The many tangled roots of MEND

Victor Ben Ebikabowei (Boyloaf), who recently surrendered, as part of President Umaru Yar'Adua's amnesty offer, has been touted in the media as the MEND commander for Bayelsa. In an interview after he surrendered, Boyloaf said MEND was no longer capable of mounting an attack in the Niger Delta. Is this just sour grapes or is it a realistic assessment?

How MEND emerged

MEND came to prominence following the arrest and detention of Dokubo Asari, leader of the Niger Delta People Volunteer Force (NDPVF) in late 2005. Until that time, the NDPVF had been the pre-eminent group of non-state forces in the Niger Delta.

Mr Asari modelled his group on the Niger Delta Volunteer Force (NDVF), formed by Isaac Boro in the mid 1960s. Mr. Boro had a military style camp, where about 150 men received training in firearms and explosives. The NDVF was split into three divisions with Boro, Samuel Owonaru and Nottingham Dick, serving as commanders. On February 23 1966, the three NDVF divisions launched an attacked on a police station at Yenagoa - accessing the armoury and taking the commanding police officer hostage. The NDVF managed to blow up some oil pipelines before being captured. The commanders were captured and charged with treason.

Almost 40 years later, Mr. Asari revisited this blueprint and formed the NDPVF. The political arm of the NDPVF is the Niger Delta People's Salvation Front, with a substantial number of members across three states. The NDPVF changed the perception and dynamics of conflict in the Niger Delta, with its public statements condemning the Federal Government's neglect of the Niger Delta and the exploitation of the Niger Delta by international oil companies. This was a clear and unequivocal political agenda, marking Mr. Asari out as a militia leader, as distinct from Ateke Tom, who was trying to assume control of various cult groups in Rivers State.

The rise of Ateke Tom

Mr Tom formed a vigilante group in 1999 to fight the Bush Boys, which were formed from each Okrika War Canoe House to fight against Eleme communities in the matter of rights over the Port Harcourt Refinery. The Bush Boys dislodged Ateke's boys. The then President of the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC), Mr Asari, intervened in an effort to settle the dispute between Mr Tom and the Bush Boys, led by Sonny Opuambe.

In the run-up to the 2003 elections in Rivers State, Mr Tom's Icelanders were used to ensure a PDP victory in Okrika local government. The opposition All Nigeria People's Party (ANPP) had controlled Okrika since 1999. The Icelanders successfully drove the ANPP-affiliated Bush Boys out of Okrika and ensured a PDP victory in the area. The public exposure of the Icelanders' exploits became too much for their political patrons and thus an effort was made to remould the public image of the group as a militia group, renamed the Okrika Vigilantes and later in 2003 the Niger Delta Vigilantes (NDV). Mr Tom's strength grew when he took over the Greenlanders, by capturing its leader Julius, and decapitating him. He then amalgamated the Icelanders, Greenlanders and the KKK.

Former Minister of Transportation Abiye Sekibo, a powerful member of the PDP and a native of Rivers State has been cited on numerous occasions as Ateke's patron. Mr Asari and Tom resolved their differences and joined forces. On the night of September 26, 2004 a meeting of the newly established Ijaw Central Command took place with the aim of deciding the direction they should jointly take. President Olusegun Obasanjo realised the destructive potential of the combined non-state forces and initiated the 2004 Peace Accord.

Tactics

Mr Asari's NDPVF used tactics associated with guerrilla warfare. He had received training in guerrilla warfare, while attending training camps in Libya that were sponsored by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

Mr Asari developed a positive working relationship with Government Ekpemupolo, (Tom Polo) who operated in Delta State. When the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) emerged on the public scene in late 2005, its public position on issues was not dissimilar to the NDPVF .

This is not surprising - as the majority of commanders of the key MEND cells were formerly commanders in the NDPVF.

MEND's Structure

MEND can best be described as a command structure. It is an association of Ijaw fighters from existing street gangs, vigilante and cult groups. Each group developed an affiliation with MEND. Over four years, these disparate groups have developed and been welded into cells that operate under the umbrella of MEND.

MEND has grown a state based or regional leadership. In Delta State, the Federated Niger Delta Ijaw Communities (FNDIC) provided MEND's foot soldiers and control structure. When MEND came to prominence in January 2006, Mr Ekpemupolo (Tompolo) was the Director of Mobilisation for FNDIC.

MEND initially operated through strong relationships with groups commanded by some of the former NDPVF commanders who set up their own groups after Mr Asari was jailed in August 2005, notably Saboma George, Dagogo Farah (Prince Farah Ipalibo) and Boyloaf. Messrs Saboma and Farah operated primarily in Rivers State with little apparent interest in Bayelsa State.

Mr Farah, a former NDPVF commander from Tombia, led the Niger Delta Strike Force (NDSF) which emerged in 2007 as an offshoot of the NDPVF although not formed under the NDPVF umbrella. Mr George, another former NDPVF commander,formed the Outlaws and operated largely in Rivers State. Mr George was captured, but freed from Port Harcourt prison in an operation led by Mr Farah on July 18, 2005 under the banner of MEND.

Boyloaf

Boyloaf was a soldier in Asari's NDPVF. He worked with Mr Farah in Port Harcourt, where he operated as the government relations officer for MEND in 2006. Boyloaf left MEND to set up his own group in early 2007, operating from camps in southern Ijaw and from Agge community between Ekeremor and Southern Ijaw local government areas. He expanded operations into Bayelsa and soon became the foremost commander in Bayelsa State. Such was Boyloaf's success that he was paid a monthly fee not to operate in Bayelsa.

Boyloaf's strike on the offshore Bonga field sealed his reputation as a daring fighter.

Other foot-soldiers climbed the command structure and formed their own groups with the financial backing of political patrons and on the back of security contracts from the major oil companies, notably Chevron and Shell.

MEND's Leadership

MEND is unambiguous in its use of arms to achieve its aims. In its early life, MEND publicly stated its aim to liberate the Ijaw people from the oppression and injustices that have derived from oil production in the Niger Delta. Over the four years since it first emerged, MEND has matured into a militia group unlike many of the cells that operate under its banner. In its public statements, it has not significantly diverged from its initial stated aim.

The identity of the MEND leadership has publicly been unclear. It seems this was intended to be so, making it less likely the leadership could be targeted - as it had been with the NDPVF and the subsequent imprisonment of its leader Asari Dokubo and as occurred with Isaac Boro.

There has been a series of spokespersons for MEND. Early in 2006, several persons publicly reputed to represent the views of MEND. After some months, MEND statements began appearing on a website and circulated to print media under the name Jomo Gbomo. There has been much speculation about the identity of Gbomo; with Henry Okah, an Ijaw man, being the most frequently cited.

However, with Okah in custody for nearly two years from September 2007, the flow of public statements and telephone interviews from Jomo Gbomo did not decrease. So, it would seem that Okah is not Jomo Gbomo. But does the identity of Jomo Gbomo really matter?

MEND has become more than one person, more than Jomo Gbomo. If it has matured into a true militia, MEND will not disappear until the conditions that brought it into being are addressed and remedied. It may mutate into another group, as militia movements often do, but the movement for change is unlikely to disappear in the circumstances that currently prevail in the Niger Delta.

The fact that Boyloaf, Saboma, Farah, Africa, Tompolo and others have surrendered does not mean that MEND has collapsed. The most likely scenario is that the next level of commanders will step up to the plate as they see the opportunity to make big money like those that have "surrendered". The problem for those that surrender is that when the payments run out, as they always do, their old command spot has been taken by someone else. They then usually try to start another group, but find they need a patron or have to do some contract work to earn some money so as to recruit new boys and grow quickly so as to be strong enough to claim space. And there will be plenty of patrons and contract work as we approach the next elections. That's the way the jungle works, as does politics in Nigeria.

.Davis is Canon Emeritus at Coventry Cathedral and has served as an advisor to President Obasanjo, and as Presidential Envoy under President Yar'Adua. He is the author of The Report on the Potential for Peace and Reconciliation in the Niger Delta.