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Socialist Democracy November 2004

By Dagga Tolar

What began as a clash of rival militia groups principally between the Niger Delta Volunteer Force led by Asari Dokubo and the Niger Delta Vigilance led by Tom Atake, battling for supremacy, soon turned into a full scale battle that could no longer be contained in the creeks but was brought to the very heart of Port-Harcourt, Rivers State.

Asari Dokubo however turned the scale into his favour, when he issued a possible threat to blow-up the country oil pipelines. This threat hurts the ruling class where it matters most oil. This has provoked series of comments as to what Dokubo represents and how his effort can help in resolving the Niger Delta crisis or is it that he is only out to line his own pocket.

Of importance is the fact that this threat has earned him a meeting with the Obasanjo regime, but none of the demands by Dokubo, for a Sovereign National Conference (SNC), self-determination for the Ijaw nation and resource control could never be met by the regime. This much should be clear to Dokubo and his newfound supporters, who have now begun to liken him to Adaka Boro, another Ijaw nationalist who in February 1966 took up arms against the Nigerian state.

Can any of these major demands be negotiated away by the ruling class or be won by a gang of armed men that seek not to organise and mobilise the mass of the working people, banking on their heroism and the strength of their guns? We in the DSM are not pacifists. We, in fact, even now support the right of the masses and youth to defend themselves with arms where and when necessary against unjust attacks by the capitalist state and its neo-fascist gangs of secret cults etc. However, only an armed struggle built around mass struggles and labour and youth organisations, whose agenda combine the task of physically removing capitalist elements from political power with the task of abolishing capitalist, private monopoly of both natural and human technological heritage of mankind in the name of privatisation and deregulation. Only this approach can provide a sustainable reservoir of resistance to all anti-poor governments and policies. Therefore, for us, only a process where the working masses themselves play an active role and in which it fully exercise its democratic control can genuine liberation become a reality. Two, for the Deltan masses, the issue of resource control, self-determination, etc will remain meaningless as long as capitalist oil corporations and their local collaborators within and outside the Delta region control and dominate the oil sectors and the rest economy. The Deltan masses can only genuinely hope to have a fair share of the oil wealth only when the entire oil sector is placed under public ownership and is permanently run and controlled democratically by the working people themselves, in a workers and poor farmers socialist democracy. However, to the governor of Rivers state, Odili, thinks otherwise. The crisis in the Niger Delta, for him, is a product of "weak moral foundation", "bad parenting and erosion of family value". This is far from the truth. The fact is that Odili and the entire crop of the ruling elite in Nigeria are to be blamed for their lording over us all neo-liberal capitalist system that guarantees the best of lives for the very few at the top at the expense of the poor majority. A recent report released by the World Bank informed that 80% of Nigeria oil and natural gas revenues accrue to just 1% of the country's population, leaving the other 99% to battle for the remaining 20% with a majority practically not having accesses to anything whatsoever.

This is what is responsible for the wide spread poverty in Nigeria, which is most prevalent in the Niger Delta area, where the country gets nearly all of its 2.5 million barrel which it daily supplies to the international market, translating to over 95% of the country's foreign exchange earning and yet, the mass of the working people, youth and students of the Niger Delta are short changed, fishing and farming has largely been made impossible by the activities of the oil companies, roads are in the worst of state, there is no record of additional new schools being built, existing one have their structure in total state of disrepair, the sick are left to mercy of early death, etc. This is what has left many youth to be easily attracted into the lucrative venture of bunkering in the Niger Delta, which all the armed militia groups in the Niger Delta are involved in at one level or the other. Indeed some of these militia groups were set up specifically to offer safe passage for the bunkers. Asari confirms much of this when he was quoted "there is nothing wrong if I take the crude oil found in our land, refine it and sell to our people at N15 a litre".

But the fact remains that the various militia groups are backed by the very big in and out of government circles. One of the reasons for the ongoing war between Ateke and Asari is the quest for patronization from the Odili's led state government and same applies to all the 105 identified militia groups in the Rivers State.

It is this general deprivation and mass poverty in the country that created a mass disenchantment against the Obasanjo and the entire ruling class that even the Minister of Finance confirms in a recent interview when she was quoted as saying that the present "government is unpopular". The likes of Asari therefore, being former boys of the very powerful in the corridors of power, are now tapping on this unpopularity of the government to maneuver to being a perceived liberator of the Ijaw people by putting forward the demand for an SNC and self-determination of the Ijaw nationality as a way of resolving the nationality question.

Socialists had always supported the right of self-determination for every oppressed nation including the right to secede if democratically supported by the majority of a given nationality. As raised by the likes of Asari, it remains an empty phrase, that does not in any way fool the ruling class. This is why we in DSM have always insisted that only within the context and framework of a mass movement, led by the working people can the slogan of self-determination have meaning. For only when the working people themselves gain control of the resources of society can they be sure that their basic needs would be provided for.

It is in this vein that recent negotiated peace meetings between Obasanjo and the militia groups amounts to an exercise in futility, for as long as the fundamental problem of poverty, brought into being by the logic of the capitalist system, which Obasanjo and the entire sections of the ruling elite remain committed to, so long would the dominant poverty feature of both in the Niger Delta and in the country at large remain.

We therefore make bold to state that an armed rebellion by some group of individuals cannot, on its own, dislodge the capitalist system put in place by the ruling class. Indeed, this is a key lesson in the examples of Adaka Boro and Ken Saro-Wiwa. Boro was arrested, tried, imprisoned and subsequently released, but Ken was hanged, even when unlike the former, he had not picked up a single gun against the Nigeria state, but had simply organised and mobilised the people of Ogoniland to agitate against the oil companies and the Nigeria government. The ruling class fears the organised strength of the people more than it does any guns. Till this moment, Shell is yet to return to its oil wells in Ogoniland, Ken and MASOP, having built a mass followership, however failed to connect the Ogoni struggle to the whole Niger Delta and the Nigeria crisis. This would have won the support of the mass of the working people across all ethnic and national divides in the country. Despite this limitation of the Ogoni movement, the Nigeria state still could not even negotiate with them, which it finds comfortable to do with Asari Dokubo and others. Inspite of Dokubo 165,000 soldiers, 67 gun boots, equipped with anti-aircraft guns, the fact is that the Nigeria State can and would surpass Dokubo and all other armed groups in terms of military might. Why then negotiation?

The high price of oil that had already hit a mark of 55 dollars per barrel would go more on the high if the Asari Dokunbo's threat was carried out. So, even Obasanjo regime that was not initially willing to negotiate had to change its tactics so as to guarantee that supply of black gold would not be disrupted if the militia groups so decide to effect their threat to blow up the pipelines, so a settlement had to arrived that would allow the boys to continue to "bunker small, so long that the state can continue to bunker big". This is what the meeting between Obasanjo and militia groups translates to at the end of the day.

None of major demands for a greater control of the oil wealth of Niger Delta by the Ijaws would be met. The best that can be archived is to bring the various militia groups back into speaking terms with their political backers from within and outside their respective states. Once this has been achieved, it is business as usual. Already, the regime has entered into a negotiable return of arms by the militia groups back to the state, and Asari has been quoted to be demanding N750million for the return of 3,000 guns.

We in the DSM would rather maintain that the task confronting us all today, both in the Niger Delta and in all other sections of the country is the task of overthrowing, not just the Obasanjo regime but the capitalist system, and replacing it at the same time, with the establishment of a new economic foundation in socialism, which would nationalise the oil wealth of the country and democratically place it under the control and management of a working peoples government. This alone is what is capable of giving a majority of the Ijaw people necessary control over its oils and guarantee that the wealth of the people is used to meet the needs of the people.

As a means of realizing the above, DSM demands:

• The immediate withdrawal of the military force from the Niger Delta, be it Operation Restore Hope or Operation Flush It.

• That all arms be put under the democratic control of a democratic community council composed of elected representative of all social forces in every community, workers, farmers, fish traders, youth, students and the militia groups etc.

• Formation of community based, democratic action councils, across the Niger Delta as the platform through which the interests of the ordinary Niger Deltans could be protected against the imperialist corporations and their local backers attacks.

Socialist Democracy November 2004