ABSTRACT
Arising
from several social deprivations, neglect, unemployment and environmental
distortions, the Niger Delta area in the South-South region of Nigeria had
witnessed an awful dislocation of man and materials, to which the inflected
pains and hardship upon the people had resulted in adopting differing survival
instincts to overcome the long years of failed governance, to which hostage
taking or kidnapping had become part of the outburst. The study in view of this
intends to evaluate the cause and the possible panacea. This is important as
the findings of the study will help to dissuade youth restiveness, economic
sabotage and political instability amongst others.
The
study adopts primary and secondary data. The primary data focus on the
utilization of oral face to face interview of key informants like: 3 local
government Chairmen, 3 traditional rulers, 6 youth leaders, 4 political
scientists, 3 historians and 2 Town Union leaders. The secondary data uses
library archival method, CD – ROM, materials from textbooks, journals,
articles, magazines and newspapers. The work also uses descriptive, documentary
and historical approaches. Analytical approach was utilized to arriving at the
expected goals.
The
work revealed that hostage taking is due partly to unemployment and social
deprivation. It noted that failed system, particularly governance in Niger
Delta arouse the growing incidence of hostage taking or kidnapping in Delta
state. The study observed that long years of neglect and abandonment by
successive government in Nigeria polity helped in encouraging youths in
adopting survival instincts leading to hostage taking. The study find out that
Niger Delta (especially Delta State) might have been one of state where hostage
taking had begun in Nigeria.
Conclusively,
the study is of the opinion that hostage taking and petty crimes in the Creek
of the Delta State might be curtailed if the governments in its obligation are
able to meet up its mandates and vows to the people by doing for the people
what they cannot do for themselves. The issue of hostage taking might be a
thing of past if the youths are duly engaged. The government should create
enabling environment with adequate human capital development projects that
could enhance self-reliance amongst youths and the unemployment.
TABLE
OF CONTENTS
Title Page i
Certification ii
Dedication iii
Acknowledgements iv
Abstract v
Table of Contents vi
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.0 Background of the Study 1
1.2 Statements of the Problems 4
1.3 The Objectives of the Study 5
1.4 Significance of the Study 5
1.5 Research Methodology 6
1.6 Scope of the study 6
1.7 Limitation of the Study 7
1.8 Definitions of Terms 7
1.9 Organization of the study 8 Reference
8
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Records
of Hostage Taking In Global Perspective 10
2.2 The Rise Of
Hostage Taking In Niger Delta 14
2.3 Land and
People Of Niger Delta 16
Reference 26
CHAPTER
THREE: HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
3.1 The History of Delta State 30
3.2 Causes of Hostage Taking In Nigeria 32
References 39
CHAPTER
FOUR: GENERAL ANALYSIS
4.1
Impact of Hostage Taking In Delta 41
4.2 Socio-Political Implications 43 Reference 45
CHAPTER
FIVE: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5.1
Findings 43
5.2
Summary 54
5.3 Conclusion 56
5.4 Recommendation
60
BIBLIOGRAPHY
CHAPTER
ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND
TO THE STUDY
Hostage taking is today
considered a crime or a terrorist act; the use of the word in the sense of
abduction became current only in the 1970s1. The criminal activity
is known as kidnapping. An acute situation where hostages are kept in a
building or a vehicle that has been taken over by armed terrorists or common
criminals is often called a hostage crisis.
Hostage taking either politically
motivated; inte2nded to raise a ransom or to enforce an exchange
against other hostages or even condemned convicts. However, in some countries
hostage taking for profit has become an "industry", ransom often
being the only demand3.
Moreover, the menace of
hostage taking is not a problem that is peculiar to Nigeria; rather it is a
global problem. The enigmatic monster has ravaged several advanced countries of
the world, some Middle Eastern countries, as well as the third world countries.
References would be made of the activities of hostage takers in some selected
countries on the global scene, before it is narrowed down to the local level at
the Delta State in Nigeria.
During the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, the Germans took as
hostages the prominent people or officials from towns or districts when making
requisitions and also when foraging and it was a general practice for the major
and adjoin of a town which failed to pay a fine imposed upon it to be seized as
hostage and retained till the money was paid4.
The Iran hostage crisis began
in November 4, 19795, when a mob of Iranians seized the U.S. embassy
in Tehran, taking a large group of employees hostage. Eleven months earlier, a
revolution led by the Islamic fundamentalist Ruholla Khomeini had overthrown
Mohammed Reza Pahlaui, The Shah of Iran. Nineteen hostages were released within
a few weeks, the remaining fifty-two were held for 444 days6. When
it became clear that the Iranian government was not going to resolve the
problem, President Jimmy Carter moved to freeze Iranian assets, both in the
United States and beyond.
Diplomatic efforts were
launched through the United Nations and various private intermediaries, but by
March 1980 it had became clear that none of the rival political groups in Iran
was willing to risk the unpopularity of letting the hostages go. This impasse
led President Carter to order a rescue effort by helicopter, but three of the
eight helicopters failed before reaching Tehran, and the mission had to be
aborted eight men died in the operation7.
In the meantime, the present
trend of hostage taking in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria is not a
phenomenon that is just happening in the country, the menace had dated back to
1984, when Alhaji Umar Dikko, former Minister for Transport and Chairman of the
lucrative Presidential task force on the importation of rice under Shagari
regime between 1979 and 1983 was held hostage by some officials of the Nigeria
Ministry of External Affairs in Britain.8
Reports in the British mass
media indicated that Alhaji Umar Dikko was abducted on July 5, 1984 in the
garden of his London home by armed men who bundled him into a yellow van alter
a desperate and violent struggle between Alhaji Umar and his abductors.9
The British police was alerted of the abduction of Alhaji Umaru by his private
secretary, Miss Elizabeth Hayes (who witnessed the struggle).10
Customs officials already
alerted by the British police of Alhaji Umaru's abduction, became suspicious of
two wooden creates reportedly being loaded into a Nigeria airways Cargo plane
at Stansted Airport and declared as diplomatic baggage. Emanating from one of
the creates was a powerful medical smell which assuaged the sensitive nostrils
of a customs official. More significant were two Mercedes-Benz cars with
Nigeria High Commission diplomatic plates (2220270 and 2220274)11
parked at Stansted Airport. Suspicious aroused, customs official stopped the
loading of the Cargo while they made discrete phone calls to the Home Office
and Prime Minister's office for directives. There upon, the departure of the
Cargo plane (which had been scheduled for the evening) was delayed on the
orders of the Scotland Yard.
British anti-terrorist squad rushed to Stansted Airport and found
that the two wooden creates (each measuring 4 ½ x 5½ feet) addressed to the
ministry of External Affairs, Lagos and declared as diplomatic baggage, had no
diplomatic markings on them as required by Article 27 (4) of the Vienna
Convention on Diplomatic intercourse and immunities of 196112. The
creates were inspected, as required by Article 36 (2) of the Vienna convention,
in the presence of Mr. Okon Edet, an attaché at the Nigerian High Commission
who was at Stansted Airport on the day of the alleged abduction attempt
Inspection became inevitable when one recalls the recent shooting incident at
the Libyan Embassy in London confirming that guns had been smuggled into the
United Kingdom under the guise of diplomatic immunities and privileges13.
Inside the two creates were
each found two men; one Isreali and a Nigerian diplomat (who, according to
United Kingdom authorities, was not accredited to the United kingdom) position
with a tube pushed into his throat apparently to assist him breath during the
long flight to Lagos, and an Isreali, a leading anesthetist, in possession of
drugs and a syringe14.
1.2. STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
Against the level of
dislocations and devastations in the Niger Delta region, coupled with the air
of the oil, gas, fertilizer, brewing and fishing companies in the region who
had conducted their activities with impunity; then the effects of sulphur
dioxide distortions and all other impediments that did not only render the
region unproductive, non-viable, a waste land and a contaminated land but that,
to which its shortfall had created a high degree of unemployment amongst the
citizens, hopelessness, joblessness and homelessness amongst others, the
followings stand out as the research possible questions:
i.
What
are the major factors mitigating violence and restiveness in the Niger Delta
region?
ii.
Has
the federal government of Nigeria being responsive to the mirage of Problem
confronting the People of the region?
iii.
Can
hostage/kidnapping be the solution to the level of restiveness in the region?
iv.
Could on unemployment, environmental
dislocation, pollution and general neglect be central to all struggles in the
Niger Delta?
v.
What
is the relationship between the host communities and the
government/multinational corporation?
1.3.
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
Premised
on studying historical evaluation of hostage taking in Delta State, the
followings are the specific objectives:
i.
To discuss
the factors and causes of hostage taking in Delta State.
ii.
To examine
the activities of the Delta State leaders and the government in relations to
environmental distortion and dislocation.
iii.
To explain
the level of neglect and abandonment of the youths in term of job availability
and restiveness.
iv.
To evaluate
the role of Federal Government in combating this menace.
v.
To re-examine
whether hostage /kidnapping is the possible panacea to restiveness.
1.4. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE
STUDY
This
study is significance in several ways:
First,
the issue of hostage taking which is a new phenomenon after the long years of
military suppression and marginalization of the people of the region seemed to
be the only way that the level of denial and neglect of the region could be
remembered, however, sent a wrong signal to the nation-Nigeria in term of
stability.
Secondly,
the work is of great importance because apart from exposing the ills of hostage
taking will also dissuade many class of people within and outside Nigeria to
know the negative impact of not benefitting immensely from the level of opening
up in the region (most especially the investors that will be afraid of coming
to Nigeria because of the fear of been kidnap).
Thirdly,
this research would serve as an eye opener to foresee, anticipate, prepare and
thereby be able to understand the hazard called hostage taking.
Fourth,
this study also lies on the overriding fact that the findings and subsequent
suggestions and recommendations will be of immense benefit to further research.
Finally,
the study will help to open the frontier of knowledge and contributes to serve
as reference point to other researchers on the same topic.
1.5.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The
research methodology employed in this project is the content analysis of
secondary data which comprises of library archival methods, the use of CD-ROM,
internet browsing and the use of published text like: journal, articles, magazine, newspapers and
information technology and conference proceeding.
The
study adopted historical, documentary, analytical concepts to arriving at its
findings and goal actualization.
1.6
SCOPE OF STUDY
This
study covers the period 1999 to 2010.This study is also meant to focus on Delta
State and the level of youths restiveness. Also the scope of this study covered both the Indigene and the
non-indigenes.
1.7 LIMITATIONS OF STUDY
The
study is limited in many ways as the work face with hard and harsh
environmental terrain was made to face several hiccups in accessing the creek
and area covered by Delta state.
The
study also encounters a great logistic problem ranging from lack of fund, poor
published materials on the topic.
The
study was also faced with poor library attendant and shallow reading culture in
the area-Niger Delta.
The
work despite all odd was able to meet up by accessing materials adequate to
form good value judgment of the study.
1.8
DEFINITION OF TERMS
Impact:
The powerful effect that something has on
somebody or something.
Community:
A group of people living together in a geographical area in common interest. It
is also described as a group of people living in a specific area of land.
Fall
out: The outcome of something or the outcome
of a situation.
Double
standard: Not coming out in one real self.
Pretending to be what one is not.
Environment:
Natural phenomenal and manmade object of use. This includes water land,
mountain, valley, rocks, river etc.
Hostage
Taking:
Plight:
to make a promise to a person.
Social
political upheaval: Problems that deal with
the economy and politics.
1.9 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY
The project will be divided
into five chapters as required by the institution standard.
Chapter
one will be the introductory parts that comprises: background of the study;
statement of problem, the aims and objectives of study, Scope of study,
significant of the study, methodology as well as the definition of terms.
Chapter two reviewed the
literature on the area of study and research, Origin and Implication of Hostage
Taking in the Delta State, a number of very useful and informative books and
internet materials would be imperative sequel to the their great importance to
the research work.
Chapter three discussed the
causes of hostage taking in the Delta State.
Chapter
four discussed the impact of hostage taking in Delta State.
Chapter
five will necessitate to conclusion and recommendation for the study.
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