niger Delta is more complex than it seems," says Montclos of Perugia, which rejects the binary opposition between a federal state oil companies and oil companies or between and local communities. "The same block formed by oil companies is far from homogeneous: there are the Chinese, Russians, Indians, not forgetting of course the big Western multinationals [Shell, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Total, AGIP], which not necessarily agree with each other.
Moreover, we must not forget that since the 1970s, Nigeria's oil industry was nationalized. Via the NNPC (Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation), the Nigerian state owns between 55% and 60% of the industry. It is the biggest polluter in the country! "He insists. On the oil issue also adds a political dimension, since the rebels who are rampant in the Delta and, for some, the actual feed MEND, often originally been manipulated by local governors to physically eliminate their opponents and, beyond any form of dissent.
Even within the population, finally, fault lines also exist, as between MOSOP and the Ijaw, or even between the coast fishermen and farmers in the hinterland. An amnesty fragile since the amnesty of 26 June 2009, armed groups claimed that MEND has officially filed weapons. In fact, peace remains fragile.
It is mainly driven by the hope aroused by the probable election of Goodluck Jonathan as president, a Christian from Delta (he was born in 1957 in Bayelsa State) . The armed groups, it seems, want to give him a chance. Especially that Henry Okah, their arms supplier, is still languishing in prison in South Africa, where he was imprisoned for terrorism after twin bombings car bomb attack in Abuja on 1 October 2010 (12 dead).
However, a new outbreak of violence is not to exclude more or less short term because the amnesty program is not resolved at the political level. Certainly a law is in preparation, which aims to reform the oil industry, but it does not affect the principles of equalization and differentiation.
"In this context, I do not see why the guns fall silent," said Mr Montclos of Perugia. And conclude in mid-realistic, half-fatalistic: "Once elected, Goodluck Jonathan will have to make compromises at the national level. There are three major oil-producing states in Nigeria and 36 federal states in total.
It is unthinkable that the thirty-three other say we give up the oil money ... " Aymeric Janier
- MEND calls off planned bombings, says Jonathan has failed (03/04/2011)
- Tech C'ttee on N-Delta faults implementation of report (07/03/2011)
- MEND calls off planned bombings, to allow safe elections (05/04/2011)
- Army may recruit ex-militants from Niger Delta, says Army Chief (05/03/2011)
- Tarbiyya Tatali (09/04/2011)
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