(Culled from Wall Street Journal)
Alhaji Dokubo-Asari once stalked the mangrove-choked creeks of the Niger Delta, a leaf stuck to his forehead for good luck, as a crew that he ran bled oil from pipelines and sold it to smugglers. "Asari fuel," they called it.
Last year, Nigeria's state oil company began paying him $9 million a year, by Mr. Dokubo-Asari's account, to pay his 4,000 former foot soldiers to protect the pipelines they once attacked.
He shrugs off the unusual turn of events. "I don't see anything wrong with it," said the thickly built former gunman, lounging in a house gown at his home here in Nigeria's capital.
Nigeria is shelling out hundreds of millions of dollars a year to maintain an uneasy calm in the oil-rich delta, where attacks ranging from theft to bombings to kidnappings pummeled oil production three years ago, to as low as 500,000 barrels on some days. Now production is back up to 2.6 million barrels daily of low-sulfur crude of the sort favored by U.S. refineries, which get nearly 9% of their supply here.
The gilded pacification campaign is offered up by the government as a success story. But others say the program, including a 2009 amnesty, has sent young men in Nigeria's turbulent delta a different message: that militancy promises more rewards than risks.
Violence in the Niger Delta
Militants in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta began a campaign of kidnappings and pipeline bombings in the early 2000s, upset over pollution and the region's endemic poverty. After a government-sponsored amnesty program in 2009, violence dropped and production went back up. But oil theft, a lucrative criminal industry, has drawn many militants new and old back into the delta's winding creeks.
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While richly remunerated former kingpins profess to have left the oil-theft business, many former militant foot soldiers who are paid less or not at all by the amnesty, and have few job prospects, continue to pursue prosperity by tapping pipelines.
Now, oil theft appears to be on the rise again. Royal Dutch Shell RDSB.LN -1.24%PLC's Nigerian unit estimates that more than 150,000 barrels of oil are stolen from Nigerian pipelines daily. That is one of the lower estimates. In May, theft from one pipeline got so bad that Shell simply shut it down.
"Everybody seems to believe…that the Niger Delta problem is over," said a former government mediator, Dimieari Von Kemedi. "It's just on pause. The challenge is to move from pause to stop."
Meanwhile, Nigeria is facing a separate militancy, in the form of the radical Islamic group Boko Haram, whose guerrilla attacks on churches and police stations in a different part of the country have left hundreds dead. Some legislators have proposed extending amnesty to Boko Haram, as well.
It is an expensive proposition. This year alone, Nigeria will spend about $450 million on its amnesty program, according to the government's 2012 budget, more than what it spends to deliver basic education to children.
Under the arrangement, the government grants living allowances to tens of thousands of former members of the bandit crews and sends them to vocational classes, in sites ranging from Houston to London to Seoul. These costs are on top of millions of dollars paid at the outset to the crews' leaders for handing in their weapons.
For a few, the program has meant spectacular rewards. To improve ties with former delta warlords, the government invited the top "generals," as they call themselves, for extended stays on the uppermost, executive floors of Abuja's Hilton hotel.
The Nigerian state oil company, according to one of its senior officials, is giving $3.8 million a year apiece to two former rebel leaders, Gen. Ebikabowei "Boyloaf" Victor Ben and Gen. Ateke Tom, to have their men guard delta pipelines they used to attack. Another general, Government "Tompolo" Ekpumopolo, maintains a $22.9 million-a-year contract to do the same, the official said.
A liaison to Mr. Tom declined to comment on the contracts. Mr. Ekpumopolo didn't return phone calls and messages. Mr. Ben, when reached for comment, asked, "How much money is involved in this interview?" and then hung up.
Later, he sent an enigmatic text: "Very wel dn im nt dispose bt cnsider 100%al u wnt ,we need investors in niger delta absolute peace is guarante."
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Reuters
Ex-militant Alhaji Dokubo-Asari, who was granted bail in 2007, supported Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan in 2012.
For President Goodluck Jonathan, a Niger Delta native, such lavish expenditures have become a political liability. Despite a growing economy, his country of 167 million struggles to finance even the basics, starting with power plants, roads and sewers. A blossoming middle class in Nigeria's cities has put further strain on public infrastructure.
Yet because four-fifths of government revenue flows from the oil fields, aides to the president defend the high cost of peace by saying the treasury would face an even worse drain if a full-blown militancy in the delta flared up again. "If it's too huge, what are the alternatives?" said Oronto Douglas, a senior adviser to Mr. Jonathan.
"For you to address the whole issue of poverty and development, you need some kind of peace," added Mutiu Sunmonu, managing director for Shell's Nigerian unit. "That is what I think the amnesty program has offered."
Enticed by the program, the militants emerged a couple of years ago from the oil-soaked swamps of the delta. Some of the leaders took up residence in the executive floors of Abuja's Hilton and through much of 2010 and early 2011 spent weeks or months enjoying the Executive Lounge's complimentary supply of Hennessey V.S.O.P. cognac, priced at $51 a shot on the room-service menu. Over a buffet of fiery Nigerian dishes—gumbos, Jollof rice pilafs, goat stews—they rubbed shoulders with the country's leading politicians and influence peddlers, who often live in the floor's $700-a-night art-deco rooms.
"These are young men who came out of the creeks and were given the opportunity to hang out with the crème de la crème, wearing gold watches and drinking from gold-rimmed teacups," said Tony Uranta, a member of the government's Niger Delta Technical Committee advisory group and a frequent Hilton executive-floor guest. "It's a natural thing."
Most have since moved out of the hotel. "It's too high-profile," said an aide to one ex-warlord, Mr. Tom.