Swamp of Despair (London Times)
The threat to kill the three-year-old British girl kidnapped in Nigeria’s Delta region brings a dangerous new element to the violence and lawlessness endemic in this impoverished oil-producing region. Until now, the campaign to force the Government and international oil companies to return some of the wealth to the polluted and ravaged villages of the Delta has largely targeted foreign oil workers, regularly seized as hostages and exchanged for ransom. This year more than 100 foreigners have been kidnapped, and the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) has just called off its moratorium and resumed attacks on the oil workers. But in recent months dozens of splinter groups, most of them ordinary criminal gangs, have also resorted to hostage-taking. Margaret Hill, the daughter of a Nigerian mother and British father, is the latest victim of this downward spiral into lawlessness.
Local support for Mend and other militant groups is understandable. Although the Delta accounts for 90 per cent of Nigeria’s export income, the swampy region gets almost no return on the money. The infrastructure has collapsed, roads have become impassable, once-thriving businesses have moved away, farmlands have been destroyed and fishermen thrown out of work, while the miasma of oil pollution hangs over all. The federal Government in Abuja has regularly promised to revive the region, but corruption, tribal antagonism and conflicts in other parts of the vast country have thwarted all plans.
The international oil companies, long pilloried for their indifference, have made great efforts in recent years to clean up the pollution and spread the benefits of their activity. But they have been unable to prevent the theft of oil from pipelines (often with disastrous consequences), the corruption of local administrators and the growing number of attacks on their staff. Shell, by far the biggest foreign company, is now so constrained by violence and criminality that its operations have been affected severely. Oil production is down by 25 per cent this year and Nigerians fear that the multinationals will leave with catastrophic results for Africa’s most populous nation.
Before leaving office, former President Obasanjo drew up the Niger Delta Master Plan, replacing an earlier plan that failed to produce results. His successor, President Umaru Yar’Adua, has promised to tackle the problems of the Delta. But although he proved to be a competent governor, free of the stain of corruption, the flawed election that brought him to power has already constrained his authority. The problem for Abuja is that it cannot afford to return the oil profits to the Delta, as this would hurt the already cash-strapped federal Government and lead to increased unrest in other part of the country, especially the restive Muslim north.
The prospect of spreading violence in Nigeria, where tribal divisions undermine many federal attempts to fight corruption and improve local administration, is deeply disturbing. The country has suffered one devastating civil war and numerous coups since independence. It cannot be allowed to become Africa’s largest failed state. Multinationals must persist in attempts to improve conditions in the Delta, and Mr Yar’Adua must focus on this endemic dispute. The first step is to ensure the release a small, vulnerable girl, whose seizure is a symptom of all that is wrong.
Nigeria's President Appeals to Kidnappers
The President of Nigeria, Umaru Yar'Adua, has appealed for the immediate release of a three-year-old British girl kidnapped by gunmen.
Mr Yar'Adua has ordered the Nigerian security services to ensure that Margaret Hill is returned unharmed to her family.
The girl's parents said the kidnappers were demanding a ransom.
Margaret Hill was snatched from a car on her way to school in Port Harcourt, in the volatile Niger Delta region.
Officials said that security forces would not resort to violence in order to free the girl.
A statement released by the president's office said "President Yar'Adua... appeals once again for a total cessation of all acts of violence in the region, the release of little Miss Margaret Hill and all other hostages."
"He has directed the security agencies to make every possible effort to ensure that she is returned to her family unharmed and he remains in touch with all efforts being made to secure the girl's release," the statement said.
Her mother, Oluchi, says the kidnappers have threatened to kill Margaret unless her husband takes the girl's place.
Crying
Margaret was snatched by gunmen at 0730 (0630 GMT) on Thursday after they smashed a window of the car as it sat in traffic.
The kidnappers telephoned Mrs Hill and said they would free the child but only if her father, Mike, took her place.
Mrs Hill, a Nigerian national, told the BBC that the kidnappers told her to meet them in a town in Bayelsa State in the Niger Delta region, but that neither she nor the police had been able to locate it.
She said they then allowed her to speak to her daughter, who was crying.
"They say I can bring my husband to swap with the baby," Mrs Hill said.
"He wanted to go down for his baby but the police commander told him not to."
Mrs Hill said the kidnappers threatened to kill Margaret if Mr Hill did not come within three hours.
After the deadline had expired, Mrs Hill said Margaret was being fed just "bread and water".
Ransom demanded
The family says the kidnappers have also asked for money.
Nigerian national police chief Mike Okiro has gone to Port Harcourt, where he held meetings with security officials.
The region's main militant group - the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) - has offered to help find the child.
"We will join in the hunt for the monsters who carried out this abduction and mete out adequate punishment for this crime. We abhor all forms of violence against women and children," the group said in a statement.
The UK's Foreign Office has called for Margaret's "immediate safe release".
The BBC's Alex Last in Lagos says Mr Hill is ill and had been due to fly to the UK for medical treatment.
He says that no hostage has ever been killed by kidnappers in Nigeria and more than 200 have been taken by armed groups in the last 18 months.
Almost all were freed after a ransom was paid.
Cultists and Port Harcourt (Vanguard)
Gunmen suspected to be cultists go on a shooting spree in the oil city, leaving no less than 20 persons dead at different locations of the Rivers State capital
IS there any part of Rivers state that is safe? This is the question on many lips since Sunday evening when suspected cultists took over major streets in the state capital shooting sporadically. And at the end of the shooting spree, no fewer than twenty persons lay dead at different locations.
It was wailing that night in many homes. It was not clear if it was a cult clash but the shooting according to eye witnesses started around Water lines, a place where most travelers to Lagos, Calabar etc board vehicles. Sources could not speak on how the assailants came to the area, but they said what they heard were shootings from all directions. And as usual those around scampered for safety. Nobody could say if any life was lost but they said many people sustained severe gun shot wounds.
The shooting spree later spread to Diobu area of the state capital at about 6.45 pm where scores of people lost their lives. At Njemanze about six persons reportedly died, including a little girl said to be assisting the mother to sell roasted corn by the road side. At Emenike, a lady was reportedly killed. Meters away from her corpse was that of another girl that was shot on the chest.
At Abakaliki Road , a pregnant woman was allegedly killed by stray bullets in a church where she had gone to seek the face of her creator. Another lady who was on her way to get drugs at a drug store on Okija street met her untimely death in the hands of the gunmen. Three friends said to be drinking at a beer parlour were also shot dead.
The total death toll at press time could not be confirmed. When Saturday Vanguard went round some of the streets the following day families were seen crying and wailing that they had not seen some of their relatives.
“I have not seen my brother since that night. We went round some of the corpses people drew our attention to. I just pray he is still alive’, somebody who gave his name as Akpan said.
The shooting lasted about three hours. In almost all the nooks and crannies of Diobu that black evening people scampered for safety. Families lucky to be indoors when it started quickly locked themselves inside. The market that springs up at Mile one every evening hurriedly packed up with traders and buyers fleeing at different directions. By 7.30 p.m. that evening, vehicles had disappeared from the busy Mile One to Mile Three portion of Ikwerre Road. Few motorists on the road were forced to drive through Okija and other adjoining streets because the Police Station in Mile One quickly barricaded a portion of the road with vehicles, ostensibly to protect the station from any invasion.
It was hell for passengers that were caught in the cross fire that night as no commercial vehicles were in sight to pick them. Most of them had to be begging motorists racing to safety for lift.
“I never pray for this kind of evening even for my enemy. That I came out alive was God’s grace. No taxi or bus to pick any of us. The few private cars on the road were on top speed to see how they too could disappear from the shooting scene. Bullets were flying over our heads from all directions. I had to trek miles that night before I could manage to get a bus’ one of them told the Vanguard.
When contacted the following day for the actual figure of the dead, the state Commissioner of Police, Mr. Felix Ogbaudu who said he was in Abuja said the police were yet to come up with a tally of casualties, because they recovered about seven that night and the following day they were still recovering more corpses.
But why will any sane mind open fire at a market place, not minding if a relative could be hit is one of the issues that have been agitating the minds of many since that black Sunday evening in Rivers state.
Some people said the shooting was a reprisal attack on another cult group by their rival body. But again, many had thought that if it was truly a reprisal action then the assailants should have limited themselves to their targets. But in this case several of those consumed by the shooting were innocent passers-by. For instance what business will a little girl of about thirteen who was roasting corn with the mother by the road side have to do with cultism? Well! for some others, the whole tragic drama that night was aimed at creating an atmosphere of tension in the state. Again , what kind of tension? Because the state in the opinion of many has been tension soaked even before the mindless killings that night.
Conjectures will never end on the reason behind the callous and brutal killings of many innocent and defenseless Nigerians that night by their own brothers but one thing that cannot be given to the realms of speculations is that the state is not safe. There is need to declare the area a security emergency. In the same week a paramount ruler was murdered in Kpor, Khana local government by suspected cultists. According to the Police Commissioner, he was accused of having aided a cult group in the area. His death triggered off reprisals that claimed several lives.
The Kpor incident came barely days after a similar one in Rumuolumeni where the alleged killing of a youth leader sparked off a crisis that also claimed several lives and destroyed properties running into millions. When the crisis thickened in the area most residents had to vacate their houses for safety. As at press time peace had not fully returned to the area. Residents who fled were still not set to move back. One of them Mr. John Bull said he was not sure peace had truly come to the place.
“Peace has not returned. Was it not last week they came again in the midnight to kill two persons. The trouble is still very fresh in the minds of many of assailants there. So it is not safe to go back now”.
Just when many thought the Rumuolumeni trouble was enough headache was when unknown gun men stormed a private school in the state capital to abduct a three year old son of a female legislator. They reportedly threatened to blow up the head of the house help who took the child to school if he was not released to them. They later reportedly fled with the lad and kept him away from his parents for days, until according to sources close to the family money exchanged hands before the child regained his freedom.
Disturbed by the insecurity problem in the state wife of the governor, Mrs. Tonia Omehia publicly called for prayers to rescue the state and the region from the “satanic” grip. She decried the action of those who kidnapped the three-year old child. Her lamentation is just one in several millions. The cry for peace in the state is so loud that governments, both at the state and national levels must rise to do something to save the state.
For most residents, government should take bold step to stem the tide of cultism, after all according to them it was a monster created by the political class in the state. They argued that before 1999 the state was calm and peaceful. But with the advent of democracy cultism was institutionalized as another arm to provide security for politicians and also secure political victories for them .
There is also appeal to soldiers to assist in curbing the situation. Flash points like Emenike, Ojoto round about, Azikiwe street, Nnsuka, Njemanze should be manned daily by security operatives. Again, they urge police to clamp down on brothels in these areas. More often, shooting had always started from these red light spots.
A stitch in time they say, saves nine.
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