NIGERIA: NIGER DELTA CHRISTIAN YOUTH MOVEMENT

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E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/30/2018
TAGS: PGOV PTER ECON KCRM KCOR NI
SUBJECT: NIGERIA: NIGER DELTA CHRISTIAN YOUTH MOVEMENT
TELLS JTF DON'T KILL MILITANTS, TRY THEM AS CRIMINALS

Classified By: Consul General Donna M. Blair, Reasons 1.4 (B,D)

1.(C) Summary: On October 24, Rex Anighoro, President of the
Niger Delta Christian Youth Movement (NDCYM),told PolOffs
the only way out of the Niger Delta problem is to involve
credible religious leaders. NDCYM is providing safe houses
for militant youths who want to renounce violence, and is
seeking ways to provide training and employment for them.
Anighoro urges the military Joint Task Force (JTF) to treat
militants as criminals, aresting and bringing them to trial,
rather than killing them and/or attacking villages suspected
of harboring them. End Summary.


2. (SBU) Rex Anighoro, President of the Niger Delta Christian
Youth Movement (NDCYM) told PolOffs on October 24 that the
so-called militancy in the Niger Delta had become
criminalized on two levels. On the one hand, the leaders of
the various militant camps have turned into businessmen with
networks of firms engaged in a wide-range of businesses and
controlling investments around Nigeria and abroad, he
alleged. On the other hand, the foot-soldiers from the camps
increasingly engage in kidnappings and illegal bunkering on
their own account and purely for profit. Anighoro alleged
that the leaders of the so-called militants extorted
contracts from local and state governments by threatening to
increase the level of violence if their preferred contractors
did not get the business.


3. (C) Anighoro remarked that the governors were not willing
to meet with the NDCYM but regularly did business with the
criminals calling themselves militants. He noted that the
ties between local governments and the militants are often
very close. For example, the Chairman of Warri South West
Local Government Area in Delta State is George Ekpompolo, the
younger brother of the leader of one of the largest militant
camps, "Tom Polo." Furthermore, he maintained the pervasive
policy of "settling" the militants means not only that the
militants return to violence as soon as the payments stop,
but creates so many intermediaries who profit from the system
that local elites have little interest in altering the status
quo. According to Anighoro among those profiting from the
status quo are many commanders in the JTF, who are involved
in and/or profit from illegal bunkering activities.


4. (U) The NDCYM believes the only way out of this vicious
cycle is to get credible religious leaders involved.
Anighoro pointed to the example of Dr. Martin Luther King.
Religious leaders, Anighoro believes, can advocate an end to
the violence and turn criminal militancy back into
intellectual militancy. The rights of the people of the
Niger Delta need to be fought for, Anighoro argued, but by
legal means. Meanwhile, NDCYM is working to provide safe
houses for militant youths who want to renounce violence, and
to provide on a small scale trining and employment for them.


5. (SBU) Anighoro alleged that the JTF is composed primarily
of Muslim soldiers from the North of Nigeria. (Note: We have
heard from other sources that the JTF is reluctant to deploy
military personnel from the Niger Delta to their home states.
End Note.) He claims that this fuels the perception among
youth in the Niger Delta that the JTF is an instrument of
northern oppression. The image of the JTF is further
tarnished by the fact that it often uses "excessive force"
against the population. Anighoro argued that the militants
are criminals and criminals should be arrested not killed
outright. The JTF, however, does not come to arrest
suspected militants and turn them over to a court of law, but
rather attacks entire camps and or communities suspected of
harboring militants.


6. (C) Comment: NDCYM appears to be a small organization
founded by Anighoro, who was trained as a lawyer but has
worked as a Gospel singer. Anighoro seems passionate about
helping the youth of the Niger Delta find a way out of the

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current dead-end situation, but does not appear to have great
influence. Nevertheless, the points he makes about the
complicity of the JTF in criminal bunkering, their brutality
against communities and their mandate to kill, rather than
arrest and try militants, lends support to the call of Niger
Delta leaders, who want the JTF withdrawn from the Delta.


7. (U) This cable was cleared by Abuja.
BLAIR