Armed militias, misconstrued as cults by the political authorities turn the nation's garden city into a garden of blood

When 23-year old Soviet Army Sergeant, Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov, in the heat of the German- led World War II invasion of his fatherland, invented the A.K 47 assault rifle as an antidote to the Nazi's MP-44 gun, it never occurred to him that his prized invention, 60 years later, would become an instrument of terror in an obscure corner of Africa.

Today in Port Harcourt, this great invention from the Kalashnikov has turned into a favourite companion for the various militia groups holding hostage the entire stretch of Rivers State in the last few months.

Since the outbreak of the war, the erstwhile tranquil Garden City of Port Harcourt has taken over from Warri as the "killing field" of the Niger Delta. On Sunday 29 August at about 5 a.m, residents of Borokiri, Creek Road area, Okirika Jetty, Marine Base and the Waterfronts were sacked by a bunch of A.K 47 wielding militiamen believed to be members of a group of warmongers. This recent attack compares favourably with the method of an earlier attack on Njemanze, a sprawling neighbourhood in Diobu area. Before the Njemanze carnage, 60 people were killed when two rival militia groups, known as "Biafra and Nigeria" clashed in Ataba in Ndoni Local Government area. Some of the dead victims were tied to six-inch blocks and thrown into the river.

Investigations by TheNEWS revealed that the raging violence in Port Harcourt was triggered by a protracted battle of supremacy between Dokubo Asari, former president of the Ijaw Youth Congress, IYC and Ateke Tom, leader of another militia group, known in the city as Vigilante.

Just before the return of democracy in Nigeria, Dokubo-Asari was the bride of the contending political forces in Rivers State. Later, he became the most sought after political thug in the Ijaw nation. As the leader of IYC, he wielded enormous influence. Many big politicians rode on Asari's popularity to achieve electoral victory.

At the beginning of the PDP government in the state, Dokubo, a direct descendant of King Amachree, the late Amanyanabo of Kalabari Kingdom, received enormous patronage from top government functionaries. But soon the once sweet relationship began to show signs of crack in the days leading to President Olusegun Obasanjo's 2003 comeback campaign. The Rivers State Government found Dokubo's militancy and anti-Federal Government stance too hot for comfort. And as it turned out, he began to assert himself.

This further alienated him from those who wielded political power. For Dokubo at the time, nothing short of the controversial Kaiama Declaration, which sought to establish, Ijaw's sovereignty over its resources would do.

He later enunciated this position in an interview with a local newspaper in Port Harcourt.

According to him "Not only that I spearheaded and advocated arms struggle in the organization (IYC), I went to Bomadi in Delta State. I told them it would be wrong for us to hide without taking the message of Kaiama Declaration to every part of Ijaw land. For the first time, I took the risk and brought IYC to Minama in Opobo-Nkoro, in Rivers state where we had Minama Reaffirmation," he said.

Despite Dokubo's strong opposition to Obasanjo's second term bid, PDP claimed a landslide victory in the state, in an election that recorded more votes cast than the registered voters. Jolted by the result, Dokubo issued a statement condemning the outcome of the presidential polls in the state. He insisted that the Ijaws never voted for Obasanjo, whom they regarded as their worst enemy. They cited the Odi massacre and the president's perceived indifference to the Niger Delta struggle as reasons.

From that moment, the battle line was drawn between Dokubo, now operating under the cloak of the Niger Delta Volunteer Force and the Rivers State Government. With a rich armoury of A.K 47 rifles, believed to have been supplied by his benefactors, Dokubo and his paladins melted into the creeks, conducting periodic amphibious raids on oil pipelines, rigs and installations. This development brought the group in direct conflict with the Federal Security Forces.

But determined to balance the terror emanating from Dokubo's camp, the state government found solace in Ateke Tom, leader of the now popular vigilante and Icelanders groups. Ateke, like Dokubo, was said to have helped the PDP to subdue opposition in Okrika and Ogu/Bolo Local Government Areas in the early years of democratic rule.

With operational camps at Butch Island, Alakiri, Okochiri, Okoroma, Ikpokiri and Oyogomi, he recruited and equipped a sizeable fighting force made up of unemployed and unskilled youths. Wearing his trademark necklace that carries a pendant with a lion symbol, Ateke, assumed the sobriquet "Godfather". Among his growing army of rascals and devotees, Ateke is worshipped. As the influence of the new "godfather" loomed across the political underworld, the stage was set for the inevitable battle of supremacy between Ateke and Dokubo Asari.

A strong feeling of betrayal on the part of Dokubo fuelled the bitterness. The latter claimed he used his position as president of IYC to recall Ateke from exile, when a rival Bush Boys militia group chased him out of Okrika.

Since then, the state has witnessed close to a dozen bloody battles between these groups and some of its emerging affiliates. On 13 July 2004, inhabitants of Amadiama and Teriama communities of Port Harcourt woke up to the cracking sounds of A.K 47 rifles. Soldiers and other military personnel deployed to the area were locked in a fierce battle to flush out elements of the Dokubo-Asari -led group and the Ateke Tom faction, believed to have encamped in the suburb. Though the soldiers meant no harm, residents told TheNEWS that about 10 people died at the end of the exercise.

The death toll continued when 11 people were killed and several others critically injured, in renewed sporadic shootings between rival groups in the Marine base-Borokiri - Nembe Waterfronts.

The attack elicited a quick response from the state government, which was compelled to proclaim force majeure, to reduce the spread of the clashes.

Not done with the scale of violence yet, the cultists took their battle to the Shell Petroleum - owned Alakiri flow station at Onne. TheNEWS, however, gathered that there was no damage on the station. In a swift response, a panicky Aso Rock deployed more troops to man the streets of Port Harcourt and key oil installations.

But in defiance of the soldiers, the militiamen stormed a popular restaurant in the city the next day, killing nine persons. Eye witnesses told TheNEWS that the young men, wielding A.K. 47 rifles stormed the Platform Restaurant located at 10 Warri Street, Mile One, Diobu, in a Mercedez Benz. They began shooting indiscriminately.

At the end of the onslaught, nine people lay dead. Though the identity of the assailants has not been established, the state police command, however, confirmed the incident.

Governor Odili quickly returned from his US trip last week to take charge of the situation. He summoned an emergency security meeting. At the meeting, he got first hand security briefing on the various militia attacks in Port Harcourt and other parts of the state. Later in a statewide broadcast, the Governor announced the dissolution of the State Executive Council. He sent the Secretary to the State Government packing. Short of linking members of the cabinet with the persistent killings, Odili directed that they hand over to Permanent Secretaries in their ministries and bureaux.

The governor blamed some communities for providing shelter for some of the militant youths." Our youths have, in collusion with external enemies, ventured into dangerous and despicable acts of gangsterism, cultism, involvement in oil bunkering business and amassing sophisticated offensive weapons and ammunition to defend their illegal activities." Odili lamented further that even though these hoodlums primarily target themselves for elimination, the dastardly acts often time take place within the townships. Innocent citizens are, according to him, caught in crossfire or are affected by hoodlums' misconduct, aggravated by influence of drugs and alcohol. The governor ordered a 24-hour security patrol of the Port Harcourt metropolis and all the waterfronts.

Before now, politicians and political appointees in and outside the state have been fingered as the patrons and sponsors of the armed militia groups. Politicians use them as instruments of intimidation of perceived opponents.

For instance, in the case of Ataba crisis, a political appointee and Chairman of the State Local Government Service Commission, Mr. Emmanuel Njah was arrested by the Rivers State Police Command a week ago. That followed a petition by some members of the Ataba community.

Early this year, Chief Panwanso Horsfall, the Commissioner for Ecological Matters, alongside his father and one of his aides, was arrested by the Police. However, the three suspects were set free few days later after they were charged to court.

Despite the heavy presence of patrolling soldiers, Dokubo-Asari, the self-styled freedom fighter, has vowed that his group would overrun Port Harcourt and crush any trace of Ateke Tom militia group or any other group. He argued that those groups were sponsored by politicians to ruin Rivers youths. He decided to cleanse the state of militancy.

Since the outbreak of the insurgence, various reasons have been adduced for the carnage. Oronto Douglas, a frontline Niger Delta activist, insists that the solution lies with a complete restructuring of the zone." The struggle for true federalism, although not exclusively a matter of the Niger Delta People, the impact of a quasi-federal arrangement, has been too harsh to our people and our region,"Oronto said in a recent Niger Delta stakeholders' forum attended by President Olusegun Obasanjo. The environmentalist queried:"Why are the Niger Delta youths so courageous to fight soldiers in our country even when they know they will die?" "Is there anything successive governments continue to uphold as a policy which is a source of continuing pain to the people of Niger Delta? Do the children of Niger Delta have the benefit of the best education? Are they brought up to think for Nigeria?" He advised government to generate programmes such as connecting all communities in the Niger Delta by roads, while encouraging the youths to lead these initiatives. He acknowledged that the confidence of some youths has been broken, but attributes this to the fact that a majority of them have become beggars in the land of plenty.

He called on government and corporate bodies to stop the policies of dividing the people through selective appeasement, because when this is done, peace becomes elusive.

On a wider spectrum, he called on Obasanjo to abrogate the unjust laws that are anti the people of the Niger Delta.

"They include; the Land Use Act; the Petroleum Act and some sections of Oil Pipeline Act which have helped to deny our people a place under the sun.

Beyond rhetoric however, the big question on everyone's lips is 'what happened to the arms and ammunition reported to have been surrendered by members of the Ateke-Tom group a few weeks ago?' Until, recently the Eastern flank of the Niger Delta Region enjoyed relative peace in comparison to its Western neighbour of Warri and its environs. Overtime, however redundant youths originally recruited and funded by politicians to fight their opponents, especially during the last election in Rivers, have found solace in vices. With the region accounting for more than half of Nigeria's 2.5million barrels of crude per day, the periods of violence have proven extremely costly. At the zenith of fighting, last year, 10 per cent of Nigeria's oil exports were halted as foreign firms withdrew their staff.

Already, several hundreds of people have fled the spiralling carnage taking place on the Port Harcourt Waterfront, the Garden City that is arguably Africa's oil industry capital.

Reports indicate that Shell, Nigeria's biggest oil producer, is in the process of moving its corporate headquarters from Lagos to Port Harcourt. The move, TheNEWS gathered, is putting enormous pressure on the Rivers State government to curtail the situation so that Shell may not change its decision.

Recently, a British oil worker who was among hundreds being held hostage on several oil rigs in the Delta was set free because he told his captors that his wife was pregnant.

Paul Baker, a staff of US TransOcean Oil Company, told reporters in Port Harcourt that his life was threatened during his 13- days captivity by about 100 striking Nigerian workers.

Earlier in the year, Shell carried a full-page advert in national newspapers across the country, warning of the "unimaginable carnage" that would result if one of its oil installations was blown up.

The company disclosed that it had been warned that criminal elements were threatening to torch a storage vessel, which would put production capacity of 170,000 barrels a day at risk.

"The scale of economic, human and environmental carnage that blew out on the FPSOL floating production, storage and offloading vessel can result in, is unimaginable.

Information reaching us reveals that any time from now, the vessel could be seized by force of arms and set on fire.

The forces were awaiting the signal to attack," the publication argued.

In series of attacks on oil installations in 2002, youths in the Warri, Escravos axis of the region laid siege to the highly essential Escravos tank farm, taking hostage 88 foreign and local staff of Chevron Texaco in April 2002.

After series of behind- the- scene negotiations, the workers were released from the platform, located 8kilometres off the Escravos town, home to one of the nation's biggest oil terminals.

Though oil companies deny that they pay ransoms to kidnappers, it is common secret in the Delta that dollars proceeds from hostage taking have helped to make the so- called agitation more lucrative for the youths.

This year, hostage taking in Warri reached a frightening level when two Americans working for ChevronTexaco were killed alongside five others while on inspection tour of some of the facilities damaged as a result of the 2002 raid on Escravos. After promising a N10m compensation for useful information on the killers, the Delta State Government, along with federal security forces, imposed a heavy security clamp- down on restive youths in the area. This paid off with the July arrest of John Togo and his gang of sea marauders Last week, oil experts also linked the emergence of deadly militia groups in Rivers State and the entire Delta region to the lucrative underground trade in stolen crude oil. The trade is estimated at between $1 billion and $1.5 billion every year. With such free funds in the hands of some people in the region, it is no wonder that the militia groups are well kitted, in terms of sophisticated guns and speedboats. That the militia gangs are not afraid of Nigeria's soldiers was clearly demonstrated last week when a section of the militias stormed a restaurant and killed at least 18 people, despite the presence of soldiers on patrol.