If a mosquito perched on your left ball (Blokus) what would you do? Would you slap the mosquito hard? Well you will kill the mosquito alright, but your balls might bust, would you leave it? Not likely, the bugger will suck your future children away, so what? Well an option is to first make the mosquito fly away from your left ball (blokus), then smack it in the air, far away from your balls. It’s a no brainer abi?
What if you had a MEND in your oil fields what would you do? Would you slap the MEND hard? Well you will kill the MEND? But your oil output might fall, would you leave MEND alone? Not likely, the bugger will create a state within a state, so what? Well an option is to first make the MEND irrelevant so they lose local support, then you smack them, far away from your oil fields balls. It’s a no brainer abi?
You see if its man to man fight in an open field the Nigerian Army (JTF) will finish off MEND and have time to do a beer or two, but JTF is not fighting an army, it is fighting an insurgency. Mao said an insurgency must avoid direct confrontation with the ruling powers because they will lose, but the insurgency must move like a toad in a swamp, in and out of water, and weaken the enemy to a point where they lose the will to fight. Modern counter insurgency principles are built around “draining the swamp” that feeds the insurgency.
In Malaysia the British starved off the Malay Communist by sequestering the villages into dedicated villages, which were then heavily defended. This strategy deprived the communist of food, information and most importantly local support. In Iraq, General Patreaus -using lessons learned from the NYPD in defeating gang members in New York- inserted US troops inside Iraq neighbors, enclosed the neighbors with walls and just sat there, this allowed the residents to feel confident that the US was there to stay and they turned on Al Qaeda.
After 2 months of JTF action what are the results? Well we are not in Gbaramatu so we don’t know how effective the routing of the militants had been, what we know is this;
1. Falling government oil earnings; a 39.5% drop from last quarter
2. Deficit in governments fiscal (tax) operations, 31.5% drop in preceding quarter
3. Depreciating value of the Naira
4. Expanded FGN debt, N2.5 trillion up 28.7%
5. Fall in commercial bank credit to private sector from (plus) 16.7% to (minus) 2.6%
6. Inflation rate of 13.1% in first quarter compared with 5.8% in corresponding period in 2008
7. Fall in the Nigerian stock market by 36.9% from the preceding quarter
8. Fall in FOREX inflow by 46.9%
9. Fall in oil output from a installed capacity of 3mbpd to almost 1.23mbpd
10. No power (light) in the country, because no gas from the creeks to power the gas turbines.
So who dunnit? One reason only one, a fall in oil output, caused by MEND. Nigeria earns 90% of our foreign earnings from oil, Nigeria is also import dependent and a heavy consumer , we earned $5.72 billion from January to March 2009, impressive abi? but we spent $11.26 billion, that’s why our reserves are now %45 billion from a high of $65 billion plus.
So a MEND reducing how much we can earn from oil is the proverbial mosquito on the balls. We would be fools to discount that MEND has the ability to significantly reduce how much we would earn in the next quarter. Chevron has shut in output, now shell has shut in output also. Even if Iran boils and oil gets to $200 a barrel, Nigeria might see output restricted further. Our brave soldiers nor matter how trained and equipped they may be (with or without unmanned drones) cannot guard every inch of pipeline in the Niger Delta. All it takes is for a MEND guy (or gal) to ride a bicycle to a pipeline into a forest, set a local fuse , and boom, 200,000 barrels are shut in, and the stats above gets worse.
So what can we do?
1. Yar Adua need to do a “Sadat”, and fly into the creeks and visit that area, call the global MDs of Shell, AGIP, ExxonMobil and Chevron to accompany him. Let him go there are tell the people Nigeria wants to “reset” relationship with them, let the MD of Shell and Co with the FGN invoke a “Marshall plan”, let them announce a multi billion offer to cleanup and develop the area, let Julius Berger announce it wants to hire 100,000 ND citizen to build a 8 lane, rail and road network in the creeks, let GE announce plans t build a massive 5,000 power plant in Gbamaratu kingdom employing 2,000 ex militants, let the Army replace the JTF with the Army Corp of Engineers to build jetties and fish ponds, let start to build a gigantic sports facility to host Africa in 2035, lets make the militants and the citizens of the Niger Delta dizzy with imagining how that area will be if they put down the RPG. What a morale booster this will be to the Nigerian troops in the JTF, what a morale booster it will be to the fisherman in the creeks who has not seen a fish since 1970 in his creek. Such a visit will change overnight the tone in the creeks. The symbolism and significance cannot be imagined.
2. Declare the entire Delta a federal zone i.e. Bayelsa Rivers and Delta State become the Delta federal republic (about the size of Florida); allocate 25% of the budget or oil earnings to develop the area, this is not derivation, it’s just an appropriation vote. Drain the swamp of kidnappers and militants, employ them in Julius Berger, Siemens, and Shell, take a census and pay every Nigerian from Delta, Rivers, and Bayelsa a special dividend being shareholders of the nations wealth. Cancel the states let only the local governments remain, that way the representation goes around
3. Set in a plan to return Nigeria to a fiscal federalism. This means that we live out the meaning of a federation, where the federating units have exclusive powers to create wealth, and pay a tax to the central government. This will mean that the Federal government hands over Education and Health to the local governments, the local government will fund health education with their resources and then pay a tax to the federal government. No state and in consequence individual will work if he knows his sweat will be taxed away to Abuja.
4. Pull the Army away from the land, I find it funny that we are using the army when the stolen oil will eventually find its way unto a barge and then t a ship on the high sea. Invest in the Navy; if we stop the barges leaving the creeks to the sea, we stop the bunkering.
5. Equip the police, the courts, and the laws. Let rule of law be a verb not a noun.
Do this all at once, don’t delay, if we can give FIFA a presidential guarantee that we will develop 6 stadia in 6 cities in one month to host a junior World Cup, then we can guarantee the Niger Delta People that we will develop 6 states in 6 months with N6 trillion and create 6 million direct jobs.
Kalu these are radical measures, it will cause the Nigerian government trillions to implement, we would have rewarded militancy and would appear unfair to other parts of Nigeria who depend on federal grants to survive, if I recall only I state (Lagos) generates enough internal revenue to pay salaries and build infrastructure.
Yes it’s a tough choice, but what’s the option, wait till MEND takes output down to 100,000bpd?
It’s our problem, we will fix it
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