The Nation Newspaper

Tag: conflict

  • All-losers’ conflict

    All-losers’ conflict

     A fragile ceasefire is holding between Israel and Iran in the hostility that flared between them following a surprise air strike launched by Israel on 13th June. Interestingly, it is the United States, which inserted itself 21st June as a combatant on the side of Israel, that brokered the ceasefire deal. That the truce got a breathing chance of being enacted is indication of exhaustion of firepower on the part of the core combatants, Iran and Israel; but more likely, on the part of Iran that is the aggressed in this instance and which suffered the greater loss. What the world must wait to see is whether that exhaustion came with conviction to give peace a chance in the volatile region, or it was just a tactical retreat to buy time for rearmament.

    Israel, which has been at war with Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza since 2023, turned on Iran penultimate week – attacking its nuclear capabilities and killing top Iranian military commanders in the worst blow to the Islamic republic since its battle with Iraq in the 1980s. Unlike the Iran-Iraqi war that dragged for eight years, the battle with Israel lasted only 12 days. Iran is an avowed sponsor of Hamas and other militias in enmity with Israel, like the Hezbollah, and it has never hidden its intention to facilitate Israel’s extermination. In October 2024, Iran rained missiles on the Jewish state in reprisal for Israel’s hunt for militants that impinged on its territory. That spat did not result in full-blown war because ex-U.S. President Joe Biden leashed Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and arrowheaded an alliance that powered Israel’s Iron Dome air defence system to prevent the Iranian missiles from hitting home on Israeli soil.

    Israel’s current war with Hamas gave occasion for renewed hostility with Iran that was this time not restrained – no thanks to shared disposition between Netanyahu and incumbent U.S. President Donald Trump over suspicions that Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons with its uranium enrichment efforts. Iran denies it is trying to build such weapons and says its nuclear research is for civilian energy production, only that few people believe its narrative. Trump tried talking with the Islamic republic like his immediate predecessors, and touted military option if negotiations don’t work. Following Israel’s recent attack, Iran responded with a barrage of missiles on Israeli military sites and cities. But Israel apparently worked to distract Iran and make it more vulnerable than it ordinarily might have been, preparatory to strikes on its nuclear sites by the U.S. In other words, they tag-teamed.

    Israel significantly degraded Iran’s air defenses and offensive missile capabilities and damaged its overground nuclear enrichment facilities. But only the American military has bunker-buster bombs that offered the best chance of destroying sites deep underground. Penultimate Saturday, Trump ordered the strikes by which the U.S. deployed seven stealth B-2 bombers, each carrying two bunker busters weighing an impressive 30,000 pounds apiece to blast Iran’s nuclear laboratories in Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan buried in Iranian mountainsides. The unprecedented operation reportedly involved more than 125 aircraft including refueling tankers, reconnaissance planes, fighter jets besides the bombers.

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    On the heels of the attack, Trump announced that the operation “completely and fully obliterated” the Iranian nuclear sites. But the Pentagon, in a subsequent briefing, reported “sustained, extremely severe damage and destruction.” Netanyahu too was restrained in his assessment, saying the U.S. attack left the nuclear facility at Fordow with “very significant damage.” The Israeli leader gave indication of working hand in gloves with the American president by saying Israel did not have to commit to end the war in Gaza in exchange for American bombers targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities. “President Trump didn’t put any conditions. This is not the nature of our relationship, I have to say,” he told journalists. “We speak openly. We speak as friends, genuine friends. And he’s a great leader. He makes the decisions for America,” he added. Netanyahu also disclosed that he was notified of the American operation in advance: “That’s natural. Just as he (Trump) knew in advance when we would act, we knew in advance when he would act.”

    Intelligence findings by the Trump administration since the air strikes have indicated that Iran’s enriched uranium stocks were not eliminated and the country’s nuclear programme may have been set back only a month or two. Defence intelligence operatives in Washington were reported saying the strikes sealed off entrances to two of the sites, but did not destroy the buildings underground. Some centrifuges remained intact after the attacks, according to Washington Post citing unnamed sources familiar with the report. Administration officials also openly recalibrated the strikes’ impact assessment, telling the United Nations Security Council mid-last week that they “degraded” Iran’s nuclear program – short of the president’s earlier assertion that the facilities were obliterated.

    Despite Trump’s warning of additional strikes if Iran retaliates against U.S. forces, the Islamic republic launched an attack on America’s military base in Qatar last Monday. Iranian missiles targeted the base, which is U.S.’s largest in the Mideast, in what Tehran said was a response to the bombing of its three nuclear facilities. The Qatar base is reported to be the headquarters for all American air operations in the region. A statement by the Iranian government said it will not leave any attack on its sovereignty unanswered, adding: “U.S. bases in the region are not strengths but vulnerabilities.” There were differing accounts of how many missiles were fired: Iran said six, the U.S. said 14, and Qatar was cited saying 19 – all of which, it added, were intercepted, with no one reported killed or injured.

    Unlike the U.S. attack on Iranian nuclear sites that was by surprise, reports said Tehran notified Doha in advance of its intention to strike the U.S. base, just so to minimise casualties. In his first comments in the aftermath, Trump thanked Iran for “giving us early notice, which made it possible for no lives to be lost and nobody injured.” He described the attack as “very weak” – no Americans were harmed and very little damage was done, he noted. “They’ve gotten it all out of their system,” he added and said peace in the region could now proceed. On the next day, the American leader brokered a ceasefire that Israel and Iran signed up to.

    Both countries claimed the upper hand in the conflict. Iran’s military command warned Israel and the U.S. to learn from the “crushing blows” it delivered in the hostility, with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian saying his country ended the war in “great victory.” For its part, Israel said the attack on Iran had removed the threat of nuclear annihilation and it was determined to thwart any attempt by Tehran to revive its weapons program. “We have removed two immediate existential threats to us: the threat of nuclear annihilation and the threat of annihilation by 20,000 ballistic missiles,” Netanyahu said. He earlier told journalists that the operation in Iran helped to achieve his country’s goal in Gaza as Iran could no longer support Hamas, which should hasten the militant group’s demise. “Once that reality sinks into the ranks of Hamas, you’re already entering the final phase of decision,” Netanyahu said, adding: “It will take a little more time, but there’s no doubt that our major achievements in Iran are also contributing to achieving our goals in Gaza.”

    Truth is that all actors in the conflict, including America, got their nose bloodied, though at varying degrees. Iran was the biggest loser. Even Tehran plied the narrative that 610 people were killed by Israeli strikes on its soil while 4,746 got injured, compared with Iran’s retaliatory bombardment that killed 28 people in Israel. Oil prices plunged on the global spot market upon indication that Iran couldn’t muster the clout as widely feared to disrupt critical oil supplies from the Gulf by blocking the strategic Strait of Hormuz lying within its reach. Worse, there was no single country or group even within the region that rallied to Iran’s side in the war. Nothing showed the republic’s isolation and limitation more than the latest war with Israel.

    Israel as well suffered some humiliation, in that it was the first time its air defenses were penetrated by large numbers of Iranian missiles. Unlike in 2024 when the missiles were intercepted nearly wholesale, Trump’s America was not there for Israel this time to enable it achieve same defensive feat. Rather, the Jewish state was used as a foil – unprotected – for America’s own agenda.

    But the U.S. itself did not win. It wanted to obliterate Iran’s nuclear capacity and only came off with “severe damage” to the programme. So much for being a superpower! Simply put, this was an all-losers’ war.

    •Please join me on kayodeidowu.blogspot.be for conversation.

  • How not to end farmers-herders conflict

    How not to end farmers-herders conflict

    In February, after eight months of verbal commitment, Vice President Kashim Shettima unveiled the Bola Tinubu administration’s Pulaku initiative, a Fulani code of conduct that responds to the farmer-herder conflict and ‘integrates cultural and ethical value system specific to the Fulani’. The initiative is designed to engineer ‘a large-scale resettlement programme’ to address the root causes of the conflict. While inaugurating the steering committee to midwife the initiative, the vice president announced that some seven northern states had been designated to pilot the programme as a major part of the non-kinetic approach to resolving insecurity in the Northwest particularly. Pursuant to this, while inaugurating Niger State’s agricultural mechanized programme in Minna last Monday, President Tinubu spoke of his readiness to end the farmer-herder conflict in weeks if states provided grazing lands. Mr Shettima had announced last month that Sokoto, Kebbi, Benue, Katsina, Zamfara, Niger, and Kaduna states had signed up for the programme.

    A few more states in the northern part of the country may still sign in to the programme, but the initiative will stir passions in the Middle Belt and find no takings in the southern part. The reasons are rooted in history, conflict and bloodshed. In theory, the initiative IN February, after eight months of verbal commitment, Vice President Kashim Shettima unveiled the Bola Tinubu administration’s Pulaku initiative, a Fulani code of conduct that responds to the farmer-herder conflict and ‘integrates cultural and ethical value system specific to the Fulani’. The initiative is designed to engineer ‘a large-scale resettlement programme’ to address the root causes of the conflict. While inaugurating the steering committee to midwife the initiative, the vice president announced that some seven northern states had been designated to pilot the programme as a major part of the non-kinetic approach to resolving insecurity in the Northwest particularly. Pursuant to this, while inaugurating Niger State’s agricultural mechanized programme in Minna last Monday, President Tinubu spoke of his readiness to end the farmer-herder conflict in weeks if states provided grazing lands. Mr Shettima had announced last month that Sokoto, Kebbi, Benue, Katsina, Zamfara, Niger, and Kaduna states had signed up for the programme.

    A few more states in the northern part of the country may still sign in to the programme, but the initiative will stir passions in the Middle Belt and find no takings in the southern part. The reasons are rooted in history, conflict and bloodshed. In theory, the initiative may resonate with many stakeholders, particularly in the core North and among the Fulani; but in practice, it will instigate many already skeptical states into implacable opposition. The skeptical states, especially Plateau and Benue, now riddled by ethnic conflicts and genocidal skirmishes, point at the Fulani/herder settlements in their midst as the loci of ongoing unrest and conflict. To ask them to cede more land and accommodate cattle herders may be asking for too much. They recall with great alarm the Muhammadu Buhari presidency calling on them to cede land in exchange for their safety and security as pointer to a hidden land grabbing and ethnic cleansing agenda, not to say outright political Fulanisation of the Middle Belt. Some of those states had countered the call by promulgating anti-open grazing laws. They are thus unlikely to embrace any Pulaku scheme soon.

    President Tinubu’s Minna statement, while unduly optimistic, will do nothing but aggravate suspicion in some parts of the North which have declared open animosity to open grazing and covert land grabbing schemes. The president had said: “We must reorient our farming population, including livestock programme. I don’t see why Nigeria can’t feed all our pupils with one pint of milk a day if the dairy system is well harnessed. I know what it means as an economic sabotage for cows to eat up the crops and vegetations of our land. When we reorient the herders and make provisions for cattle rearing, governors must provide the land and I as the President am committed to giving you, in two to three weeks time, a comprehensive programme that will solve this problem.”

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    In Minna, and elsewhere before last Monday, President Tinubu had given the impression that weeks were all he needed to resolve the farmer-herder conflict if states donated land. He did not say whether he had all the 36 states in mind or just a few, particularly in the North; nor did he say how he would execute the programme, especially con sidering the many things that should be put in place to engender widespread acceptance of the initiative among the Fulani. However, all things considered, a few weeks, let alone three weeks, would be overly optimistic. In the first place, the anachronistic open grazing method of cattle herding has been unfortunately infused with political undertones. Old habits, they say, die hard. The old culture of animal husbandry will not go away in weeks, nor will the tantalizing political and land grabbing advantages it has been infused with for centuries, as exampled by the ethnic and political smorgasbord Southern Kaduna and a few Plateau local government communities have become over the years.

    But what is even direr, as the administration will discover, is the adamantine resolve of parts of the country to resist Fulani colonies among them. Already, the Southwest blames those colonies for the restiveness in their countryside, and the humongous scale of kidnappings and insecurity on highways and farmlands. The Southeast, which stridently bemoans their land shortage, will have nothing to do with any such ceded land. Their militias have warned the region’s governors not to contemplate a scheme certain to be resisted with everything at their disposal, legal or otherwise. With a wide swath of the country potentially excluded from the initiative, what are its prospects of success? The administration hopes that if federal investment in the pilot states manifests clear financial and developmental advantages of hosting Pulaku schemes, more states might ask to be enlisted. The skeptical states do not doubt the ability of the federal government to elevate Pulaku into an enviable economic hub, but they chafe at the miscon ception and misplacement of animal husbandry which is supposed to be an essentially private economic undertaking. Individual herder or their cooperatives, like any other economic grouping, are free to lease lands anywhere in the country, possibly with federal incentives. But to position herders as exceptional and priority to the detriment of farmers and other landowners simply because of their capacity to levy violence appears to many states as unwise and ill-considered.

    The Pulaku initiative may be discriminatory and poorly thought-out, but it stands a chance of yielding fruits in parts of the North and lowering the conflict temperature in those regions in the long run. However, any attempt to extend it to other parts of Nigeria, whether in the Middle Belt wracked by farmer-herder conflicts or the deeply suspicious and increasingly nationalistic South, may be pushing the administration’s luck too far. Pulaku, by its structure and design, can only achieve partial success. It will not end farmer-herder conflicts in the country. Indeed, by the very nature of its conception, it is nothing more than the definitional equivalence of ranching. It should be a private initiative supported by wide-ranging federal subventions and incentives rather than the hue of exceptionalism with which it is covered. Ceding lands for Pulaku, a shortsighted solution for a long-term problem, will in many states sow future seeds of conflict rather than extirpate them. The Buhari administration was in the end forced to make the land cession policy optional. It should remain so, and it must not be a precondition for peace. The farmer-herder conflict, which in some cases was actually herder violence on farming communities, has transmogrified into banditry and kidnapping. If it had attracted decisive kinetic rather than non-kinetic responses, the crisis would have long been obviated.

  • Middle East is under a three-linked conflict

    Middle East is under a three-linked conflict

    • By Jonathan Spyer

    Three linked conflicts are currently under way in the Middle East. These are: Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, the lower intensity battle under way between Israel and Hezbollah in the north, and the Houthis’ maritime campaign in support of Hamas against international shipping in the Red Sea/Gulf of Aden area.

    Since October 7, most media coverage has tended to regard the Gaza war as the central arena, and the other two fronts as subsidiary to it.

    This perspective needs to be revised. All three of these fronts are part of a larger regional dynamic. And all three are currently at or approaching a hinge point.

    “We’re focusing our efforts on the south, but Hezbollah is continuing to act with aggression,” said Lt.-Col. Jonathan Conricus, speaking to journalists in Kibbutz Rosh Hanikra earlier this week. “We can do the same, if needed against Hezbollah, as we are doing against Hamas…. We have evacuated our civilians from the immediate danger zone, and we’re in a defensive posture because we’re focused on our operations in Gaza.”

    A low- to medium-intensity conflict is currently going on, north and south of Israel’s border with Lebanon, with daily exchanges of fire, constant alerts, deaths on both sides. Israel clearly enjoys the tactical advantage, and this is reflected in the casualty figures. Somewhere just over 100 Hezbollah fighters have died so far, along with 17 Lebanese civilians and one soldier of the Lebanese Armed Forces, according to AFP. On the Israeli side, seven soldiers and four civilians have died, as reported by Reuters.

    The mood among the Israeli troops deployed in the North appears upbeat and determined.

    “We’re learning every day,” Lidor, a company commander mobilized since October 8, told me. “I was in the Kfir Brigade in the regular army, so we’re seeing many things for the first time. But we’re learning every day – and we’re ready for anything.”

    But while, tactically, Israel clearly has the upper hand, on the strategic level the situation is less positive. Around 86,000 Israelis have left their homes as a result of Hezbollah’s engagement in support of Hamas further south. There are no indications that they will be ready to return unless Hezbollah’s deployment along the border comes to an end.

    As to how this can be achieved, there have been reports of a US-led diplomatic effort to move Hezbollah forces from the border. The prospects for such an effort appear poor. It is not clear what inducements the US would bring to the table to make Hezbollah act in a way contrary to its core outlook and purpose. But the reports do indicate that the US remains opposed to any unilateral Israeli military move to drive the Iran-supported Shia Islamists from the border area. The continued maintenance of an effective “security zone” on the Israeli side of the border is untenable for Israel.

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    With the basis for diplomacy unclear, and military action evidently contrary to US wishes, the situation remains blocked. For as long as it is not resolved, the current reality represents a gain for the Iran-led regional bloc’s goal of the slow chipping away at the chance for a normal life for Israelis.

    Gaza

    Israel’s goal in its war in Gaza is the destruction of the Hamas-led authority, which has ruled the area since 2007, and which ordered and carried out the massacre of October 7. Tactically, again, Israel has performed well. The IDF has moved forward methodically and effectively in northern Gaza, where Hamas resistance is now only sporadic. Major operations remain in the south, to make achieving Israel’s stated goal possible.

    But again, the strategic picture is less encouraging. Three contradictory timetables have been operating throughout with regard to Israel’s operation in Gaza. These are:

    1. The military timetable – that is, the time that Israel needs to pursue its operation to the point where the Hamas authority has been destroyed, and efforts toward the creation of a successor authority can begin, with Israel maintaining its security hold on Gaza.

    2. The diplomatic timetable – that is, the amount of time available until international pressure begins for Israel to wind up operations. The stance of the US, which historically has defended Israel for a limited period against pressure of this kind before joining it, is the crucial variable here.

  • Locally-driven approaches to peace, conflict management in Niger Delta

    Locally-driven approaches to peace, conflict management in Niger Delta

    By David Udofia 

    Data has shown that violent conflict in the Niger Delta is driven by a variety of interrelated and often overlapping factors, including historical tensions and grievances over natural resources’ allocation, leadership tussles, land disputes, cultism and a proliferation of armed groups.

     Over the years, PIND through its peacebuilding program has amplified the efforts of local peace actors by facilitating locally owned interventions and peacebuilding networks, filling knowledge gaps that hitherto held back local peace actors from taking their efforts to scale, and by providing skills, information, platforms and resources for advocacy, conflict analysis and mitigation. 

    This has also resulted in enhancing the capacity of peace actors to respond in a more coordinated and targeted manner to the rapidly changing conflict dynamics in the region. 

    PIND’s peacebuilding program plays a vital role in Chevron Nigeria Limited’s (CNL) community engagement efforts in the Niger Delta. In October 2023, PIND facilitated a peacebuilding and conflict Early Warning Response (EWER) training and engagement for CNL’s Host Community Development Trusts (HCDTs) in Delta and Ondo states. 

    The HCDT committees nominated community members including youth and women for the peacebuilding and EWER capacity building training In Delta state, a total of 43 participants were selected from four HCDTs including: Warri Kingdom Onshore; Ogulagha; Egbema OPUDIS; and Gbaramatu HCDTs, while 33 participants were selected from Ugboland HCDT in Ondo State. 

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    The participants were trained on various aspects of conflict management such as volunteerism, cooperation, leadership, peacebuilding, conflict analysis, conflict management styles, and conflict early warning and early response (EWER) system as a strategic tool for reporting and proactively responding to grievances and conflict issues. 

    The peacebuilding and EWER capacity building training for the CNL’s HCDTs was essential for the implementation of the HCDT component of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA). Following the signing into law of the PIA in 2021, CNL dissolved its Global Memorandum of Understanding (GMoU) arrangement, and established the HCDTs in 2021 to continue its corporate social responsibility activities through the multi-stakeholder community engagement approach. 

    There are currently six CNL’s HCDT community clusters, each composed of community representatives responsible for identifying and implementing community development projects. The ultimate aim is to improve the relationship between CNL and its host communities, reduce communal tensions, decrease violence, and create an enabling environment for businesses to thrive. 

    The successful implementation of the HCDTs requires an operational-level conflict management support through a grassroots-based conflict EWER system that can help stakeholders to spotlight communal grievances and respond quickly in a targeted manner to prevent escalation of violence, and in the long run effectively manage the changing dynamics of conflicts in the host communities. 

    Locally-owned and community-driven conflict management initiatives are key to achieving sustainable peace and economic growth in the Niger Delta. The direct involvement of local actors in conflict early warning and response interventions helps to prioritize the perspectives and needs of communities facing conflict by ensuring that the design and management of early warning systems are closely connected with the process of understanding what types of response mechanisms exist in their community. 

    The strategic engagement of community-based peace actors ensures that conflict management interventions are locally owned, address the current realities on the ground in contextually appropriate ways, promote sustainability and effectiveness of interventions, and appropriately respond to longer term peacebuilding needs and opportunities.

    Over the years, PIND through its peacebuilding program has amplified the efforts of local peace agents by facilitating locally owned interventions and peacebuilding networks in the Niger Delta. PIND is currently leveraging traditional institutions including traditional rulers and community leaders as part of efforts to empower and engage critical stakeholders in peacebuilding and conflict prevention at the community level. The ultimate aim of this approach is to ensure that conflict management interventions are locally owned, and to promote sustainability and effectiveness of interventions. 

    To ensure the effective and sustainable engagement of local peace actors in managing conflict at the community level, stakeholders including civil society organizations (CSOs) must continually fill knowledge gaps that are holding back local peace actors from taking their efforts to scale, and by providing skills, information, platforms and resources for advocacy, conflict analysis and mitigation planning and implementation. This must include periodic capacity building training, to sustain the capacity of local peace actors to respond in a more coordinated and targeted manner to the rapidly changing conflict dynamics in the region. 

    David Udofia is the Peacebuilding Program Manager, at the Foundation for Partnership Initiatives in the Niger Delta (PIND)

  • Conflict claims over 100,000 babies annually in Nigeria, others -Report

    At least 550,000 babies reportedly died as a result of armed conflict between 2013 and 2017 in the 10 worst-affected countries, according to a new report by an international non governmental organisation, Save the Children.

    The organisation said this is an average of over 100,000 every year.

    The countries include: Afghanistan, Yemen, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Syria, Iraq, Mali, Nigeria and Somalia.

    Chief Executive Officer, Save the Children International, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, in a statement in Abuja, said these were the countries where children were hardest hit by conflict in 2017.

    Thorning-Schmidt said the infants succumbed to indirect effects of conflict and war such as hunger, damaged infrastructure and hospitals, a lack of access to health care and sanitation, and the denial of Sis.

    According to Thorning-Schmidt, the babies probably would not have died if they had not been living in areas affected by conflict.

    “Our report shows that the way today’s wars are being fought is causing more suffering for children. Almost one in five children is living in areas impacted by conflict- more than at any time in the past two decades. The number of children being killed or maimed has more than tripled, and we are seeing an alarming increase in the use of aid as a weapon of war.

    Also, the Country Director of the organisation, Ben Foot, at the launch of Stop the War on Children campaign in Abuja, said “Our analysis clearly shows the situation is getting worse for children and the world is allowing this travesty to happen.

    “Everyday children come under attack because armed groups and military groups disregard international laws and treaties. From the use of chemical weapons to rape as a weapon of war, war crimes are being committed with impunity.”

    The organisation called on the international community not to tolerate this anymore but to hold accountable perpetrators who break the rule of war, urging independent bodies to probe and analyse all violations of humanitarian laws, human rights, especially children rights.

  • Water: first source of life and now of power and conflict in Nigeria?

    Whisky is for drinking; water is for fighting over.—Mark Twain
    Some hypothesise that increased water shortages around the world will lead to wars. The current Syrian civil war has been cited by many, including Dr Peter Engelke, senior Fellow at Washington-based think tank Atlantic Council, as a recent example. “Between 2007 and 2010, Syria experienced one of the worst droughts in recorded history…. Anders Berntell, executive director of 2030 Water Resources Group, a multi-sector water resources body, also suggests a link to Boko Haram and Al-Shabaab, whereby young people “realise that, as a result of the lack of natural resources, degraded land and lack of water there are no livelihood opportunities… There is no future for them. They become easily targeted.” They are more easily radicalised…. All of which would predict a bleak future – but some nations have worked out solutions. And they’re impressive ones that the rest of the world can learn from.—Tim Smedley
    Almost half of humanity will face water scarcity by 2030 and strategists from Israel to Central Asia prepare for strife.—Chris Arsenault
    Unequal power relations within states and conflicts between ethnic groups and social classes will be the greatest source of social tensions rising from deprivation,” said Ignacio Saiz from the social justice group. “Water too often is treated as a commodity, as an instrument with which one population group can suppress another…. Water scarcity is an issue exacerbated by demographic pressures, climate change and pollution.—Ignacio Saiz

    I have deliberately overloaded the epigraph today, to demonstrate that water stress affects many parts of the world and that what is striking about the attitude to it in Nigeria is the difference between the way Nigeria’s federal government thinks about growing water stress and the way countries like  Australia, Israel, and UAE, think about it. As we will argue later, other advanced countries think about applying technology to their water problem while Nigeria prefers to apply politics to its own.

    Nigeria as a corporate body and as individuals have already started to act as victims of water stress, by attempting to cure headache with decapitation. The 152-clause Executive Bill on federal take-over of management of all forms of water: surface and underground suggests an effort to remake Nigeria into a unitary state: “As the public trustee of the nation’s water resources the Federal Government, acting through the Minister and the institutions created in this Act or pursuant to this Act, shall ensure that the water resources of the nation are protected, used, developed, conserved, managed and controlled in a sustainable and equitable manner, for the benefit of all persons and in accordance with its Constitutional mandate.”

    Clause (5) reads: “States may make provisions for the management, use and control of water sources occurring solely within the boundaries of the State but shall be guided by the policy and principles of the Federal Government in relation to Integrated Water Resources Management, and this Act.” These two clauses have emptied sub-national units of the country of any significance by threatening the fundamental character of the country. Rather than a law for passing by the national assembly, the intent of the law to own all forms of water—actual and virtual—degrades the federating units and reduces them too appendages to the central government. State representatives in the national assembly do not have the power to surrender water that subtends and sustains the land in their constituencies to the central government. This bill should be withdrawn and brought back as constitutional amendment. It is too fundamental to the essence of Nigeria as a federal republic.

    Why would the central government want to treat water the way it has treated petroleum and gas and solid materials? It is to turn water into a commodity that it can also control exclusively and share like petroleum and gas.  Undoubtedly, water is acquiring by the day the force to threaten political stability in many countries. As Anders Berntell has once acknowledged, the Boko Haram and Al-Shabaab terrorist groups owe significant part of their radicalization to growing lack of natural resources including water that has reduced chances to make a respectable living for young people in the countries affected by Boko Haram and Al Shabaab.

    Other experts have also traced the anger and anxiety of herdsmen to threats to their pre-modern occupation and livelihood. Almost three decades ahead of projections on water-driven conflict between nations or sections of the same country, like Nigeria, the President’s bill before the Senate on making control and regulation of all surface and underground waters an exclusive function of the central government seems to be an avoidable heating of the Nigerian polity and society. What is needed is a blueprint to make water available to all sections of the country through use of innovative methods already being employed in other countries. It is not surprising that the bill is already stoking political and regional tension.

    Just within hours of the Senate’s preliminary debate of the Waterways Bill, the nation seems to be divided, because the bill, if passed into law, has the potential to threaten national unity. The recent meeting of South-south governors and the communique that ensues from it: “We also agreed that the bill currently making round in the national assembly which we understand is an executive bill on management of water resources. We are of the view that the provisions of the bill are offensive and obnoxious; we disagree with the centralized control of water resources as we are already dealing with the problem associated with over centralization of our country and we have agreed that the bill should be immediately withdrawn by the federal government and further consultations be made on that” have, as expected, sharpened what is fast-becoming Nigeria’s entry into what is already seeming like high-voltage hydro politics.

    Without mincing words, this bill is anti-federalism. Introducing a federal take-over of management of water resources at a time that the ruling party had established committees to make recommendations on restructuring and devolution of powers is one bill too many. Federating units are land-owning units and water—surface or underground—sustains land. Any bill that seeks to cut management of land from management of water wittingly or unwittingly seeks to de-nature the federation.

    A bill that is likely to overheat the polity, stoke the flames of ethnic and political tension, and threaten national stability is not the way to solve a global problem: water stress. Instead of a bill to politicize the growing water stress in Nigeria, the thing to do is for Nigeria to ‘technologize’ this challenge, i.e. apply benefits of new knowledge and technology to solving water scarcity in all parts of the country. Making management of water resources an exclusive federal function does not guarantee an end to water stress in the context of rising population that is projected to make Nigeria the third most populous country by 2050.

    What is needed is thinking out of the box and ahead, like Israel, UAE, Brazil, Australia, to name a few. These countries are increasing their water supply by capturing rain water and using an ‘Osmotic System’ of de-salination that makes sea water good for human consumption. A new method of de-salination made possible by scientific innovation is the way to end water stress without stoking the flames of regional tension and political instability. We left provision of power in the hands of the federal government half a century ago while we should have given such powers to sub-national governments. We are today bound to provide power at a much higher cost than we would have done decades ago. Transferring management of water resources, to the federal government, apart from such trans-country rivers like Niger and Benue, is to offer a solution to a problem that is not properly identified. Nothing seems to have broken that this bill is to fix. Water stress is now a global problem that can be solved with technology, not politics or law.

     

  • UN, World Bank launch joint report on conflict prevention

    The joint United Nations ( UN ) – World Bank report Pathways for Peace, launched on Wednesday, showed that violent conflicts around the world lead to heavy financial losses, and pointed out approaches to prevent them.

    Apart from causing immense human suffering, violent conflicts also lead to great financial losses, the report indicated.

    It also claims that engaging in conflict-prevention measures could mean saving between five and 70 billion dollars per year.

    “Pathways for Peace’’ is the first joint study from the UN and the World Bank focusing on conflict prevention.

    The report pointed out several causes of conflicts worldwide to include denying individuals the possibility to influence a society’s direction or their right to access natural resources, or to security and justice.

    “Development policies and programmes must be a core part of preventive efforts; when risks are high or building up, inclusive solutions through dialogue, adapted macroeconomic policies, institutional reform, and redistributive policies are required,’’ the report said.

    According to the report, inclusion is key, and preventive action needs to adopt a more people-centered approach that includes mainstreaming citizen engagement.

    Meanwhile, enhancing the participation of women and youth in decision making, as well as long-term policies to address the aspirations of women and young people are fundamental to sustaining peace.

    Xinhua/NAN

  • Funding threatens children’s education in conflict, disaster zones

    About 9.2 million children in conflict and disaster zones may not be able to acquire education, the United Nation Education Fund (UNICEF) has said.

    Of the $932 million needed this year for its education programmes in emergency countries, UNICEF has so far received recorded voluntary contributions of less than $115 million. The funds are necessary to give 9.2 million children affected by humanitarian crises access to formal and non-formal basic education.

    Funding shortfalls, the UN organ noted ahead of the G20 summit in Hamburg, are threatening education  for millions of children caught up in conflicts or disasters.

    In a statement made available to journalists in Abuja, UNICEF noted that of the $932 million needed this year for its education programmes in emergency countries, it has so far received recorded voluntary contributions of less than $115 million. The funds are necessary to give 9.2 million children affected by humanitarian crises access to formal and non-formal basic education.

    “Without education, children grow up without the knowledge and skills they need to contribute to the peace and the development of their countries and economies, aggravating an already desperate situation for millions of children,” said Muzoon Almellehan, UNICEF’s latest and youngest Goodwill Ambassador, speaking from Hamburg, Germany, where she is representing UNICEF at the G20 Summit.

    “For the millions of children growing up in war zones, the threats are even more daunting: Not going to school leaves children vulnerable to early marriage, child labour and recruitment by armed forces.”

    Funding gaps for UNICEF education programmes in some of the world’s hot spots vary from 36 per cent in Iraq, to 64 per cent in Syria, 74 per cent in Yemen and 78 per cent in the Central African Republic.

    Pursuing educational opportunities has been cited as one of the push factors leading families and children to flee their homes, often at great risk to their lives. A survey of refugee and migrant children in Italy revealed that 38 per cent of them headed for Europe to gain access to learning opportunities. A similar survey in Greece showed that one in three parents or caretakers said that seeking education for their children was the main reason they left their countries for Europe.

  • Ten killed in Cross River communal conflict

    Ten youths were killed at the weekend in renewed  hostilities  between Usumutong and Ediba communities in Abi Local Government Area of Cross River State.

    It was gathered that both communities had been embroiled in conflicts for years over the owner of a piece of land, leading to loss of lives and property.

    A resident, who spoke in confidence yesterday, said: “On Friday, there was a burial at Usumutong. The Ediba ethnic nationality used the opportunity of the other people participating in a burial to attack. The Ediba knew that the Usumutong, because of the burial, were unprepared for any attack.

    “They are still quarrelling over a piece of land. They are saying the last time there was a conflict, the Usumutong caused so much casualties on them, so they were looking for an opportunity to strike back, and they did so on Friday. It was a revenge attack.

    “The people of Usumutong, who suffered the attack, are planning a counterattack from what I am hearing, because it is like tomorrow (Monday) is the market day of the Ediba.

    “It is actually sad because the two communities are brothers and sisters; there is no difference between them. They are just killing one another like that. It is sad that in this age of civilisation, people are still doing such.”

    The State Security Adviser Mr Jude Ngaji said security agents had been drafted to the area and normalcy restored.

    He said the government would keep its eyes open to avert another outbreak of violence.

    Ngaji said: “The governor is livid by this development because great efforts have been made to bring peace to the area. We had got respected leaders of both communities and plans were still on to ensure both communities co-exist peacefully.

    “Then, all of a sudden, this happened. There will no longer be any Mr Nice Guy in dealing with this problem. The big stick will be employed this time to check the problem. The present administration will ensure that though the problem has been age-long, it will end once and for all. We will ensure that every perpetrator of this crisis will be brought to book.”

  • APC: Conflict is not the problem

    APC: Conflict is not the problem

    Nigeria’s former ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) dreamt of a 60-year hegemony over the land. But the dream crashed in less than 16 years as the party imploded under a perfect storm of internal conflicts and do-or-die ambition.

    In less than one year, the tragedy of defeat has been compounded by those divisions festering to the point where a once proud political behemoth became a caricature with three ‘chairmen’ laying claim to headship.

    Since coming to power, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has managed to paper over the cracks and present a united front in public, despite persistent rumours that all was far from well within its ranks.

    Former Lagos State Governor Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s explosive letter demanding the resignation of the national chairman of the party, John Oyegun, has blown any such pretence to smithereens.

    On the surface it was triggered by the handling of the party’s governorship primaries in Ondo State. But reading between the lines you sense the heart cry of a man who has been bottling up so much in the interest of the common good.

    Tinubu is an experienced politician who no doubt understands the implications of coming out publicly with such a crunching attack on Oyegun. He knows how it would be interpreted and the impression it would create about the party.

    Questions are already being asked as to whether history is repeating itself. Has the PDP disease of irreconcilable differences finally infected the APC? Can we assume that the same incurable divisions that laid the former ruling party low are about to send its successor to an early grave?

    Before we start writing obituaries, let’s put the issues in proper perspective.

    Way back in 1999, the founding fathers of what would become the PDP sought to create a party that would bring the mainstream of the Nigerian political class together under one ‘umbrella’ – their ideological beliefs notwithstanding.

    Given that over the years power had moved interchangeably between the military and civilians several times, the thinking was that there were – in reality – just two political ‘parties’ in Nigeria: the military and politicians.

    In trying to rally the bulk of the political class under one big tent, the promoters of the new party were making the honest admission that what separates parties in Nigeria is not ideology but simple ambition, and a sense that you are better placed to grab power by associating with a particular group or the other.

    Let’s not forget that even the political strand that eventually emerged at the last minute as the Alliance for Democracy (AD), was actually part of those discussions until some of the leaders sensed that in the contest for the presidential ticket of the new mega party, they would be at a disadvantage.

    The PDP formula produced a special purpose vehicle (SPV) that enabled the party to retain a vice grip on power for 16 years. It was not ideology or the absence of internal disagreements that made that happen.

    It took the longsuffering Nigerian opposition that same amount of time to come to the realisation that the only way they would ever make a credible challenge for power was to create their own SPV – another large tent where all comers were welcome – from the far right to the extreme left.

    So, those who mock the APC as a mere SPV set up for the sole purpose of ousting Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP don’t know what they are talking about. That’s what political parties anywhere on planet earth do – try to get power using every legal means they can think of.

    Against this backdrop it is unimaginable that these assemblages of strange bedfellows would be devoid of internal divisions. We should actually expect that as the multiple tendencies cohabiting under one roof contend for power and control there would always be tension.

    These internal divisions ordinarily ought not to be enough to bring down the house because the glue that binds all together is securing and retaining power.

    What has been the problem for PDP in the last seven years is therefore not the absence of internal conflict but the mismanagement of the divisions.

    The erstwhile ruling party foundered because the longer it held power the more arrogant and insensitive those who controlled it became. Rather than building the institution around a set of principles and rules, they sought to personify the party and dictate to it.

    Rules were not obeyed, agreements reached between supposed gentlemen were hurled out of the window because they were not written on tablets of stone, fairness and equity became strangers – leaving the party as democratic in name only.

    Former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s power grab through the failed Third Term Agenda set the tone given that the constitution clearly set out a two-term limit. Beginning with his fight with his former deputy, Atiku Abubakar, over this issue the party would not be the same again.

    The decline gathered pace with the unscripted demise of President Umaru Yar’Adua and the rise of Jonathan. By 2011, his bid to run for a second term while trampling on internal zoning arrangement prepared the ground for a northern regional revolt four years later.

    Of course, other factors like ambition, corruption and all-round incompetence of the administration led to the fall of the last PDP administration, but the inability of the then lords of the ruling party to manage internal differences led to the departure of five governors in one fell swoop.

    It was a pivotal moment, but so blinded with power had Jonathan and the then PDP chairmen become that they blithely dismissed the rebels as the problems of the party who they were only too glad to discard.

    Those who follow Nigerian politics understand that what happened in APC – from formation to electoral triumph – has been nothing short of the miraculous. Very few people expected that  those who came together to form it could ever work together.

    Former presidential adviser, Dr. Doyin Okupe, once famously declared that the unusual assemblage would collapse and never get to the stage of actually becoming a party. But at every turn APC defied expectations not because the potentials for ambitions and egos clashing was absent; it succeeded because its founders were more driven by the desire to oust PDP than anything else.

    I recall the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, retailing an anecdote about what happened in a heated moment between party leaders early last year. He said in  words to the effect that he knelt down and ‘told Asiwaju let us not fight now; let us win first – we can fight later.’

    The tragedy of the PDP was that it forgot what was in the common interest of its members and leaders. That ailment can also afflict APC if its leaders forget where they are coming from and how they managed to get elected when conventional wisdom said it was impossible.

    The myopic within the party can choose to make it about Tinubu and his supposed ambition to control things. But their lurid allegations contrast with the testimony of President Muhammadu Buhari about the man. He once said that while others were busy scheming for one thing or the other, the former Lagos governor ‘never thought of himself.’

    APC should ask itself if it could have handled the Ondo primaries and aftermath better. That is only one of the flashpoints. What about the bungling of the National Assembly leadership contest that led to the ruling party snatching defeat from the jaws of victory?

    The party’s problem today is not the existence of factions and ambitious people; it is the inability to lead by established rules and principles such that when people lose contests, they can lick their wounds content that they have received a fair shake.

    No patriot should be happy that PDP is in disarray, neither should anyone be crowing at the evident signs of trouble in APC. That Nigerian politicians have now largely gathered in these two big tents is a function of the natural evolution of our politics.

    Our desire should be the strengthening of these two parties so they can check each other and provide the people a credible governance alternative at every point in time.