Multilateral challenges: Conflict resolution and peace building remain key priorities for the government

As one of the continent’s most culturally and ethnically diverse as well as resource-rich countries, Nigeria’s very existence is in many ways an impressive accomplishment, testament to the ability of both its citizens and institutions to find ways – often unconventional – to balance the need for local empowerment and diversity with broader national unity.

However, political cohesion has not come without a price, and Nigeria has long faced a variety of complex economic and security challenges at both local and federal levels, ranging from separatist movements in the 1960s to religious violence and civil unrest in the 2000s. Amidst decades of conflict between the state and armed militant groups, whose grievances range from socioeconomic inequalities cutting across ethnic, linguistic and geographical lines to those driven by religious differences, Nigeria is currently engaged in several important conflict resolution efforts, some of which have seen promising turns.

PEACE & RECONCILIATION: Most importantly, conflict over the appropriate distribution of oil revenues, combined with economic discontent and environmental issues, has fuelled armed insurgency in the Niger Delta since the 1990s. While the government has faced considerable challenges in terms of improving security, there have also been notable successes.

The region of the Niger Delta is one of the continent’s largest hydrocarbon-producing areas and along with the city of Port Harcourt in Rivers State, the hundreds of thousands of square miles of onshore and shallow-water blocks remain the epicentre of the Nigerian hydrocarbons sector. The region – which not only contains deposits held by international firms such as Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron and Total, but also acreage handled by an increasing number of local and indigenous firms, such as Seplat Petroleum and First Hydrocarbon – has the potential to produce 3.6m barrels per day (bpd), according to some estimates.

However, since 2003 oil production has tended to hover around 2.2m bpd, and in many cases dropping lower, in part a result of a low-level but effective campaign of oil bunkering – involving the illegal and environmentally-destructive siphoning of oil from pipelines – alongside an increasing number of attacks by militias. The hit on production was so great that the country’s exports slowed in 2009, briefly allowing Angola to supplant Nigeria as Africa’s top producer.

The militia attacks and the broader insurgency in the Delta were prompted in large part by a growing sentiment of dispossession from local communities, who benefited little from the potentially lucrative exploration and production activities in their region. This was further compounded by the allocation of oil revenues by the federal government. Although it has since changed, during the height of the insurgency, although they were providing the bulk of the crude, the states making up the Delta received just 13% of the revenues under the terms of the Land Act, which regulates the allocation of oil revenues at the federal level. Concerns about environmental degradation and a lack of job creation also helped fuel the sense of grievance felt by residents about crude production.

The militia groups that were most prominent in violently articulating the dissatisfaction felt by locals included the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) and the Niger Delta Vigilante Movement, both of whom during the mid 2000s built up significant caches of not only light arms, including automatic weapons and grenade launchers, but also fast boats to attack offshore rigs. For example, MEND has focused on attacking oil infrastructure and taking foreign oil workers hostage. Due to armed violence in the Delta, oil output in Nigeria fell by 28% from 2006 to 2009, according to Bloomberg data.

A LONG-AWAITED SOLUTION: However, although the government had launched several attempts at resolving the conflict under both former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, it was not until 2009 that a peaceful solution was finally brokered. This was the result of a protracted series of negotiations with local stakeholders, culminating in a 60-day amnesty and the release of Henry Okah, a senior MEND leader captured by the military.

The amnesty programme was a significant undertaking. Beginning in August, several thousand former militia members took the opportunity to relinquish their arms and many groups disbanded; those that did not nonetheless saw a significant drop in local support. In Rivers State – an area of the Delta that had seen some of the worst fighting in 2007, 2008 and 2009 – roughly 6000 militants gave up their weapons. Although there are no accurate records of the final number of militia members who participated in the amnesty programme – which was spread out over the seven Delta states – the estimates range as high as 15,000. Attacks on oil pipelines dropped in number to fewer than 1000 in 2010, from a high of more than 3500 in 2006, according to US government data.

In large part, the success of the amnesty can be attributed to the central hook, an unconditional pardon for all militant members who participated in the programme, but an equally important component of the deal was the offer of a wide-ranging rehabilitation and reintegration scheme that centred on professional and vocational training and education.

Given the role of economic discontent in fuelling the insurgency, ensuring employment for the now-unemployed former combatants was obviously crucial. Under the terms of the deal, psychiatric counselling and public housing was also to be allocated to participants, while the government looked to offer more mundane ways to address the rigours of daily living, such as providing allowances and stipends. There were other types of more direct aid promised by the federal government, including a $1.3bn federal development plan for the region. However, ensuring the full implementation of the amnesty programme has been more of a challenge. The past two years have seen renewed conflict in the Delta, with militants informing local media they believe the government has not delivered on the promise of local development, job creation and increased revenue sharing.

BOKO HARAM: In recent years, the rise of an extremist religious organisation, known as Boko Haram, has increased security risks in certain areas of the north, particularly the north-eastern states of Yobe, Borno and Adamawa. The group has been active in Nigeria since the late 1990s, achieving widespread notoriety for its quixotic goal of overthrowing the government and imposing sharia across Nigeria’s northern states. The northern region where the group was established and has carried out most of its attacks is among the most economically deprived in Nigeria. Once-thriving textiles and palm oil industries floundered when the focus of investment shifted towards the oil industry in the 1970s. Today, two of the three states under a state of emergency, Adawama and Yobe, are among the poorest in the country, with poverty rates of between 60% and 70%, according to the World Bank.

The group’s attacks have historically been small in scale and focused on local Christian communities as well as mosques and schools. However, ever since an assault in August 2011, when it bombed the UN headquarters in Abuja, Boko Haram’s attacks have grown in sophistication and frequency. Most notably, the group has now stated that it will begin deliberately targeting foreign institutions. Among the other reasons for the increasing risk posed by the extremist group are the proliferation of small arms and light weaponry from Libya, following the fall of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. According to the US State Department, the group may by now even have established links with other terrorist organisations such as Al Shabab and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, in addition to smaller militant groups operating in the Sahel.

In 2012, the US provided Nigeria with $3m in law enforcement aid to tackle the scourge of terrorist activity in the country, and the US State Department also offered a $7m reward for the capture of a key Boko Haram leader. In a similar vein, UK officially designated Boko Haram as a terrorist organisation in July 2013 and has also promised intelligence support.

THE ROAD AHEAD: Following an armed offensive by the military to eradicate the group, a state of emergency was declared in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe States in May 2013, with the military claiming by summer 2013 to have killed Boko Haram’s leader, Abubakar Shekau. While the group’s capabilities were subsequently downgraded, Shekau then appeared in an unverified video that aired online in September 2013 claiming responsibility for new terrorist attacks.

However, just as business in Lagos and the rest of Nigeria’s northern regions continued to function at the height of the Delta insurgency from 2006-07, so does daily life seem to go on as normal today in the bustling south, notwithstanding the gravity of the threat posed to Nigeria by Boko Haram. The attitude of both domestic and international businesses appears to be one of adapting to the attacks as one more challenge in Nigeria’s frequently difficult and yet potentially lucrative economic operating environment.