MEND, NDVF, And The Rest Of Them Are Mere Criminals

They don't have to kill the Niger Delta 'youths'. They only need
to arrest the murderers and kidnappers among them, aka 'militants'.

@omoge25

I did not say the Niger-Delta people should be wiped out. I am of the Niger-Delta and I haven't kidnapped anybody or bunkered any oil.

I said a total wipeout of the MEND and all associated groups of terrorists.

A 2 week period should be given for evacuation of all innocent citizens living there, then after that, the government should just make it rain down on them. I mean total destruction. Since all oil pipelines will have been shut, they should even encourage the Terrorists to destroy the pipelines. Na Shell and CNOOC go come build am back.

Meanwhile, I don't want to miss any piece of the action. If CNN cannot provide coverage, aljazeera should be invited too. Coverage licence should be going for $250 million per week. At least if media houses can pay Paris Hilton $1 million for one interview, I see no reason why they can't pay $250 million for an all out war!

This is the solution I see for this Niger-Delta problem. I want to see those bored soldiers that are reminiscing the Liberian and Sierra Leonean war to be given a new adventure. I want this opportunity to be used to reduce the Nigerian population just a tiny little bit.  140 million is too much. I want to see action. I want to see newspapers selling like hotcake. I want daily body count. It'D be fun. I promise. 

@dblock

Your correlations about kidnapping 3 year old are very interesting, but unfortunate. In this era of al-quaida, and

terrorism (not to say that terrosrism never existed before), I wonder whether this incident portends any thing good for

naija people.

@Iyke-D

To press your point further, any society could give rise to splinter rogue groups given the right political atmosphere.

Think about Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Russian criminal gangs in the Chechnya, and historically, look at the American West.

When the environment is right, criminal and terror groups always emerge.

Niger Delta is no exception, so while we plead for the safe return of the 3 y/o child, let us not forget who created the enabling environment in the first place.

Understanding who, what, and how this environment was created is needed to solve the problem from the root-cause.

Niger Delta criminal activities is a symptom, not the disease.

The disease is bad government and their policies that go as far back as the discovery oil in that part of naija.

The disease is also capable of spreading to other parts of Nigeria.

Why would anybody want to talk about enabling environment for crime. Everywhere is enabling environment for crime. Beverly Hills is enabling environment for crime. Hell, the white house is enabling environment for crime.

Lazy low IQ high hope individuals want to get rich. Their brain is the enabling environment for crime.

What is now the enabling environment for the MEND? Because this problem of effects of oil exploration has been on for decades, so what is now the enabling environment? Democracy?

Wipe out of who? the people of the Niger Delta?  I know this was meant to be a joke right?

no he isnt joking hes just foolish. the thing these kidnappers are not from the militant camp. can anyone here point out what group the kidnappers say they belong to? its just a random kidnapping. stop trying to apply your hatred of mend and the rest to this situation

Bottom line, something needs to be done fast!!!

MEND aren't too bad, but the rest like NDVF (Egbema 1) are Criminals looking for Quick cash.

Yeah but MEND are now  cooling down. The other groups like NDVF are still persisting with Kidnappings.

MEND don't kidnap as often as the other militant groups, and they specialize in basic vandalism. In fact MEND offered to persuade other Militant group to abstain from kidnappings. They are saying that they and the other militant groups have strayed from the struggle and they are now trying to redeem themselves.

They don't seek Ransom money like other militant groups, and they even offered to help find the Girl that was recently kidnapped.

I am not condoning the actions of MEND, but they are the most civil of all the Militant groups.

I laughed when I read some of the post by nairalanders based outside the Niger Delta and outside the country. I don’t think some of them have step foot in the south south in the last 7yrs. They are terrorizing the oil workers and now most of them have already made arrangements to relocate a large chunk of their work force outside the state. Who is going to feel the pinch? Businesses in Rivers state. A similar thing happened in Warri some years ago. When SHELL relocated most of it’s workforce to Port Harcourt, a lot of business folded up in Warri. Night life died completely!  At a point the indigenes were begging SHELL to come back.  The same is repeating itself in Rivers State.
I can speak about the hotbed of the niger delta (Rivers State) because I live there.
Do you know where the problems of Rivers state lie?  CULTISM!!!   Cultism thrives in Rivers state the way departmental associations thrive on campuses!  Ask anyone who lives in Port Harcourt. Different cult groups exist all over Port Harcourt and their quest for superiority leads them in search of deadly weapons. How do they get the weapons? They have to buy. Where does the money come from? That is the big question!  It could be from robbing of banks, individuals, corporate organisations, ransom from kidnappings, contractual killings, bunkering (not as easy as before), etc.
About two weeks ago, a cult group from Ogbakiri terrorised the whole of Diobu and part of Old GRA for several hours when they came to avenge the death of one of their members.  Just imagine a gang taking control of an area as large as Diobu where there exist not less than 3 police stations!  When they were done with their mission, more than 20 people were killed in different areas.  Only last night, at about midnight, there was sporadic shooting in front of my compound for about 30 minutes!  We had to go flat on the floor of our rooms for safety sake. The state is gradually drifting to a state of anarchy!  We woke up in morning and none of the inhabitants of the area seem to know what transpired.  Scenes like this keep repeating itself in different locations.
It's a pity, the present guys claiming to be fighting for the Niger Delta are all criminals hiding under a popular cloak. Where were they when the late Ken Saro Wiwa was championing the course of the Niger Delta during Abacha's military regime? We see some of the self-proclaimed militants driving jeeps all over Port Harcourt. Even Asari cruises around in a Hummer Jeep. They are making noise for the sake of their pockets. A lot of them are self-centered.  There is a case of one big traditional ruler in rivers state in whose palace there exist more then 4 bore holes! Unbelievable?  He insist that any oil company that wants to install a water borehole project should do it in his palace.

THIS PIECE IS BY SAM NDA ISAIAH OF LEADERSHIP NEWSPAPER                                                                                                                                                                         

At a cocktail party with Ambassador John Campbell, the United States ambassador to Nigeria, in which my friend from the Niger Delta, a practical joker, introduced himself as a militant from Bayelsa State. The ambassador, known to be quick witted, almost without thinking threw it back at him as he said, "You are welcome, as long as I am not kidnapped!" Everyone, including all the expatriates present, laughed heartily. It is good that we are able to laugh over such a very serious matter and I hope it will be possible to continue to do so for a very long time to come.
But the kidnapping business in the Niger Delta is no child’s play and it is not funny either. It is the new big business in town and it is killing Nigeria instalmentally. It is the fastest growing lucrative industry among the restive youths of Nigeria’s oil-rich region and its end does not appear to be in sight. It is probably the most creative invention of the youths since the discovery of oil in Oloibiri in 1959. These days, it is even much more profitable than stealing, the preferred recreation among Nigeria’s public office-holders.
The abductions are not usually done to harm. In fact, the quarries are generally treated with regard, respect and dignity. And when the kidnappers issue threats or ultimatums, it is customarily to hasten payment of the usually fat ransoms, which in almost all cases are paid in full, as requested.
In the Niger Delta these days, it is hard to see any ‘spare’ expatriate roaming the streets, even in the major cities. Most of them have gone into hiding and I hear the militants are complaining of an acute scarcity of their ‘wares’. Business is no longer booming. There was a time when all you needed to say goodbye to poverty in the Niger Delta was to spot a ‘white man’ on the street. People still find the ‘wares’, but not as easily as they used to. You do not even have to be skilled in the art of kidnapping, or even be a practising militant yourself to benefit from the trade. All you have to do is place a call to professional militants. I even hear that ‘brokers’ now exist to facilitate such businesses and in less than a week or two, you could be smiling with millions of naira to your bank. A white man has become even more precious than the crude oil that is the cause of the doom itself, so much so that if you are an albino or too fair in complexion, you would have to be wary of the kind of places you go to. The demand for expatriates has grown so large that there are now spot prices for the foreigners.
This kidnapping enterprise is one of the dividends of Obasanjo’s eight years of mismanagement of the country. Before then, the only bad image Nigeria had to contend with was the syndrome of faceless 419 practitioners. Now, nobody even bothers to discuss the 419 issue anymore. The only news about Nigeria you get to read or hear in the international news media these days, is of one abduction or the other.
In the civilised world, it is commonplace to hear governments declare that "we do not negotiate with terrorists". It is the basic principle of statecraft that even schoolboys should know. But in Nigeria, especially in the Niger Delta, the payment of ransoms has become a very large part of appropriated budgets. Crime is now big business in Nigeria, and it pays.
But there will soon be a major crisis. Expatriates appear to have ‘finished’ in the Niger Delta and the only oyibos left on the streets are albinos, who obviously do not attract high prices in the ransom market. Julius Berger left the Niger Delta a few weeks ago, because some of their expatriate workers were kidnapped. Shell has also closed shop many times over and several other multinationals will follow suit. Now the militants are getting desperate. They once threatened that they will expand their trade to Abuja and other far-flung areas of the country. Whenever they decide to do that, they will find willing partners in the North, where the people are even poorer and youths more wretched. And maybe by the time there are no more expatriates left and youths start kidnapping the children and relations of those in power, then we will be nearer to finding a solution to the menace. Recently, the boys kidnapped the mother of the ‘elected’ governor of Rivers State, who scored more votes than the census figures of the state. Within 24 hours, she had been released, but no one told us how much the boys made in the process. And Tuesday last week, professional kidnappers abducted Master Michael Steward, son of a Rivers State legislator, Mrs. Linda Steward. The little boy was abducted from a private school, Tantua International School, Port Harcourt.
These youths, who are usually university educated, are really no fools. They see how their governors squander the money meant to develop their states. Rivers State, for instance, generates about N6 billion as internal revenue monthly, apart from the between N5-N6 billion monthly allocation from the federation account. Occasionally, they also get windfalls from the excess crude account and yet, the boys remain largely with deteriorating infrastructure. Like other parts of the country, they have no electricity supply, water, drugs, or even gainful employment. To make matters worse, these youths see their political leaders and serving and retired military chiefs rake in millions daily from bunkering. One former governor of the area raised eyebrows not long ago when he paid a staggering $1 billion in cash to a US aircraft company for the purchase of several brand new aircraft. Such payment was the first of its type in the long history of the aircraft company.
It will be very difficult to contain this kidnapping matter, because it is so, so lucrative. In most instances, it is the only job that is readily available to the youths. It is even much easier than the bunkering business because, you do not need all the infrastructures of bunkering to do it. And unlike other businesses, you do not have to pay taxes.
To crack it, one has to recognise that this menace is directly related to the massive corruption in the area. The first point at which to start therefore, will be to ensure that the 13% derivation the region receives gets directly to the people. The current system of paying the derivation through the governors has failed. Another method that works has to be invented. If you think the Rivers State governor gave corruption a new meaning, what about the former Akwa Ibom State governor, who left a deficit of more than N50 billion in spite of all the billions of naira he collected in the last eight years? At least Odili ‘said’ he left N5 billion in the state’s coffers.
Today, most of Nigeria’s Foreign Direct Investment is in the oil industry. But if this kidnapping continues or the militants get more desperate than they are now and start killing their victims as in Iraq (nothing should be taken for granted), then the foreign investors will start weighing their options. And if it is the countries that are addicted to our oil that get desperate in the face of all this, then a part of the country could be occupied in the future to guarantee the free flow of the much needed crude but with far greater consequences than can now be imagined.
These are telltale signs of a failed state. And that’s what we got in the last eight years. Only a strong and credible government can even begin to start the rebuilding process. In any case, Nigeria has no choice but to urgently resolve the larger Niger Delta crisis, or else, with the quantum of money circulating in the region, and the cache of sophisticated weapons in the wrong hands, it will only be a matter of time before the area becomes a territory controlled by warlords. Yes, like Somalia!                                                                                   

Those kidnapping  people  are not MEND neither are they NDVF, it just that our country fail to capture those criminal and now they attribute it to MEND and NDVF. Asari boys are not hidden our security men knew them, let them arrest his boys and we see if the crime will stop.  As I always said our Government open a way for them and the criminal minded people hijack the situation. For your information those that are kidnapping are not only Niger Delta boys but the smart Nigerians who want to make money by any means.

The ''smartest'' post so far.

Another wonderful post. This is the post of someone who knows, is on ground level zero and can pinpoint the problems of Rivers State in particular.


Rot,
I like the way you put this. You truly have been on ground here. I have seen and heard of rampaging cult groups around those areas, and I think that's the greatest problem we have on our hands in Portharcourt at the moment.

All these talks about 3 year old kid abduction, NDPVF and MEND are childsplay compared to the big one - cultism. Anyway, the girl has been released - unharmed, just like as I predicted. Those people should thank their stars that their kiddie wasn't ferried across to Okija or Ijebu-Igbo for money making rituals. They should thank their stars.

All this kidnapping is just a facade that the MEND created to divert attention from the real business of Crude Oil bunkering.

It is just unfortunate that all these other groups have taken over what MEND began.

The terrorist group MEND is more interested in bunkering 300,000,000 barrels of Crude Oil per day and making $4.5 billion per year. The kidnapping business was only used as as misdirection to draw attention away from the real cheese. It is just sad that other violent gangs who do not have the resources or facilities to engage in bunkering have now taken this kidnapping racket to a whole new level.

But still we have to go to the source. How come we see yahoo boys and other 419 everyday and we don't excuse them on the basis of the current situation in Nigeria? Why haven't we blamed Obasanjo for Yahoo-Yahoo?

It was the MEND that imported and instituted this crime into Nigeria and they must pay!