South West and the threat of militant insurgency  

Of late, the dastardly activities of alleged Niger Delta militants in the South West zone of the country have become quite worrisome. Mostly affected are riverine and border communities of Lagos, Ogun and Ondo states.  Recently, echoes of intermittent gun shots by alleged Niger Delta militants were reportedly heard at the Ewedogbon/Akesan end of the popular LASU-Iba Expressway of Lagos State for hours.

 

An account has it that it took the efforts of security men to ward off the militants’ belligerence.  It eventually took the intervention of men of the Rapid Response Squad, RRS, who reportedly deployed and placed two Armoured Personnel Carriers, APCs, and a combat helicopter on patrol, to ultimately deter the rampaging militants’ gunmen from advancing. A few days after this dastardly event, unsubstantiated account claimed militants took on a combined military and police team in another dodgy gun duel at the riverine community of Ishuti in Igando area of Lagos.

 

Of late such attacks have become common in the South West. Recently, about 20 persons were allegedly killed after supposed militants invaded some villages in Imushin, a border community between Lagos and Ogun States. In the said attack, one man was reportedly beheaded by the militants in an operation that was said to have lasted for hours. Similarly, during the last May Day celebration, militants suspected to be Ijaws who reside in a pipeline and riverine area of Ibafo, in Ogun state, engaged in serious gun combats with security agencies right in broad daylight. According to the account, the depth of the operation was akin to a scene from the movies as sounds of guns rent the air with resultant casualties on both sides.  The militants were reported to have claimed that the pipelines that passed through that end of Ibafo belong to them and their ancestors and as such no one could stop them from vandalizing or scooping fuel from it.

Currently, a first class monarch in Lagos state, Oba Goriola Oseni, the Oniba of Ibaland, was reportedly kidnapped right inside his palace, in a commando like gun wielding operation, by alleged Niger Delta militants who quickly ferried him off in a boat along the creek of Iba. Weeks after the sacrilegious incidence, which ardent custodians of Yoruba tradition and culture have referred to as a taboo and a slap on the entire Yoruba race, the respected monarch is yet to regain his freedom, despite several appeals from his family members, the Lagos State Police Command, Lagos State government and several such concerned individuals and organisations to that effect.

In-spite of assurance of safety by relevant security agencies and respective state government of affected communities, out of panic, residents of affected communities have reportedly relocated to other areas considered less volatile to militants’ onslaught. Landlords have had to abandon their properties out of fear as the militants were said to have sworn to deal ruthlessly with them for allegedly conniving with security agencies against them.

While trying to explain probable motives for the current upsurge in militant activities in the region, different analysts and commentators have come up with various schools of thought. Prominent among such is that militants are venting their anger on riverine and pipeline routed communities in the South West because they could no longer continue with their hitherto blossoming and lucrative bunkering business. This line of thought is premised on recent clampdown on pipeline vandals by security agencies.

A typical example is the Arepo and Ibafo communities in Ogun state, where security agents have locked out major routes being used by pipeline vandals in their illicit petrol bunkering enterprise. Indeed, since the Ibafo May Day mayhem where militants openly engaged security operatives in audacious gun duel, armoured tanks manned by heavily armed soldiers, have been stationed at the major road leading to Ibafo community. This has made it absolutely difficult for bunkers to access the road with their looted cargo, which they allegedly usually convey in a convoy of assorted articulated vehicles.

Another school of thought links Niger Delta Avengers, NDA with renewed militants’ offensive in the South West. The basis of this line of reckoning is the prior threat of the NDA to take the fight right to the South West. Major monuments and infrastructure in Lagos, for instance, have allegedly been earmarked for destruction by the group. In this category is the popular Long Bridge on the Lagos end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, the Third Mainland Bridge, National Theater, Iganmu, National Stadium, Surulere among others. Hence, some perceive, either wrongly or rightly, current militant skirmishes in the zone as, perhaps, a dress rehearsal of things to come.

One other school of thought is the political angle. Proponents of this notion are of the view that Niger Delta militants, who are allegedly on rampage in the South West, are merely embarking on a political vendetta. According to exponents of this contemplation, NDA is a militant wing of a clique whose sole agenda is to ensure that every part of the country is engulfed in protracted turmoil so that the Buhari government would become so distracted that it would lose focus and eventually fail in the fulfillment of its electoral promises. Promoters of this point of view jokingly come up with the couch: ‘It is a case of you Boko Haram me, I NDA you’.

While giving credence to this thought line, its advocates claim that the whole essence is to break down the federal government economically and politically. With the destruction of almost all the nation’s major oil concerns in the Niger Delta region by the NDA, this is steadily being achieved as the nation’s economy is almost on its knees. A recent government source claims that in the last six months, the federal government has lost over 1 trillion naira in oil revenue chiefly as a result of destruction of oil installations. Current militants’ incursion into the South West is, therefore, part of the overall plan to frustrate the federal government.

Now, whether some of the motives as illustrated above are authentic or spurious, what cannot be denied is that the South West, especially riverine and border communities in Lagos, Ogun and Ondo, is in dire need of urgent security beef up. Therefore, relevant security agencies must come up with clear-cut strategies that would guarantee the security of lives and properties not only in the zone, but in every part of the country.

 

Tayo Ogunbiyi

Ogunbiyi is of the Ministry of Information, Ministry of Information & strategy, Alausa, Ikeja.