Thrown up by a system founded on injustice, these men of blood and bullet hold sway in the treacherous creeks of the Niger Delta, fighting a battle for resource control, but fraught with criminality.
By Michael Mukwuzi /Warri & Okafor Ofiebor /Port Harcourt
In words and in deeds, Tompolo’s hold on the creeks of the Niger Delta is broad and trenchant. A strong adherent of Egbesu, the traditional Ijaw god of war, Tompolo retreated from Warri City into the inner recess of what is known as the Gbaramatu clan years ago to establish a foothold which would in due course stretch beyond the swampy groove of his Western Ijaw domain.
With Egbesu as his military compass, the ethnic warlord was able to build and command an army of militants which attend to him with messianic devotion. Under the Egbesu strictures, the following rules of engagement must be observed: Innocent people should not be killed; when an enemy surrenders, he should not be killed; houses, livestock, farms and fish ponds should not be destroyed, women should not be violated; nobody under the protection of Egbesu should steal from or rob anybody under the protection of Egbesu; no person under the protection of Egbesu should seek the protection of other foreign deities or charm.
Obviously in coming out with the strictures, the Ijaw god did not reckon that illegal oil bunkering is an act of stealing. If it did, Tompolo would have no business being an Egbesu faithful for it was in illegal oil bunkering and gun-running that he made his fortune. The flow of petro-dollar and sophisticated weaponry from the sea corridor ensures his position as the militant-in-chief of the Delta State section of the Niger Delta. Under his watch as the Convener of the Ijaw Youth Leadership Forum, IYLF, the umbrella body of the Ijaw youth leaders cum militants, Tompolo provided mentorship and logistic support to all his wards. From the Okerenkoko camp, Tompolo did not only provide Dokubo Asari of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force with field fighters, he also ensured Asari got all the necessary arms and ammunition needed to commence his military campaign in some key oil installations and squelch the threat from Ateke Tom’s Icelander group. Tom’s group were on the verge of overrunning Asari’s Buguma hometown in Rivers State after Okah, his supplier, had failed him. “Tompolo decided on his own volition to give me 50 AK47s which I used to launch the first series of attacks on the stronghold of the Icelanders. All my attacks were successful,” Asari stated. TheNEWS gathered that to ensure smooth passage of the arms, a visibly pregnant woman was contracted to chauffeur the pick-up van which contained the Russian-made assault rifles from Warri to Port Harcourt to beat security checks.
Later, Tompolo nestled the formation of the Movement of the Emancipation of Niger Delta, MEND, in 2006 at the now-captured Camp 5, in Okerenkoko, with the primary aim to press for the release of Dokubo Asari and later Gov. Diepreye Alamieyeseigha who were then incarcerated. It was at the Okerenkoko meeting that a decision was taken by the groups to have a name and a platform for the struggle. Hence, MEND was created not as an organisation but as a name for the purpose of issuing unified statements. Henry Okah, who was in South Africa, was appointed e-mailer in his absence for the integrity of our information flow, explained Asari in his prison chronicle titled: Me, Henry Okah, Jomo Gbomo, Judith Asuni and the Niger Delta.
But a disagreement in the modus operandi of the outfit soon led to a split among the MEND elements. Many believe that but for Tompolo’s towering influence, the position of Chief Wellington Okrika, his kinsman, as the Executive Chairman of the Delta State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission, DESOPADEC, would have been long erased. To further underline his influence, Tompolo single-handedly ensured the enthronement of Godwin K. Bebenimibo, retired Superitendent of Police, as the Gbaran III, Agadagba, the traditional ruler of Gbaramatu kingdom.
Tompolo’ s seeming benevolence was not restricted to assisting his comrades-at-arms. In July 2004, Tompolo assisted the Joint Task Force, JTF, then under the command of Brig.-General Elias Zemani to capture John Togo, a notorious sea pirate and his gang, who include names like Perembowe Ebinimie, Felix Dissi and Peter Dolobowei. Until the outbreak of hostilities between his group and the JTF on 13 May, the Delta State government and the JTF had relied extensively on his structures to provide security for the troubled Delta waterways. Unofficial sources said that Tompolo receives close to N100 million every month as settlement to maintain peace in the waterways.
Henry Okah, a.k.a Jomo Gbomo
Though still in detention where he is facing trial for gun running and treason, Okah, until his arrest in Angola, was the arms supplier-in-chief to the Niger Delta militants. Based in South Africa, Okah coordinated the communication-cum propaganda angle of the MEND agenda via e-mail and text messages to journalists and media houses. Okah’ s idea of allowing MEND participate in bank robberies, kidnapping for ransom and other vices to raise money for the Ijaw struggle caused a major rift in the organisation. The split left him with effective control of a faction of MEND which he used to maximum advantage in unleashing terror in the region.
Okah was also marked a double agent by some Ijaw militants like Asari who accused him of selling arms to the Ijaws as well as their Itsekiri adversaries during the Warri ethnic conflict. Though his incarceration has left him hamstrung, he is believed to enjoy some massive support from some militants who still see him as the authentic leader of the Ijaw struggle. Again, his release is oftentimes put forward as a pre-condition to guarantee final cessation of attacks against pipelines and key oil installations by some militants who still have sympathy for him.
Victor Ben Ebika Bowei a.k.a Boy Loaf
Until 19 June 2008, Boy Loaf was just one of the militant commanders operating under the cognomen of MEND. But his profile in the underworld of Ijaw militancy would turn 360 degrees when he led and coordinated what remains till date as the most audacious attack on an oil facility in Nigeria. On that day, Boy Loaf, moving in company of 20 fighters travelling on three speed boats, stormed and successfully attacked the Royal Dutch Shell Bonga Field reputed tobe Nigeria’s biggest Floating Production Storage and Offloading, FPSO, vessel and deepwater sub-sea infrastructure.
The militants had to traverse 220 kilometres of open sea to achieve a hit on the 60 square kilometre $3.6b facility which has a production capacity of 225,000 barrels of oil per day and a target of increasing Nigeria’ s crude oil production to about four million bpd by 2010. The attack left the Nigerian military wondering how Boy Loaf and his group were able to pull off the attack on a platform located approximately 120 kilometres (75 miles) offshore Nigeria, in water depths of more than 1,000 meters. Boy Loaf advanced reasons for the attack. The number one reason is to let the Federal Government and its security agencies know that we can strike anywhere in the Niger-Delta and there is no barrier whatsoever for us in the creeks, which is our homeland. I can travel anywhere in the Niger-Delta. I can travel out of Nigeria by speedboat. If what they are thinking is that we cannot get to the Bonga field or any other offshore facility, they are joking. Nowhere is unreachable to us, he boasted in a chat with the Vanguard newspaper. Since that attack, Boy Loaf has been rated second only to Tompolo in terms of proven guerilla ability.
His main camp is located in the creeks of Southern Ijaw in Bayelsa State. He claimed he was at the Okerenkoko meeting where MEND was formed and he even coined the name MEND. Boy Loaf claims to be a Mechanical Engineering graduate of of the University of Calabar. He supplies electricity and water for gratis to his community in Southern Ijaw and insists that he is not into illegal oil bunkering. He reiterates he is an inveterate hater of the geographical expression called the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Ateke Tom
Popularly referred to as father by his followers, Ateke Tom, leader of the Niger Delta Volunteer Force, NDVF, started off with a cult group known as the Icelander or Germans. Completing the founding team often referred to as the five wise men are Theophilous, Cassy, Cockman and the late Julius Oruifemeka, a.k.a. Juju, who was allegedly beheaded by Tom for attempted betrayal. An indigene of Okrika in Rivers State, Tom, a fisherman by birth, believes strongly in the potency of charms, talisman and amulets, and has a reputation of generosity towards his followers and ruthlessness for his enemies. For instance, after the 2003 split in the Icelander which led to the formation of the rival Greenlanders by Julius Oruitemeka and others, he allegedly ordered the beheading of Oruitemeka. Determined to re-brand his organisation, he renamed the Icelander the Niger Delta Vigilante Service, NDVS and later the Niger Delta Vigilante Movement, NDVM. The change in name did not change its cult philosophy.
There is no doubting the fact that Tom was a strong factor in the creation of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Rivers State under the watch of the former Governor of Rivers State, Dr. Peter Odili and Dr. Abiye Sekibo, former Secretary to the Rivers State government. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission called him, The Generalissimo of the insurgents in Rivers State. During the hearing before the Commission, incumbent Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State said on oath that Tom had once confessed before former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Odili and himself at Aso Rock Villa in 2003 that he had killed over 2,000 people to ensure that PDP controlled the state between 1999 and 2003.
He remains the most wanted militant in Rivers State and is the deadliest of them all. His former operational base is the Okochiri Evil Forest in Okirika, headquarters of the Okrika Local Government Area of Rivers State, before he was dislodged by the Joint Task Force, JTF, led by General Sarkin Yakin Bello, Commander of the 2 Amphibious Brigade and Commander, JTF, Rivers State.
Dokubo Asari
The popular leader of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force NDPVF, was also the the President of the Ijaw Youth Council, IYC. Asari later vacated his position as head of the NDPV. Brutus Columbus Epibade is also regarded as a co-founder of the NDPVF. The NDPVF founder’s claims to have derived inspiration from Major Isaac Adaka Jasper Boro, the Ijaw revolutionary and nationalist who began his own guerrilla war against the federal government in 1965 with the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Service. During NDPVF’ s prolonged armed violence against Ateke Tom’s group in 2003 and early 2004, Asari collaborated with a number of armed groups such as The Bush Boys, Deebam and Greenlander. Currently, the NDPVF operates under two umbrella organisations - the Joint Revolutionary Council and MEND. Asari believes in the formation of an Ijaw ethnic state where the tribe will have unrestrained access to its natural resources.
Soboma George
Second-in Command to Ateke Tom and now a senior Commander in MEND. He does not speak to the press. Unlike Tom who is not afraid to publish his photo in print, George is taciturn but deadly. He was arrested by security forces and charged to court for murder and armed robbery along with others after breaking away from Tom. But in a daylight operation unprecedented in the history of militancy in the country, his loyalists stormed the Port Harcourt prisons on Saturday 18 June 2005 by scaling the prison walls near the waterfronts, killed some prison officials and released him. He was spirited away into a waiting speedboat.
In 2006, he was arrested for a minor traffic offence, while driving one of his jeeps in Port Harcourt even when the police said he was on their wanted list. He was said to have offered the policemen about N50,000 to allow him go. A report said the policemen wanted more because they knew who he was and when he could not play ball, he was taken to the Central Police Station, CPS, Port Harcourt and detained. It less than two hours, a rescue team of about 50 fighters armed with dangerous weapons like AK47, general purpose machine guns, grenades and dynamites anchored at the Borokiri waterfront marched to the CPS that shares boundary with MOPOL barracks, bombed the station and released Soboma. Besides the destruction of the CPS, seven trooper vehicles belonging to the Nigerian Police were burnt. The overwhelmed policemen on duty fled for safety. Soboma was alleged to be well-patronised by the Rivers State government and was the security contractor for the Liberation Stadium and the Civic Centre even at the time he was declared wanted during the Odili era. Former Rivers State governor, Celestine Omehia’ s short tenure saw the police go after Soboma. The hotel he was allegedly staying was bombed by JTF, but once again Soboma was lucky. He is one of those deep-rooted in the struggle to emancipate the Niger Delta.
The Agbukumasa/Jenekpo
The Niger Delta struggle is far from being an Ijaw exclusive preserve. Determined to stave off some of the threat arising from their ominipresent neighbours, the Itesekiri ethnic group, one of the two groups that share the creeks of the Delta with the Ijaws have found the need to maintain and sustain an ethnic army. Operating under the name of Agbukumasa which is their local variant of the Kamikasa, the group is commanded by a certain retired Major of the Nigerian Army. A source told this magazine that unlike the Ijaw ethnic militia which are usually on the offensive side, the Agbokumasa is purely a defensive outfit. They operate within the Itsekiri town located on the strait of the Benin River. The Jenekpo, with zonal command at Omadino, also performs a similar role.
The latest JTF offensive against the militants has recorded some successes against militants in Delta State. To some Nigerians, these elements have derailed and are actually criminals who kidnap innocent citizens and demand ransoms, commit robberies and attack oil facilities mainly to rake in huge illegitimate earnings that can sustain their expensive lifestyles. But the big question remains: How far can the on-going military confrontation styled, Find, Fix and Finish\rdblquote go in squelching the struggle, whether the true armed struggle or the criminality, in the Niger Delta?
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LEONARDS ONYEKWERE
1 June 2009 22:30Well, let say you inherited a large piece of ancestry land from your father and in this piece of land there is a little pond that for many generations, your ancestors fished and fetched water from. But one day, a foreigner arrived in your compound and informed you that he had discovered something in your piece of land that might be more profitable than your fish pond. Imagine the kind of joy such news would have brought to you in the 1950s, reflect what would have gone through your mind. In fact, consider the kind of future you might dreamed for you children based on this discovery.
Now, more than fifty years after that day, the foreigner had fought you(Nigeria war against Biafra) and massacred your children, took over your inherited piece of land, claimed ownership to the natural resources that he derived from your ancestral heritage; polluted your ponds and rendered you and your descendants wretched.
Moreover, to add insult to injury, many years after the end of the first war that the stranger waged against your children, nine of your children were hanged for peacefully raising their concerns over the environmental ruination of their homeland. And before you were through with the mourning your son Ken Soro Wiwa and the rest, the children of Odi another son were almost completely wiped out by the foreigner/usurper.
After these inhuman treatment, and in consideration of their hopeless existence caused in whole by this wicked stranger called Nigeria, your grandchildren decided to engage in an armed struggle to recover the right of ownership to their ancestry land, and as means of sponsoring the resistance, they your grandchildren resorted to sabotaging the flow of the crude oil that is being extracted from their ancestral land by the stranger and his business counterparts. Now who is the criminal here? Your grandchildren or the wicked stranger?
David Ojo
2 June 2009 13:42My own comment is actually to answer Leonard question (last line). Leonard need to understand that there are so many factor contributing to this. You do not take to kidnapping of fellow human being like you in order to prove your point. I still maintained that those boys are criminal. Your so called grandchildren resulted to kidnapping of foreign oil workers who are only looking for what to eat legally in your country. If you realy want to kidnap anybody, what of those your governors. Have you ever asked them how they`ve been making use of their own state shares of 13% derivation.
Alamesia (the former governor of Balyesa was indicted of miossapropriation of public fund, yet your so called Niger Delta people gave him a heroic welcome after he was released from detention. Where were the millitant then. Why cant they question the man about the source of his welath.
We are witnessing some sporadic changes in Lagos today because the people at the elm of affair have started looking inward. No 13% drivation. Please we should be sincere, let us call spade a spade. Those boys are criminals that should be delt with. My only concern is the collateral damage. Government should please ensure the safety of average law abiding Niger Delta citizen of Nigeria.
Goddy
3 June 2009 13:53Well, foreigner/intruder or whatevre, what delta people should know is that:
1. Nobody raise up to arm or declare a war on a state/or a government. If you do, you win or loose.
2. Oil, is a life blood of any nation, and please dont tel me that the Texan own there oil. What you should remmeber is that those who iown the land in Texa and other tiny state’s with huge reserve of oil has been wiped out, eradicted before America becomes an entity.
3. Local politic - the rulling class in Delta Region of Nigeria (Old River & Cross State) have always vote with the chaliphate party NPC & NPN. Moreso the deltan have not been engege in a progressive politics.
So lthis lead us to - what to do with people like Alamesia, D. Asari & Co. Are they the saint that will lead Delta and whever they choose as co-traveller to the promise land.
Aidee Wilson
4 June 2009 01:44I want to agree with David that we should not resort to kidnaping to prove a point, but at the same time want to ask him if it would be wise for me to come to his family plantation simply because I have some kind of technology and power, cultivate his family land and render him and his kinsmen desolate only to pay the the so called 13% that he does not even know is really true 13%.
I love the way you put it brother, call a spade a spade. Why can’t qualified Niger delta engineers at Shell, Mobil etc rise to directors? Where are the monies that build Mina and other cities outside of Niger Delta from? Where are the monies that build federal highways in the North and West from? Obasanjo declared bankruptcy in 1999, but today he owns the largest family farm in west Africa, how much was he paid as presidential salary? whare are all those wealth from? Why are all the major contractors in all these oil installations only from the North and West? Is there no single qualified Niger Deltan that have ever applied? Why is 95% employees of all these oil companies the Obafemis and Mohamads, so Niger Delta truly only produces 5% of qulified applicants for the jobs? When Nigerias wealth was from groundnuts, what percentage was given to the North? When the wealth was from cocoa, what percentage was given to the West? Why 13% now that our wealth is created by the “MINORITIES”? How do they know the 13% is a true 13% even if they want to concede with no representation?
Brother, Nigeria is a fraudulent amalgamation and we have go back to 1914 to really discuss our association with transparency. In as much as I do not support the spate of violence, what Nigeria is doing to the Niger Delta is wrong. What moral reason would we give for bombing Odi and now…? If these wealth were in the North or West would the same action have been taken against the region? Indeed, lets call a spade a spade. What is wrong is wrong, and two wrongs can never make a right.
Lanre Afolabi
5 June 2009 18:49Ok, everybody, I blame everybody, many accusations but we are all dead wrong. I was in delta state i.e Ughelli, Patani and Warri many years ago and Im sorry for the people of this region, having said that, I feel the Nigerian Government have not done enough for these people. Also, I reside in Lagos and have travel to many parts of Nigeria, the story is the same everywhere you go to in Nigeria, No visible development etc. The same problem we face in Lagos is also what we face in Kano as well as Oshun state. One answer is that we have very selfish and bad leaders. It has gotten so bad that its only God almighty can change the minds of our leaders. Things will still continue like this until we all wake up from our slumbers and do the right thing.
As for the Niger delta people saying they are doing struggle fights and so on, these people are just common criminals in the creeks. We have the same problem everywhere in Nigeria not only in Niger Delta. We can as well set up the Tompolo thing in Lagos and other parts of Nigeria since we dont have any development and say we are freedom fighters. Do we see sense in that??
lloyd ikechukwu
5 June 2009 22:56i am an undergraduate with a first class upper in chemical engineering. for the past five years, i have not been gainfully employed. however, i have been able to set up a small farm where i sell my harvest and use the proceeds for my up keep. please fellow nigerians will it be in the interest of my neigbhour to go take a gun and rob him in order to draw the attention of the government to my plight? what message am I sending to the world? will any human in his right frame of mind label me a “freedom figther”? Am I fighting for the plight of my fellow compatriots or am not outrightly selfish?
Those boys in the creeks are nothing but criminals and should be treated as such. The interest of the average niger-deltan is the least on thier minds. It is just a camouflage for thier lustful greed for wealth. their actions will only justify the government’s military campaign. the average niger-deltan should take heart, his salvation is yet to come.
LEONARDS ONYEKWERE
9 June 2009 19:04lloyd Ikechukwu,
I sincerely want to believe you but I am finding it difficult, I think you are just a government impostor because the curriculum of most universities in Nigeria are not structured to produce graduate that are down-right innovative as you claim to be. Please, send an email to me at: drybone2008@gmail.com with the address of your farm and I will send a member of the PSDS to come and confirm your story.
That said, I need to stress that corruption is like a cancer that secretly eat away the conscience of a society and that seems to be the case with the Nigeria society. But at a point, we must admit that we have not fared well when compared to many developing countries with the same level of resources we are endowed with.
No one individual is greater than the entire population of a country and no group of people are greater that the society from where the originated. Nigeria will never move forward until we face the fundamental deficiency in our polity. MEND HAS STRESSED THAT THE WILL LAY DOWN THEIR WEAPONS IF NIGERIA IS RESTRUCTURED TO PRACTICE TRUE FISCAL FEDERALISM. So the question we should be asking our rulers is; what is wrong with their demand.
Is Nigerian political system not supposed to be a federal structure? If so, why are we not practicing true federalism? Why is it that the center remains powerful like a unitary system? Why is it that the center controls all the apparatus that coordinates the State Governments? Why is it that the State governors dictates what happens at the local government level to the extent that Gov Peter Obi of Anambara State who I admire so much is not free of this dictatorship tendency?
In fact, I remain sympathetic to the Niger Delta struggle and as a social activist, I will not bulge until Nigeria rulers do the right thing. But does it mean that I agree with MEND’s approach 100%? No, of course.
I do not agree with kidnapping for ransom to advance any political ideology because, kidnapping is a weapon of last resort in any liberation struggle and when it is used, it serves better to be used to demand political concession.