Ex-rebels back Nigerian leader
Former militants’ fortunes rest on Jonathan presidency
ABUJA, Nigeria — As the Islamist group Boko Haram intensifies attacks in northern Nigeria, former militants in the Niger River delta who once cut oil production by almost a third have become some of the government’s biggest supporters.
Militant commanders such as Government Ekpemupolo have gone from targeting Nigeria’s oil industry, riding around in speedboats with automatic weapons and explosives, to protecting it. He now runs the Global West Specialist security company that has a $115 million contract with the National Maritime Administration and Safety Agency.
Ekpemupolo is one of a group of former militants, including Ebikabowei Victor Ben and Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, who are prospering under the rule of President Goodluck Jonathan, Nigeria’s first leader from the region that’s the heart of Africa’s biggest oil industry. They form the backbone of support for Jonathan, 57, in the area as he seeks re-election in February, and have vowed to resist attempts by some opposition lawmakers to impeach him.
“We know what they’re doing and we’re watching them,” Reuben Wilson, a former militant and president of the Peace and Cultural Development Initiative lobby group for ex-combatants, said in a Nov. 22 emailed statement. “They should not push us to the wall, because if they do, we shall react.”
Before Jonathan announced he would seek re-election, Dokubo-Asari, the former leader of the militant group the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force, told Lagos-based Silver Bird Television that if the president didn’t run for another term, he’d be barred from ever returning to the Niger delta.
Dokubo-Asari currently runs a school in the neighboring country of Benin, to teach former combatants skills useful in the oil industry such as welding and diving, while Ben is the chairman of the Centre for Youth Development in Bayelsa state. He has contracts with the government to help ex-fighters find jobs and monitor pipelines.
For ordinary residents of the region, where more than 50 percent of the population lives in poverty, according to data published by the National Bureau of Statistics, the benefits of having a native son in the top office are less clear.
When Jonathan took power five years ago, the Aleibiri community expected that its decade-old spill disaster would at last get the government’s attention. A ruptured pipeline operated by Royal Dutch Shell in 1997 left farms and streams coated by an oil slick.
The Aleibiri spill is one of 2,744 oil pollution locations in the delta region that haven’t been cleaned up, according to Abuja-based National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency.
“Jonathan is our son from this area, who understands our pains,” Obudu Obuka, a 51-year-old fisherman who lost farms and fishing areas to the slick, said. “So we expected some urgent action to rescue us from our situation. But so far we have seen nothing.”
Jonathan’s spokesman, Reuben Abati, said he would send a response when contacted for comments. He didn’t answer four subsequent phone calls or respond to email and text messages.
As soon as the attacks eased in the Niger delta, the Islamist militant group Boko Haram started a campaign in the north of the country to impose Islamic law. Jonathan, who imposed a state of emergency in three northeastern states last year, said the group has killed 13,000 people since 2009.
Jonathan inherited an industry-reform bill first sent to lawmakers by his predecessor, Umaru Yar’Adua, that sought to change the way oil and gas investments are funded and regulated to give Nigeria a greater share of profits.