Posted by EMMA AMAIZE, Regional Editor, South South on
ONLY a heart made of rock will not bleed at the horror the four expatriates: Mr. Nigel Markson (Briton), Marko Miche, Mr. Harry Edenles and Mr. Pat Cendey (American), who were kidnapped, January 11, aboard an oil vessel in Bayelsa State are suffering in the hands of the gangsters presently terrorizing the oil-rich region.
ONLY a heart made of rock will not bleed at the horror the four expatriates: Mr. Nigel Markson (Briton), Marko Miche, Mr. Harry Edenles and Mr. Pat Cendey (American), who were kidnapped, January 11, aboard an oil vessel in Bayelsa State are suffering in the hands of the gangsters presently terrorizing the oil-rich region. Today makes it precisely 11 days since they were abducted while lawfully performing the duty that brought them to the country.
They are not illegal aliens, yet, their fundamental human rights were flagrantly breached. Right now, every minute of their lives is hell with their lives in the hands of a murderous gang which has no regard for human life.
Indeed, it is mind-blowing and beyond belief how a sovereign nation would give insurgents the space to terrorize foreign nationals on its territory. Nevertheless, the chief of the naval staff, Vice Admiral Ganiyu Adekeye, who relocated his office to the Niger-Delta just about 24 hours after a gang presently terrorizing and bloodcurdling the region, took hostage four expatriate oil workers on board an oil vessel, off Atlantic Ocean in a Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) East Area (EA) field, hit the nail on the head when he told newsmen, penultimate Friday, in Warri, Delta State that the navy was caught unawares by the gangsters..
There was no other way to explain the occurrence except Adeleke wanted to spike the truth, especially since his men were right inside the vessel when the mercenaries struck, overwhelmed the navy personnel during a gun battle and seized the expatriates. The navy chief, nonetheless, blamed the powerlessness, helplessness and hopelessness of his men on the malfunctioning of their forward operational base at the time of the attack.
His words: 'If the forward operational base were functioning, this incident would never have taken place". The first thing the muggers did when they hijacked the vessel was to tear down the communication equipment and that reduced information on the vessel to point zero. Adekeye who apparently does not believe in window dressing, said the unpleasant incident was an eye-opener to the navy.
The navy chief's blunt confession, though about the complicatedness of naval personnel in confronting heavily -equipped militants on the waterways, is not limited to the armada, for soldiers were equally caught flat-footed in the most up-to-date blitz. Unofficial sources said that 13 men of the Joint Task Force (JTF) in the Niger-Delta who were guarding Benisede Flow-Station were massacred, January 15, when the same group of militants stormed Ojobo at about 7.00 am.
The flow-station was set on fire with explosives but military sources confirmed the death of only four soldiers, while nine were declared missing. Scores of persons were wounded in the invasion and at press time, they were receiving treatment at an undisclosed hospital. On its part, the SPDC, which has been at the receiving end, has commenced the evacuation of its workers from the four flow-stations that were shut down as a result of the ambush.
So, how were the mercenaries able to momentarily overwhelm the navy and JTF? What should be done to contain the abnormality for abduction and blowing up of oil installations in the region?
Niger-Delta has been held spellbound in the past few days with nervousness and apprehension all over the security loop. If the malady is handled as usual, the bombings, killings and abduction would without doubt crop up again, and then, another round of panic commences. What is the way onward?
The January 11 hijack: The essence of getting naval officials to shepherd vessels on the waterways is to ensure the safety of the vessels, its contents and the occupants and that was what SPDC, a safety-conscious multinational, did in securing the services of the navy for men and materials involved in its EA oil field operations. But it was as if there was no security at all when the gang, armed with sophisticated military weapons, including rocket propelled grenade, mortar bombs, machine guns, AK 47 and a cache of ammunition, ambushed the team and opened fire on the vessel.
The navy personnel tried to repel the attack but it was clear that their guns would not match the sophistication of the weapons carried by the militia group. Having overpowered them, the boys mounted the vessel, diverted it from its course after cutting off all forms of communication and, later, took the expatriates away.
Twenty-four hours after this incident, officials of the NNS Delta in Warri, probably unaware that the vessel had naval escorts, told Sunday Vanguard that the only involvement of the navy in the affair was its hunt for the kidnappers and the hostages. The commanding officer, Navy Captain Mufutau Ajibade, who denied that his men were kidnapped, said that two fighter boats and helicopter had been deployed to track down the militants.
But the chief of the naval staff, confirmed the next day that naval officials were aboard the vessel and there was no trace of the militants and the hostages as at the time he was speaking to the press.
Benisede bloodbath: After the Trans-Ramos pipeline that carries crude to Benisede, Opokushi, Tunu and Obotobo flow-stations was vandalized recently, men of the JTF were deployed to beef up security at the flow-stations. With soldiers at Benisede Flow-Station, it was thought that there would not have been a better security, but the bloodthirsty militia stormed the location in Ekeremor Local Government Area of Bayelsa State by 7.00am, last Sunday, while most people were in the church worshipping God.
An attempt by the soldiers to resist their invasion by shooting one of them brought out the beast in militia group. They fired from their bazooka and by the time the smoke cleared, about 13 soldiers were dead. Only the corpses of four of them have been seen, the other nine were said to be missing. But the militia went away with the corpse of their dead colleague.
Soldiers are known to have superior arms to that of the police but the arms failed them in the Benisede battle. The commanding officer of the JTF, Brigadier General Elias Zamani, was traumatized when he received a report that the gang overpowered his men at the flow-station and the place set ablaze.
The same feeling troubled the chief of the defense staff, General Alexander Ogomudia, who reportedly asked repeatedly if the soldiers were actually dead when he was being briefed on the incident. It was learnt that while the soldiers at the outset shot indiscriminately to ward off the attackers, the militants who had superior weapons shot from afar and demobilized them.
A villager, Mr. Peter Douglas, who fled to Warri on Wednesday, told Sunday Vanguard that, 'guns spoke at Benisede".
Available information also indicated that security men were distancing themselves from escort duties on the waterways but the spokesman of the JTF, Major S. Ahmed, Friday morning, said it was ridiculous for anybody to suggest that soldiers were shunning escort duties on the waterways because of attacks by the militia group. He maintained that there was no truth in the allegation.
Rescue operation:
Following a directive from President Olusegun Obasanjo to the JTF to liberate the four kidnapped oil workers and quell the rebellion in the region, the JTF, acting on intelligence that the rebels were taking refuge at Amatu community, stormed the village but before they got there, the boys had supposedly vanished.
They proceeded to Ogbotobo community where the natives resisted harassment and persecution by the soldiers. Reports said that a shoot-out erupted between the soldiers and the natives, and some casualties recorded. But Zamani denied any shoot-out when contacted by Sunday Vanguard. 'What I can tell you is that my men are on ground there", he said.
The JTF is networking with Bayelsa and Delta governments, navy, the Department of State Service and other security agencies to track down the militia but, so far, it has not made any headway as no contact has been made with the kidnappers or the hostages.
Zamani has visited the scene of battle at Benisede to personally assess the situation while the chief of the defense staff who visited Warri, rushed back to Abuja to attend the meeting summoned by Obasanjo, last Tuesday, with security chiefs, some governors and others to deliberate on how to handle the situation.
The minister of police affairs, Chief Brodrick Bozimo, an Ijaw, who arrived Warri, last Thursday, to take charge of the situation, said the president had advised that force should not be used to rescue the hostages so as not to endanger their lives. He asserted that information at his disposal indicated that the militia members were of Ijaw extraction and he would move to Bayelsa State to explore the possibilities of talking with them. Already, he said, negotiations were on for the release of the suspects.
The requisite: The chief of the naval staff said in Warri that the episode had shown the need for the navy to increase and improve its assets, especially with respect to provision of warfare weapons, surveillance materials and development of forward operational base.
Clearly, the Nigeria Navy is the security organ of government that is fashioned for marine operations but the reality is that it does not have the paraphernalia to match the brand and category that the militia group parades.
The navy has to be encouraged by the government with the provision of adequate sophisticated equipment. There is no way they can fight oil bunkerers, sea pirates and militants as the one in question when their weapons are second-rate to those being used by the band of soldiers. The Federal Government must invest heavily in this direction for that is the only way such group of vandals and terrorists can be put in check in the months and years ahead. Once they know that the navy can confront them on the watercourse with superior firepower, they would beat a retreat.
The JTF, as it is presently constituted, is better on the land than in the waters, and so, its amphibious arm should be strengthened if the Task Force is expected to run after troublemakers into thecreeks. If the Benisede battle and those of similar ilk, which the JTF is currently handling, were on land, the militia would have been overrun in not more than 24 hours.
The boys that are engaged in the present reign of terror in the region melted into the thin air when they saw the array of weapons the Task Force deployed to Yenagoa in the build-up to the removal of the former governor of Bayelsa State, Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha.
Hostages cry out: The four hostages have cried out to the Nigerian government and their home governments to come to their rescue, saying that they were not part of the internal crisis in the country and should not be made scapegoats. They maintained that they only came to work in Nigeria and would not want to be killed for what they know nothing about.
One of the hostages, who spoke by telephone to an international news organisation, CNN, Friday morning, asked for help. Speaking in an emotion-laden tone, the hostage said: 'We are in a bad shape, we really are. We are not soldiers; we are not Nigerians; we only came here to work. Please, help us, please, please".
Their families back home in the United Kingdom, Bulgaria, the United States and Honduras are equally in pains over their travails.
Reports, on the other hand, said that the kidnappers had no plans of killing the hostages except the government tries to rescue them by force. They are insisting on the release of the former governor of Bayelsa State, Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha and Alhaji M. Asari-Dokubo, both of whom are standing trial for alleged money laundering and treasonable felony respectively.
A new dimension: Bayelsa State government can help the Federal Government and the nation in stopping the present storm and averting its occurrence in future if ample information is released to the security agencies on the perpetrators of the crime. In Yenagoa for instance, those carrying out the war were said to be mercenaries allegedly recruited by a powerful and known politician in the state to arm-twist the government to discharge Alamieyeseigha.
There are insiders in the government today who allegedly know the operations of the militia and their godfather. Arms and ammunition were believed to have been procured for this group in the run-up to the 2003 elections in the state and some officials of the Bayelsa State government are believed to know the whereabouts of a few of them.
Clearly, the take-over of government in Bayelsa State by Dr. Goodluck Jonathan has polarized the power configuration in the state and it is some of the cleavages that are said to have coalesced to wreak havoc.
Because of the combustible nature of the region, top officials of Delta State government have since last Sunday, when the militia group killed the soldiers that were guarding Benisede Flow-Station and burnt down the oil installation, relocated to the oil city of Warri to strategize on how to check the incursion.
From the JTF, which has its operational headquarters in Warri, to the Police, Department of State Service, the Secretary to the State Government, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, who is the chairman of the Oil Pipeline Security and Surveillance Committee recently inaugurated by the state government, there have been concerted efforts in the past one week to ensure that the crisis did not spill over to the state.
Knowing why the militants were up in arms, it became curious to some close watchers why Bayelsa State House of Assembly, last Thursday, in a motion that was unanimously adopted by the members, passed the buck to Delta State, which, it said, was the base of the militia group.
The Assembly claimed pointedly that the mercenaries causing mayhem in the state were from Delta State and urged Jonathan to liaise with the Federal Government to deploy soldiers to Ekeremor Local Government Area for it had it on good authority that the boys were planning to wreak more havoc.
As expected, the accusation did not go down well with Delta State government. Commissioner for Inter Ethnic Relation and Conflict Resolution, Mr. Ovouzorie Macaulay, who fired from all cylinders, in an interview with Sunday Vanguard, said it was mischievous for Bayelsans to accuse Delta of sponsoring the crisis in their state.
He said that the involvement of Delta State in the saga since it unfolded was to check the incursion of the mercenaries into the state, saying that the crisis was entirely a Bayelsa affair and nobody should drag Delta into it.
Chairman of Ijaw National Congress (INC), Western zone, Chief Samson Mamamu, who expressed the helplessness of the Ijaw leaders on the matter, said, in an interview, that politicians in Bayelsa State created the problem.
He said that the leadership of the INC under Dr. Kimse Okoko directed Ijaw youths not to destroy anything or do anything untoward on account of the removal of Alamieyeseigha as governor but the instruction was disobeyed from the recent happenings in the region.