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II. Background

Since before Nigeria’s independence in 1960 there have been tensions surrounding the arrangements for the government of the region surrounding Warri, the second most important oil town in Nigeria after Port Harcourt.¹ Warri itself, the largest town (though not the capital) of Delta State, is claimed as their homeland by three ethnic groups: the Itsekiri, the Urhobo, and the Ijaw. The Itsekiri, a small ethnic group of a few hundred thousand people whose language is related to Yoruba (one of Nigeria’s largest ethnic groups), also live in villages spread out along the Benin and Escravos Rivers into the mangrove forest riverine areas towards the Atlantic Ocean. The Urhobo, a much larger group numbering some millions related to the Edo-speaking people of Benin City, live in Warri town and to the north, on land. To the south and east, also in the swampy riverine areas, are members of the Western Ijaw, part of the perhaps ten million-strong Ijaw ethnic group, the largest of the Niger Delta, spread out over several states.

The question of the “ownership” of Warri has been in dispute for decades—since well before independence—and is the subject of heated debate in the Nigerian courts and media as well as in the homes of Warri. It forms the core argument in the presentation of the various ethnic groups as to the underlying causes of the violence of the last decade. Closely linked to the question of “ownership” is that of representation in the formal structures of government, both at local government and state level. Delta State was created in 1991, with several others, by the military regime of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida. Both Ijaw and Urhobo see the current dispensation in the state, in which Itsekiri dominate government structures in the three Warri local government areas (LGAs), Warri North, Warri South, and Warri South West, as unfair. They complain that this dominance means that the Itsekiri and their traditional leader, the Olu of Warri (itself a contested title, having been changed in 1952 from the Olu of Itsekiri), benefit disproportionately from government resources—both at the level of government contracts and appointments, and, for example, when it comes to obtaining “certificates of origin” in order to obtain government bursaries for higher education. Control of government structures also brings other benefits, notably a greater amount of contact with the oil companies, which may lead to the award of valuable contracts. Among the demands of the Ijaw and Urhobo are the creation of new wards and local government areas which they believe would ensure that their ethnic groups are more effectively represented.

Human Rights Watch takes no position on who the “true indigenes” of Warri are, nor on the creation of wards or local government areas. However, the long term peace of Delta State clearly depends in part on the resolution of these political issues in a manner that ensures equitable representation of all those living in the state regardless of origin. Above all, the process of arriving at a final arrangement must be seen to be fair. The concept of “indigene” is itself problematic: all those concerned are Nigerians, and should have equal rights in relation to the government of the state where they live.²

The first major outbreak of violence in the Warri area in recent years was in March 1997, and centered on the creation, by the then military regime, of a new local government area, Warri South West, and the location of its headquarters.³ An Ijaw expectation based on official statements that the local government headquarters would be in Ogbe-Ijoh, an Ijaw town, was disappointed when the location published in the federal government gazette turned out to be Ogidigben, an Itsekiri area. From March to May, widespread clashes continued, in which hundreds of people died on each side. More than 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) production were closed down for some weeks.⁴ The Delta State government under Military Administrator Col. J. Dungs appointed a commission of inquiry into the violence, chaired by Justice Alhassan Idoko, which met during June and July 1997. The report of the inquiry was never published nor its recommendations implemented or incorporated into a government “white paper” setting out the official response to the inquiry’s findings.

Violence has regularly erupted in the region since then, leading to clamp-downs by the authorities. In October 1998, a curfew was declared in Warri town by the new military administrator, Navy Commander Walter Feghabor, after at least five people were shot dead in clashes between Ijaws and Itsekiris and a large number of houses set on fire. Violence nevertheless continued, in Warri town and in the surrounding creeks, with attacks on leaders of each community. Oil exports were reduced by several hundred thousand barrels a day for several weeks.

In late May and June 1999, at the time of the hand-over from a military to civilian government in Nigeria, serious violence once again broke out in and around Warri, when new local government officials were due to be sworn in for the contested local government area created in 1997. Up to two hundred people were reported to have been killed in raids by ethnic Ijaw and Itsekiri militia on areas inhabited by members of the other ethnic group. The new civilian governor, James Onanefe Ibori, imposed a curfew which remained in place for months. Hundreds of government troops were once again deployed to Warri town and its environs. Newly sworn-in President Olusegun Obasanjo visited Warri on June 11, 1999, and pledged to find a fair solution to the problems. In September 1999, the Delta State Assembly passed a bill moving the Warri South West local government headquarters from Ogidigben to Ogbe Ijoh. Though the intense fighting of 1999 died down, there were new clashes throughout the next four years, in which, cumulatively, dozens of people were killed. Hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil production were also lost in periodic shut-downs of flow stations following occupation by armed or unarmed youths (a term that in Nigeria can include men up to thirty-five or forty in age), or by other local residents, including women’s groups; in some cases based on grievances with the oil companies, in others on discontent with government.

There has been no systematic investigation of the crimes committed in the Warri conflict since 1997, nor of the number of casualties or damage to property caused. There have been few arrests and even fewer, if any, prosecutions for these killings: either the government security forces have shot dead those involved in violence in the course of arresting them; or if there are arrests, the suspects are released after interventions with the police by their leaders. There are also credible reports from across Nigeria that many criminal suspects are summarily executed while in police custody. Often there are no consequences of any kind for those involved in the violence: there have been none for the political leaders of those who are fighting on the ground. The continued impunity for years of brutal violence is a fundamental cause of the renewed outbreak of fighting in 2003.