Who is blowing up what and why in Nigeria

Yesterday morning, I woke up to an uplifting e-mail subjected: “Breaking News — MEND Camps under Heavy Attacks!!!” Nigerian military forces were assaulting the bases of the rebel group MEND (the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta), the rebels’ spokesman, alias Jomo Gbomo, wrote.

A bloody battle is on-going and two gunboats belonging to the army have already been sunk by mines…Oil companies operating in the region are advised to evacuate their staff within the next 24 hours to avoid them being part of the statistics of an emerging civil war.”

In the last 36 hours, more bad news has been forthcoming: a MEND affiliate stormed the MV Spirit, a tanker of the of national oil company, NNPC. 15 foreigners were taken hostage. And militants promised to shoot down any helicopters and entered the region.

Clearly, the rebels are not happy.

But while this certainly counts as an escalation — what’s going on here is actually a painfully routine. The Nigerian military has been operational in the region for several years. Every now and then, they assault rebel camps — and without fail, the rebels respond with fiery e-mails, hostage captures, and promises of sinisterly-named operations (this one was apparently called “Pearl Harbor”). Violence flares for a few days. Then, things go quietly back to normal. The military returns to the barracks. The rebels return to the creeks.

It’s a system that keeps the conflict in a perfect state of violent inertia. Which in the end, might be what both sides actually want. The rebels have created a lucrative economy for themselves from oil bunkering, kidnapping for ransom, and payoffs from politicians who want the rebels to lay low. Meanwhile, the militay can safely say they’re doing “something” about the crisis… while in fact doing little to address the problem.

No wonder rebels recently rejected an amnesty offer from the government.

“The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta rejects this evil agenda by the PDP and its cohorts and vow never to sell our birth right for a bowl of porridge”