Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) is a decentralised militant group in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. MEND's actionsincluding sabotage, theft, property destruction, guerrilla warfare, and kidnappingare part of the broader conflict in the Niger Delta and reduced Nigeria's oil production by 33% between 2006-07.

The then President Umaru Musa Yaradua administration created an amnesty program to liaise with the group to drop their arms and ammunition in 2009 and embrace government intervention in the Niger Delta region.

This amnesty was welcomed by the group as some of its top leaders, including Henry Okah and Ebikabowei Victor-Ben accepted the government's offer.

Goals, composition, methods The group's efforts are directed toward crippling oil production in the Niger Delta and exposing both the oppression of the region's people and devastation of the natural environment by the oil corporations in partnership with the federal government. Its composition includes members of the Ijaw who accuse the government and overseas oil firms with promoting massive economic inequalities, fraud, and environmental degradation. MEND’s methods include kidnapping oil workers for ransom, armed assaults on production sites, pipeline destruction, murder of Nigerian police officers, and theft of oil for sale on the black market.

MEND's other goals include localizing control of Nigeria's oil and securing reparations from the federal government for pollution caused by the oil industry. In an interview with one of the group's leaders, who used the alias Major-General Godswill Tamuno, the BBC reported that MEND was fighting for "total control" of the Niger Delta's oil wealth, saying local people had not gained from the riches under the ground and the region's creeks and swamps.Nigeria's shadowy oil rebels . BBC News Online. 20 April 2006.

In a January 2006 email, MEND warned the oil industry -- "It must be clear that the Nigerian government cannot protect your workers or assets. Leave our land while you can or die in it... Our aim is to totally destroy the capacity of the Nigerian government to export oil."Additionally MEND called upon then President, Olusegun Obasanjo, to free two jailed Ijaw leaders — Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, who was in jail at the time on charges of treason, and Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, a former governor of Bayelsa State convicted of corruption. Obasanjo's successor, President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua authorised the release of Dokubo-Asari and Alamieyeseigha in 2007.International Crisis Group (5 December 2007). Nigeria - Ending the unrest in the Niger Delta . Africa Report No. 135.

Origins and context For the roughly fifty years since Nigeria declared independence from British colonial rule, oil has been produced in Nigeria. Throughout this period, corporate politics has intersected with successive dictatorships. Under these dictatorships the Nigerian government has signed laws that appropriated oil resources and placed these under the control of multinational oil companies, such as Chevron Corporation and Royal Dutch Shell.

The people of the Niger Delta have suffered catastrophic degradation of their environment due to unchecked pollution produced by the oil industry. As a result of this policy of dispossessing people from their lands in favor of foreign oil interests, within a single generation, many now have no ability to fish or farm. People who are suffering the consequences of oil extraction do not receive oil revenues.

Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, has said of the situation: The oil companies can't pretend they don't know what's happening all around them. The Nigerian government obviously has the primary responsibility to stop human rights abuse. But the oil companies are directly benefiting from these crude attempts to suppress dissent, and that means they have a duty to try and stop it. Eghare W.O. Ojhogar, chief of the Ugborodo community, said: "It is like paradise and hell. They have everything. We have nothing... If we protest, they send soldiers."

Beginning in the 1980s, several political movements emerged to oppose the environmental injustices perpetrated upon the people of the Niger Delta by the government and the oil companies. These were initially nonviolent; Ken Saro-Wiwa was the most famous activist. Saro-Wiwa was an Ogoni poet-turned-activist who was executed by the Nigerian government in 1995 on what many believe to be deliberately false charges with the aim of silencing his vocal opposition to the oil interests in Nigeria. In Saro-Wiwa's footsteps came others who, having seen the government's reaction to nonviolent activism, advocated violence as resistance to what they regarded as the enslavement of their people. Militants in the delta enjoy widespread support among the region's approximately 20 million people, most of whom live in poverty despite the enormous wealth generated in the oil-rich region.

With this background, a series of meetings In November 2005 between representatives from the Federation of Niger Delta Ijaw Communities (FNDIC), the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force (NDPVF), along with fighters from Cult groups such as Klansmen Konfraternity (KK) and Greenlanders led to the emergence of a new group called MEND. An agreement was also made to start using militant force to attack oil installations.

Following a string of Boko Haram bombings in Nigeria in the 2010s, and many attacks against Christian targets, MEND threatened to bomb mosques and assassinate Muslim clerics. MEND spokesman Jomo Gbomo said a campaign will start on 31 May "to save Christianity in Nigeria from annihilation. The bombings of mosques, haj camps, Islamic institutions, large congregations in Islamic events and assassinations of clerics that propagate doctrines of hate will form the core mission of this crusade." However, Operation Barbarossa would be called off if Christian organisations and the Henry Okah intervene; it further called on Boko Haram to stop attacking Christians and churches. It then announced a suspension of the plans after calls from religious groups and prominent citizens such as Henry Okah.

Constituency and organization MEND is closely connected with Asari's Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force, a rebel group with similar aims. MEND reportedly seeks "a union of all relevant militant groups in the Niger Delta." However, the identity of MEND is somewhat obscure since its leaders like to remain faceless and its cause has been taken up by completely unrelated groups inspired by the original MEND, one of which is claiming responsibility for some of the violence that has occurred. However, the original members of MEND (recognized as MEND by the United States government and Chevron security), have claimed that impostors are causing some of the violence that is now occurring.

MEND's evolving approach to conducting warfare has been described as "open source", so called because it is analogous to the decentralized communal development process now prevalent in the software industry, making it extremely quick to innovate and move new technologies and tactics rapidly from cell to cell without the direction of a vulnerable leadership hierarchy. Former United States Air Force "counter-terrorism" officer, technology analyst, and software entrepreneur, John Robb, in a Wired Magazine interview about the emergence of "open source guerrillas", alleged that MEND "doesn’t even field its own guerillas. They hire their experts and fighters mostly from criminal gangs and tribal warrior cults to do their operations."

Timeline of activities

2006 Nine officials for the Italian petrol company Eni SpA were killed when armed members of MEND attacked Eni SpA's security forces in Port Harcourt. MEND militants briefly occupied and robbed a bank near the Eni SpA base, leaving at about 3:30 p.m, about an hour after they showed up.

A company official stated, "Eni has temporarily evacuated staff and contractors from the area of the base affected by the incident and the situation is currently under control."

MEND issued a statement regarding the oil workers: "Be assured therefore that the hostages in return, will remain our guests... the hostages are in good health and have adapted fairly well to the conditions under which the people of the Niger Delta have been kept."

On 10 May 2006, an executive with the United States-based oil company Baker Hughes was shot and killed in the south-eastern city of Port Harcourt. At the time of the shooting, it was not immediately known if MEND had any involvement or not. Witnesses say the attacker appeared to be specifically targeting the US executive.

On 2 June 2006, a Norwegian rig offshore Nigeria was attacked and 16 crew members were kidnapped. According to the news agency Reuters, MEND has not taken responsibility for this attack.Brenna, Jarle (2 June 2006). . VG Nett. (in Norwegian)

On 20 August 2006, 10 MEND members were killed by the Nigerian military. The members were working on releasing a Royal Dutch Shell hostage. In an email to REUTERS, MEND stated, "Our response to Sunday's killings will come at our time, but for certain it will not go unpunished."

On 2 October 2006, 10 Nigerian soldiers were killed off the shore of the Niger Delta in their patrol boat by a MEND mortar shell. Earlier that day a Nigerian/Royal Dutch Shell convoy was attacked in the Port Harcourt region resulting in some people being wounded.

On 3 October 2006, a militant group abducted four Scots, a Malaysian, an Indonesian and a Romanian from a bar in Akwa Ibom state.

On 4 October 2006, Nigerian soldiers attacked a militant camp, in the ensuing battle nine Nigerian soldiers were killed.

On 22 November 2006, Nigerian soldiers attempted a rescue of kidnapped oil workers which resulted in one soldier being killed.

2007

On 1 May 2007, at 4:15 a.m., MEND attacked Chevron's Oloibiri floating production, storage, and offloading vessel off the coast of the southern Bayelsa state. After one hour of fighting with security boats, resulting in the death of 10 people, MEND seized six expatriate workers, consisting of four Italians (Mario Celentano, Raffaele Pasceriello, Ignazio Gugliotta, Alfonso Franza), an American (John Stapelton), and a Croat (Jurica Ruic). On the same day, MEND published photos of the captives seated on white plastic chairs in a wooden shelter around the remains of a campfire.Oil worker kidnappings continue in Nigeria . Oil & Gas Journal. 1 May 2007.

On 3 May 2007, MEND seized eight foreign hostages from another offshore vessel. The hostages were released less than 24 hours later, stating they had intended to destroy the vessel and did not want more hostages.

23 May 7 hostages were taken from a pipelay barge of Nimbe area of Bayelsa they were released 23 days later. they included Brittins Americans and one South African.

On 8 May 2007, three major oil pipelines (one in Brass and two in the Akasa area) were attacked, shutting down oil production and cutting power to a facility run by Italian oil company Agip, part of the ENI energy group. An e-mail statement from a MEND spokesperson said, "Fighters of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) attacked and destroyed three major pipelines in Bayelsa state... We will continue indefinitely with attacks on all pipelines, platforms and support vessels."

On 23 September 2007, a MEND spokesperson named Jomo Gbomo announced, through a communiqué to the Philadelphia Independent Media Center, that media reports of his arrest and detention were false; and then further informed, through the letter, that MEND had officially declared war, effective 12 midnight, 23 September 2007, and that they would be commencing "attacks on installations and abduction of expatriates."