Will there ever be a time that the Ijaw and Itsekiri in Delta State will live in unity? Events of the last decades suggest it will never happen. S’South Regional Editor Shola O’Neil reports on the fresh violence between the two groups in Escravos
The early Tuesday morning fracas between the Ijaw and Itsekiri in Escravos area of Warri South West Local Government Area of Delta State once again highlighted how delicate the relationship between the two ethnic groups has remained, over 10 years after the end of the fratricidal war between them from 1997 to 2014.
That war, which was the predecessor of the Niger Delta crisis, led to thousands of death, particularly on the side of the Itsekiris, whose communities were plundered and sacked from Warri South, South West and North LGAs.
Trouble again broke out in the wee hours of that Tuesday after three irate Itsekiri boys attacked and brutally wounded an Ijaw security guard working at the site of a deep sea project in the area. The dastardly attack drew a very tough and brutal response from Ijaw militias.
Over 30 youths armed with sophisticated weapon, took off from one of their communities, thought to be Oporoza, and stormed Madangho, an Itsekiri community located opposite the Escravos Tank Farm and Gas to Liquid complex of Chevron Nigeria Limited, in the dead of the night.
For several hours they rained bullets on the town from the seashore. People, including the elderly women, youths and children who were rudely woken up from sleep, scampered for safety in the dead of the night. Several persons were wounded in their desperate bids to get out of harm’s away. The fleeing persons crawled out of the ‘war front’ on their belly, ostensibly to avoid stopping flying bullets. One source said flying bullets wheezed passed his head severally.
“It was almost a return to the Warri crisis; fathers forgot their children and ran for dear lives. Men, women and everybody took off and ran into the bushes, some jumped into the river and swam away to safe shores. It was the same madness all over again,” a menial laborer in the town who simply identified as Friday told our reporter.
When the staccato of gunfire died, some of the marauders disembarked from their boats, doused houses with petrol and set them afire. They left a trail of destruction on other parts of the town. Hours later, an eerie silence fell over the darkness, reaching as far as Ode-Ugborodo, Ajuadaibo, Ogidigben and Arunto, the other Itsekiri settlements that make up Ugborodo, and even Warri and beyond.
Panicky inhabitants were already packing their bags and girding their loins, ready to beat a hasty exit should the gunfire come nearer their in habitation. Painful memories of deaths, blazing guns and burning houses came back for those who witnessed the seven-year pogrom. However thry were relieved when the gunfire died and reports came that the siege was over.
But the interregnum of silence didn’t last long; the marauders returned again with more weapons and ammunition and the orgy of shooting and violence returned with them. But this time the sporadic gunfire attracted the attention of a military post in the area.
A source said: “The soldiers came and they faced-off for a while, after which the marauders felt they had had enough. They pulled out and left, but kept on shooting until their boats were safely in the centre of the river and zoomed off.”
Tension had gripped the areas since early January when ex-militants threatened to unleash mayhem if President Jonathan did not win the election. The tension became even more palpable when the APC candidate won the March 28 election.
“That night we monitored the results until the winner was announced. We had people watching the waterways for any sign of impending invasion because we know that they (ex-militants) cannot go and fight the Hausa/Fulani in the north, we would be their targets,” one Ugborodo youth said.
Although the intervention of the military men brought the Tuesday morning party to an abrupt close, it was clear that the intention of the attackers was not to kill their victims. “It was more a show of might more than anything. They wanted to show their counterparts that they could still hit them hard if they want to,” a security source in the area told our reporter.
Frantic telephone calls between some notable elements on both sides pulled the attackers out of the brink. One of the Itsekiri youths, who called our reporter when the second shooting started at about 3:45am, later said: “We learnt that the council chairman, Chief George Ekpemupolo (sibling of Government Ekpemupolo (Tompolo), David Tonwe and Tompolo were in constant touch that night and made frenetic efforts to reach out to their people to ensure that the matter didn’t escalate. They have been working together for peace and they were able to calm the situation and ensure that it didn’t get out of hand.”
The Commanding Officer, 3 Battalion of the Nigerian Army, Lt Col. Ekong Bassey, confirmed that the leaders from both sides waded into p the matter and we’re working hard to ensure that the situation did not escalate further. He urged both parties to continue to be law abiding and not take action that could torpedo the existing peace in the area.
Still, inspire of the security presence, the aggrieved Ijaw youths mounted blockades on the waterways and prevented boats carrying Itsekiri people or persons from the Itsekiri communities from going to Warri and other destinations. Transport boats taking passengers and commodities to the area from upland towns were also turned back.
Chief Ayirimi Emami denounced the invasion and subsequent burning of houses in Madangho. He traced the initial action of the Itsekiri youths to the disagreement over the project land and the clearing of same site without consultation with the committee set up by the state government.
“Besides, whatever happened at the project site was not enough for some people to roll out guns and visit mayhem on defenseless community people. It is a clear act of banditry and totally uncalled for and must be condemned. There are fights everyday in other communities, people don’t unleash heavy weapons and brute force on their neighbours. This has shown that there is more to it,” Emami told our reporter in a telephone chat on Wednesday.
His claim confirmed persistence of mutual distrust between the two sides over the years, in spite of several attempts at peace building. Our reporter noted that minor disagreements between them are almost always followed by threats of war and reenactment of the seven years of bloodletting and bestiary killings.
Our investigation revealed that the Tuesday skirmish was a carryover of the Ijaw/Itsekiri crisis. Ikpokpo (or Kpokpo), depends on which side is staking the claim, was said to be one of the communities seized by the Ijaws after sacking dozens of communities from their weaker neighbours in the 1990s crisis.
The community, which borders Ugborodo and Gbaramatu, Ijaw and Itsekiri clans, had remained almost fallow since the end of the war. It became attractive following the siting of the $16billion Delta Gas City project in the area by the outgoing President Goodluck Jonathan administration.
Although the project was initially named after Ogidigben, one of five settlements that make up the Ugborodo community, trouble started when the Gbaramatu demanded their inclusion as stakeholder. Their argument was that Ikpokpo, which is site of the deep sea arm of the mega project, was theirs. Chief Godspower Gbenekama, a prominent Gbaramatu leader, said the land was theirs, warning that they would resist the injustice.
The contention and subsequent threat of war by the Ijaw infamously led to President Goodluck Jonathan’s postponement of the groundbreaking ceremony at least thrice. He sited security challenges and threat to peace. The Itsekiri, in return, famously tagged him an ethnic President, memo they also accused of pandering to the whims and caprices of his kinsmen.
Although the ceremony was later performed on the 26 of March, it was alleged that the President motive merely part of his national vote-hunting drive on the eve of the presidential election,which he later lost, than because he felt genuinely committed to the project, as the Itsekiri had threatened to vote massively against him.
Prior to the March 26 event, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), which oversees the Federal Government’s stake in the project; Delta State Government and other stakeholders from the two ethnic groups met severally to hammer out a mutually satisfactory peace deal. According to the term of the deal, the gas project remain in Ogidigben, while the deep sea port recede into Gbaramatu in order to create a win-win scenario for all parties.
Despite that deal, some stakeholders, particularly the Itsekiri people remained unperturbed and unimpressed. Notable among the disgruntled member was the effervescent Chief Emami. He insisted that the NNPC had not come out to explain to the Itsekiri if it was acquiring a fresh parcel of land from the Ijaw or it if was the same land that they have earmarked for the project.
Notable Itsekiri politicians and aspirants kept their part of the deal and worked with Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan to ‘deliver’ the President and other candidates of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the general elections. Emami, who was uncomfortable with the deal, left the PDP and pitch his tent with the opposition All Progressive Congress. Emami, He accused some of his kinsmen of selling their tribe for their business and political interests.
At the time of this report on Wednesday, calm had return to the area; the waterways was opened to nor business and people of the sides have left the trenches. Yet, some persons believe that the existing peace is merely the peace of the graveyard.
In the words of one of the beleaguered residents, “Nobody knows when another round of shooting will take place. We are not sleeping with our eyes close yet, not today or tomorrow.”
