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Danger rises as the sun sets in Warri. And
with darkness, the demons which have
possessed the city since 1997 come alive. They take the shape of militias who find the night a perfect cover to loot and torch houses, security operatives sent to restore peace but some of whom have found a thriving trade in extortion, and the criminally minded who, almost at will, kill, steal and destroy. Warri is indeed a risky place at nightfall. It is hell on earth.
But you won’t suspect this during the day. It is at this time that the heart of the oil-rich city throbs. It thrives with its busy streets and seemingly cheerful residents; rich oil workers in latest Sport Utility Vehicles, SUVs; and the weather-beaten commercial motor cyclists that are everywhere.
Warri is complex. And this has been its bane. Though a melting pot of Nigeria. Warri metropolis is home to three indigenous groups. These are the Ijaw, Urhobo and Itsekiri. They share similar cultures, but that has not stopped them from going for one another’s throat. Since recorded history these ethnic neighbours have bicked, but the crisis took a bad turn in 1997.
The Ijaw protested the relocation of the headquarters by blocking the Warri River, an important transport route for the three LGAs. The Itsekiri fell slighted and attacked prominent Ijaw people, in the process killing private security personnel of Edwin Clark, a former federal commissioner and an Ijaw leader. Several times, the dance of death has moved to metropolitan Warri, where houses and other properties belonging to members of rival ethnic group are destroyed. The Urhobo have not played the ostrich. Often they pitch tents with the Ijaw; at other times they go it alone.
Nigeria produces about 2.2 million barrels of crude oil everyday and a substantial portion of this is from the troubled LGAs of Delta State. For the oil companies which have chosen to stay behind, they pay dearly for this. Their workers are regularly kidnapped by restive youths in exchange for money or promise of employment, while they sometime produce below installed capacity due to the disturbance. Rita Ekpewu, administrative secretary of the Warri Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture, WACCIMA, says the economy of Warri has taken a serious beating as a result of the crisis. “Investors have all run away,” she explained. “(They) have been scared away because of youth restiveness. It has affected the socio-economic and other aspects of human life.”
Jonathan Ari, a local businessman cannot agree more. Ari, a contractor, says his business has fared badly since most of the clients who used to patronize him have fled Warri. According to the Ijaw chief he has even spent his own money to broker peace between the groups to no avail.
Nigeria loses billions of naira yearly because of restiveness in Warri and other areas of the Niger-Delta. This is in the form of cut in the production of crude oil due to oil facilities being shut for days. The Niger-Delta, which encompasses eight states, accounts for more than 95 per cent of Nigeria’s foreign exchange earnings, almost all of which comes from the sale of its crude oil and gas, but it is largely underdeveloped. Nowhere is this more evident than in Warri. Human and environmental rights activists reason that the internecine warfare is borne out of poverty and frustration in the midst of plenty. Although, its metropolis has a fair network of roads, many of them are in bad shape and lacking adequate drainage. The outskirts of the city are in a more terrible shape. These are rustic Ijaw and Itsekiri communities cut off from civilization by polluted rivers and creeks, or impassable roads. Ironically, it is in these areas that the actual exploration of oil takes place.
If the economy is bad, nightlife is virtually dead. For the once boisterous city, now most residents do not step out, or do so in fright, at dusk. It is not for nothing. The night in Warri is pregnant, with dangers and no one is ever sure of the abnormality it might give birth to. This air of insecurity has naturally taken a toll on nightlife. Very few people visit night-clubs or any of the after-hours bars that used to thrive in Warri.
Investigations reveal that indeed night clubs and other places of relaxation are becoming more ethnic based. At Ekurede-Itsekiri, night-spot owners declined to talk, but Bemigho Itire, an Itsekiri and a self-confessed night crawler, said he would be surprised to see an Ijaw in Benbo Inn, a bar and restaurant in the Itsekiri area. When asked if that was the case before the first major conflict in 1997, Itire said no. “Before the 1997 crisis, I could hardly draw a boundary between the two communities, but now there are places I cannot go for my safety.”
So, for Warri there seems no clearing in the woods not unlike the West Bank or Gaza Strip in the Middle East.
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