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Nigerian militants to guard oil pipelines in Niger Delta


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The president of Nigeria Umaru Yar'Adua has taken steps to indoctrinate the abundance of militants in the oil rich Niger Delta region into a defence scheme for the pipelines in the area.

The Defence Minister Alhaji Yayale Ahmed stated to the House of Representatives Committee that the federal government in conjunction with local and state levels have cultivated plans of “constructive engagement " meaning the forming of limited liability companies for the legitimate employ of the militants.

The area of the Niger Delta has suffered from unrest for many years due to the rich wealth in resources of the region and its exploitation paralleled with the poverty of the population in the region and the damage to the environment caused that effect all life in the area. MarianaVanZeller's pod will explain a lot about the situation: http://current.com/items/77541711_rebels_in_the_pipelin....

MEND have not stated if they will be involved with this “constructive engagement “scheme but their leader in negotiations has recently given his faith to peace in negotiations with the

Peace and Conflict Resolution Committee chairman Chief James Jeftha. There has been criticism of “constructive engagement " in the Nigerian and international communities, as questions such as; whose arming them, who do they answer to, how do you know they won’t continue hostile actions inside installations ? More constructive questions consist of; why not focus efforts on the Nigerian Local Content Policy to stop sucking up money and actually be applied to areas in need of it. Abubakar Atiku Nuhu-Koko addresses these issues in the linked article, here is a taste:

“The truth of the matter is that offering security jobs to the militants will not solve the problems at hand in the Niger Delta. A holistic approach, which requires integrating and domesticating the largely foreign-controlled “enclave” oil and gas economy, is what, is desirable. The militant youths need education, quality of life that comes with productive employment, training opportunities and an environment free from oil and gas related pollution etc.”
Kabimbi

11 responses // Nigerian militants to guard oil pipelines in Niger Delta

  • This divine liqiud..............what trouble it causes. what lust man has for it. Hear this:

    The thing that baffles me about the desire for people to 'go green' all of a sudden is, why we didn't think that in the first place. Why were not the first thoughts about making clean sustainable energy. ( i think thats what you call it) it's almost backwards!!! very wierd to me.
    J_current
  • Because energy from oil is easier to get than solar or wind. Do you think guys 100 years ago could have developed solar panels? how would they have transmitted the energy from a windmill across the country? Using oil was simply the only logical thing at the time.
    observer2121
  • I don't think it's a matter of ease, unless you mean in the sense, it's monitarily efficient, the price to rebuild the damage it does to the world and society and the death it's causes is going to cost ???

    plus I wouldn't route out what we could and couldn't do 100 years ago, there's not a constuction team today that could build a pyramid and that was when ????
    J_current
  • J_current,

    I think your forgetting that oil for powering travel and industry grew out fairly naieve science and your applying really retrospective thinking to that kind of development. Who would have thought when the first motors were petrol driven that we would ever see as many cars on the worlds road as we do today?
    fernandez_is_go
  • J Current, you comment is really stupid. They simply did not have the technology to use solar 100 years ago and I can say that because of a little thing the rest of us like to call history.

    Obviously we could build a pyramid today if we wanted to but why would anyone want to build one? Having said that I am pretty sure they will be building one in Dubai. Why would you say we couldn't build a pyramid? That's just silly.

    As for ease back when oil was discovered they weren't even looking for it, it was viewed as a nuissance, they found out it could burn and became an energy source. That was pretty easy. People weren't thinking about damage to the world back then. Why would they think about something they hadn't done yet?
    observer2121
  • Observer2121, going back to your original statement, the one regarding ease. Sometimes it's not about doing what is easier. It's easier to beat children when they don't listen instead of trying to talk through the problem. It's easier to fight instead of reasoning with another. It’s easier to destroy in many cases than it is to create. But that doesn't make it the right thing to do. Sometimes it's not about doing what is easy. It is of course now easier to get a victim to the hospital after a hit and run accident. 1-0 to the twentieth century.

    What I am saying is that people in the past have built a lot smarter things than solar panels. People thousands of years ago knew how to live in harmony with the earth. Their thinking was nothing towards waste or destroying the home in which they live. More recently we see this exact type of thinking. Where does it come from? When did it appear? I find it odd. That is what I said. What do you think of the article? Have you read it? How does it make you feel to hear about what the LUST for oil to make things go vroom is doing to the people of Nigeria? Who benefits from the use of this 'divine liquid?' (or pro bono) and who suffers.

    That is a lot to think about. I hope you do so.

    " Who would have thought when the first motors were petrol driven that we would ever see as many cars on the worlds road as we do today? "

    I think when they started to build factories that were capable of unleashing hundred of cars at a time they did things called forecasts. They are not hard to do. They are simple, and involve simple math. It is not irrational to predict the cost and oil necessary for as many cars as we have today. They probably said that if they were going to have twenty cars they would need 80+ light bulbs.....it's not irrational to continue the math, even for hypothetical reasons. Do you follow me?


    Observer2121:
    Ancient Egyptians we're not silly. Their reasons for building pyramids were not silly. I assure you. Did you know that there is enough stone in a pyramid to build a three foot by three foot wall around FRANCE?? Not to mention the alignment. But don't hurt yourself on the metaphor that I'm using. Here, all I am saying is that there are plenty of smart things that were made in the past. We didn't just get clever last century. In fact, A lot of things we have are just dumb, unclean, unhealthy, and wasteful.

    That being said. I invite you both to comment on the article posted by Kabimbi. I would love to hear your views on the current situation in Nigeria. Thank you very much.
    J_current
  • J_Current, as clever as they were in the past they weren't clever enough to build a solar cell because they didn't. Secondly, I didn't say the ancient Egyptians were silly I said building one today would be silly and for that reason no one has bothered to do it.

    J you are getting a little too philosophical for such a simple topic. People needed energy, oil was an easy source of energy to develop a portable infrastructure around. When Henry ford was building his cars the last thing on his mind was militants in Nigeria blowing up oil pipelines for their own political gains. You are not looking at the thing in the correct context. You can't take the knowledge that we have today about global warming, oil conflicts, oil spills etc and say that the guys 100 years ago had it all backwards. They did what they could with the knowledge they had. It's up to us to come up with solutions for todays problems.

    As for the article I think Nigeria has done a poor job of distribution the wealth created by all of their nartural resources. If the president used the new wealth to build more hospitals, schools and p[ublic services to benefit the people then these militias would probably disband.
    observer2121
  • well at this point whats interesting to note is we who the past 500 years to the muslims, and thats really been the principle point where technology has progressed. we have science because of the caliphates and states that promoted free flowing education, and the beginnings of science although linked to alchemy and previous scripts on elements, owes a great deal to the laws of the Qu'ran, what islam followed (most notably chemistry, which was basicaly started by the Qu'ran's words on elements water like physics blah blah blah you get the point, either way j current and observer both have good points and my point of saying this is they had an evniromentaly friendly society were agriculture and mass irrigation and cultivation was employed. anything possible infact, its quite amazing. which is at the end of teh day what you got on to talking about, previous cultures expanding their power capital and productivity in harmony with nature.

    and yes observer it would be nice if " The Man " didn't knock up shoddy governments to export resources by corperate and " international " law. you can see evidence of this from asia south america to africa
    Kabimbi
  • Kabimbi, do you blame the man or do you blame shoddy governments. I have to say given the opportunity I would exploit Nigerias natural resources for my own financial gain if I could. It is the government who must do what is best for it's people.

    Kabimbi, I must take issue with you giving credit to the muslim faith for the development of chemistry and the sciences in general. As far back as ancient Egypt, Pre Muslim influence there was evidence is scientific study specifically chemistry. So while the Muslims did contribute to the development of the scientific field I would not say that we owe science to the Qu'ran. The Chinese I'm sure were not influenced by the Qu'ran and they seemed to be developing just fine.
    observer2121
  • the chinese and islam traded sulpher, the egyptians invented the first guns used agains the mongels by egyptians after the sacking of baghdad when a whole race of people converted because they destroyed a whole university and felt wrong for it.

    mate i have researched this, half the reason they cultivated and created science is because they took everybodies knowledge, from ancient egypt chinese alchemists less notably, hittite and ptolemey texts, persian knowledge and greek knowledge. the other half of the reason is because the Qu'ran gave scientific hints key to the progression of their society and to science, the Qu'ran basicaly solved alot of mysteries about " alchemy " and after " chemistry " and helped them put it all together.

    we may agree to disagree on this if you wish, but i know my oppinion.
    Kabimbi
  • It's not about weather they we're clever enough to build a solar cell ( as though harnessing the energy of the sun is such a huge accomplishment or a 'new' idea), because I've already stated that they were clever enough to build a lot of other things, that we marvel at still to this day. And if you ask me, if something is going to do more damage than it is good. Thats not very clever is it. But then you perhaps exhibit the type of thinking that says the ancients we're dumb and we are clever, which is really not the case. In fact, I would say you were a victim to that thinking. In many ways, man is technologically advanced but psychologically infantile.

    What I will say again, is that in the past, 'our' inventions were towards protecting the earth and using natural energies. Not because we couldn't think up an easy way to get energy. Not because we weren't clever. Or were lesser beings. But because perhaps, perhaps that is the right thing to do. FOR EVERYBODY.

    You think they could build a wonder of the world again today...."if they wanted to." You think they could just go ahead and start building wonders of the world, as they please. For reasons that seem fitting.

    " Hey lets have a wonder of the world over here "

    " Hold on a second, how did they do THAT?! "

    So what was henry ford thinking?

    I don't want to turn this into an argument of me vs the 20th Century. Or me vs the automobile. Or even you vs our ancestors. Or me vs solutions. My point was that mans dependence, and man's lust for oil, has and is increasingly becoming a problem, for the world. For societies, for the economy. (not for some people.)For the future of mankind existing in harmony with nature once again as it was. As I think it should be.
    J_current

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