Niger Delta region close to collapse, archbishop warns: The Church of England Newspaper, July 16, 2010 p 6.

Archbishop Nicholas Okoh

First published in The Church of England Newspaper.

Civil society in Nigeria’s southern Niger Delta region is on the verge of collapse, warned the Archbishop of Nigeria, with the breakdown of law and order reaching levels not seen since the Biafran Civil War.

Archbishop Nicholas Okoh “decried the war situation in Igbo land” the Church of Nigeria News reported following the archbishop’s visit to the Ecclesiastical Province of Owerri this month.

If the “wave of wanton destruction is not curbed,” the archbishop said, the region will be “completely ruined.”

“There is no life anymore; no road, no market, no bank, only people shooting up and down and the police seize the opportunity to do anything,” Archbishop Okoh said.

At the age of 17 Archbishop Okoh enlisted as a private soldier in the Nigerian Army and fought with Federal troops during the Biafran or Nigerian Civil War.  In 1967 the Igbo-dominated oil rich southeast attempted to secede from the Federal Republic of Nigeria and formed the Biafran Republic.  Death estimates during the three-year civil war from disease, malnutrition and in ethnic pogroms range from one to three million.

In recent years the oil rich southeast has been plagued by political instability and a low level guerrilla war waged by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND).  An amnesty for militants in the delta region was initiated by President Umaru Yar’Adua in July 2009 after the federal government launched a military campaign to route the rebels in May 2009.

The president’s amnesty programme had militants surrender their weapons at collection centres and register for job training.  The federal government also promised to return more of the region’s oil revenues to the states to support community development.

While 10,000 militants were expected to take advantage of the programme that also promised a stipend and micro-credit loans, over 17,000 rebels came in from the bush.  The government missed the first of the promised payments to the ex-militants, and failed to allocate sufficient resources to carry out the programme.

On April 21 acting President Goodluck Jonathan promised to reinvigorate the amnesty process, which had flagged during President Yar’Adua’s long-term illness, and appointed a new petroleum minister and minister of Niger Delta affairs.

The Nigerian press has reported that while 17,000 militants have turned themselves in, only 2700 guns have been handed over to the government.  Archbishop Okoh told the Delta bishops that political instability and corruption had led to young people “carrying guns and shooting people to collect money; business is paralyzed because of kidnapping everything is at standstill.”

The violence was a self-inflicted wound, he said, and the “self destruction must stop.”  Archbishop Okoh called upon the chancellors and bishops of the 12 dioceses in Owerri “to use their God given talents and good offices to provide leadership at this critical period.”