Yaradua was compelled to commence the amnesty program in order to stop the rampaging militants who were blowing up oil installations.

He wasn't stupid. This brought a massive reduction in acts of vandalisation and kidnappings of expatriates.

The corruption charges against Tompolo seems to be the remote cause of the recent vandalisations.

The government crowing that pipeline vandalisation is the cause of poor power supply is very old news which will be surprising if they did not know.

As long as those charges hang over Tompolo's head, the vandalisations will continue.

Buhari's reaction is so reactive rather proactive.

Some of these ex-militants were contracted to provide security for these pipelines, but their contracts where cancelled. For what reason? I don't know. Maybe corruption. Maybe it was an insult to our armed forces. Now this is happening. Were the past administration silly? Time would tell.

It really should be no surprise that the bombings have resumed after Buhari cancelled the contracts. It is just human nature that the best way to ensure people have a vested interest in something working is to give them a stake in its success, and the "protection" contracts at least gave such a stake to a few members of the communities through which the pipes passed.

Obviously it would be better if the benefits were spread throughout the Delta communities rather than going to just a few militants, but the reality in Nigeria has never been like that: even when the oil companies were building schools and hospitals themselves, they never bothered to pay for doctors, nurses and teachers to staff them, so the primary beneficiaries ended up being a few well-connected contractors. If every family in the Delta were given directly a guaranteed $50 (yes, US Dollars) a month as long as the pipes were in order, you can be sure that any militant who tried to sabotage them would be lynched on the spot.

The problem with Buhari is that he has absolutely no understanding of how economic incentives work, so instead of channeling benefits to the Delta communities before attempting to cancel the payments to the militants, he thinks all he has to do is send in a few soldiers and intimidate the militants into giving up. This is just the same old mentality behind the "War Against Indiscipline", and it will fail just as surely and completely as WAI failed in its own time; again, like last time, the only thing achieved will be to turn the targeted populace even more firmly against his government.

Buhari will not rest until he has shown every Nigerian that total incompetence can actually be worse than widespread corruption. North Korea probably has a lot less corruption than China, but who would pick corruption-free North Korea over corrupt China?

Buhari has backed himself into a corner...there is nothing he can do apart from pay the militants not to destroy the pipelines.

Its an arrangement that helps compensate them for the destruction done to their lands.

VictorRomanov:
Some of these ex-militants were contracted to provide security for these pipelines, but their contracts where cancelled. For what reason? I don't know. Maybe corruption. Maybe it was an insult to our armed forces. Now this is happening. Were the past administration silly? Time would tell.

The ex-militants were contracted, yet d pipelines were still vandalised. Hoping for magic from Fashola.

ashjay001:


The ex-militants were contracted, yet d pipelines were still vandalised. Hoping for magic from Fashola.

The vandalization began after their contracts were terminated.

VictorRomanov:



The vandalization began after their contracts were terminated.

I very well remember, we had power issues towards 2014 ending and 1st half of 2015, all of which was due to gas shortage occasioned by vandalisation. It was all blamed on d GEJ govt and their inefficiency.

ashjay001:


I very well remember, we had power issues towards 2014 ending and 1st half of 2015, all of which was due to gas shortage occasioned by vandalisation. It was all blamed on d GEJ govt and their inefficiency.

There was a lot of vandalisation during the dying months of GEJ administration.

I used to wonder whether APC were sabotaging the pipelines as their frequency spiked.

All the same, the vandalisation seemed to come to a virtual stop upon Buhari's assumption of power.

Its resumption and a dreadful frequency at that seemed to have resumed after Buhari went after Tompolo.

Tompolo had even warned that their would be acts of sabotage but they won't originate from him after government laid charges against him.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm is all I can say!

omohayek:
It really should be no surprise that the bombings have resumed after Buhari cancelled the contracts. It is just human nature that the best way to ensure people have a vested interest in something working is to give them a stake in its success, and the "protection" contracts at least gave such a stake to a few members of the communities through which the pipes passed.

Obviously it would be better if the benefits were spread throughout the Delta communities rather than going to just a few militants, but the reality in Nigeria has never been like that: even when the oil companies were building schools and hospitals themselves, they never bothered to pay for doctors, nurses and teachers to staff them, so the primary beneficiaries ended up being a few well-connected contractors. If every family in the Delta were given directly a guaranteed $50 (yes, US Dollars) a month as long as the pipes were in order, you can be sure that any militant who tried to sabotage them would be lynched on the spot.

The problem with Buhari is that he has absolutely no understanding of how economic incentives work, so instead of channeling benefits to the Delta communities before attempting to cancel the payments to the militants, he thinks all he has to do is send in a few soldiers and intimidate the militants into giving up. This is just the same old mentality behind the "War Against Indiscipline", and it will fail just as surely and completely as WAI failed in its own time; again, like last time, the only thing achieved will be to turn the targeted populace even more firmly against his government.

Buhari will not rest until he has shown every Nigerian that total incompetence can actually be worse than widespread corruption. North Korea probably has a lot less corruption than China, but who would pick corruption-free North Korea over corrupt China?

I prefer a corrupt but competent team any day over an incorruptible but incompetent one.

Julius Nyerere and Kenneth Kaunda, both men of very high integrity left their economy in tatters.

There was a rumoured spat between Julius Nyerere and Jomo Kenyatta where Nyerere called Kenya a dog eat dog country.

Kenyatta replied by calling Tanzania a dog eat nothing country!

grandstar:
Yaradua was compelled to commence the amnesty program in order to stop the rampaging militants who were blowing up oil installations.

He wasn't stupid. This brought a massive reduction in acts of vandalisation and kidnappings of expatriates.

The corruption charges against Tompolo seems to be the remote cause of the recent vandalisations.

The government crowing that pipeline vandalisation is the cause of poor power supply is very old news which will be surprising if they did not know.

As long as those charges hang over Tompolo's head, the vandalisations will continue.

Buhari's reaction is so reactive rather proactive.

I don't think that is the real issue. It might be remotely part of it but I remember that GEJ (and maybe Yar Adua too) paid the militants in the South-south and South West to protect the pipelines in their regions. I understand that a calculation was made and it was determined that the hole vandalism was causing in the country's pocket was larger than the cost of maintaining these contracts with the militants. In other words, there was a financial payoff.

Buhari ended these contracts both in the West and in the South-south and we can see that the vandalism has been taking place in those two areas. The other time, law enforcement (along with the NNPC boss, I think) found full operations on-going in the West.

This administration should study what the past administration did along with the reasons why they did it so they do not throw away the baby along with the bath water they said the past administration was.

Labelling the past administrations as corrupt, clueless, impunity-driven, etc may have caused them to fail in studying what they were taking over objectively in order to transit better into the driver's seat. It seemed they just came on with over-hauling intent and unfortunately over-hauled a lot of things they should have only tweaked, modified or given a makeover.

grandstar:
Yaradua was compelled to commence the amnesty program in order to stop the rampaging militants who were blowing up oil installations.

He wasn't stupid. This brought a massive reduction in acts of vandalisation and kidnappings of expatriates.

The corruption charges against Tompolo seems to be the remote cause of the recent vandalisations.

The government crowing that pipeline vandalisation is the cause of poor power supply is very old news which will be surprising if they did not know.

As long as those charges hang over Tompolo's head, the vandalisations will continue.

Buhari's reaction is so reactive rather proactive.

So tompolo is truly behind pipeline vandalism. If not how does going after him alone make Buhari the cause of more vandalism?