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C.U. Omoniye: Women Waging Peace in the Niger Delta
Written by Mrs. Caroline Usikpedo Omoniye, President, Niger Delta Women's Movement for Peace and Development
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Presentation to UPF Women for Peace seminar on MDGs and the Role of Women
I convey special greetings to you from the Niger Delta Women’s Movement for Peace and Development, and I thank you for giving me the honor of making a presentation about our work. I wish to express my gratitude to the organizers of this session, which is a medium of networking for women involved in peace-building across the world.
Women have the capability to effect change, pave way for peace, work across conflict divides, and act as agents in conflict prevention, resolution, and reconstruction.
The Niger Delta of Nigeria is acknowledged to be one of the world’s largest wetlands and Africa’s largest delta. The area is richly endowed with numerous resources, especially crude oil and gas both responsible for Nigeria’s oil wealth, which accounts for an estimated 90 percent of the national revenue.
The problems of the Niger Delta area and its people could be traced back to when the black crude was first discovered by the Anglo-Dutch oil exploration company, Shell, in 1957 at Oloibiri. Since then the people of these areas have been left to the mercy of oil spills, soil and land degradation, and total usurpation of the people’s rights and privileges to get medical treatment as host communities in the face of pollution, gas flares, and materials used for drilling.
In the subsequent years, as more oil wealth was derived, the vast wealth from the crude was pillaged by various inept and corrupt administrations, in connivance with corrupt operators who serve as conduits for fraud. This was the beginning of the institutionalized poverty and pauperization of the people.
As years rolled by, most of the indigenous people of these areas who left the villages for the township had access to education and so were able to ascertain the quantity of oil taken from their communities and the amount of dollars involved without commensurate development of their communities. Clearly, the oil-producing areas were short-changed and the aggregate awareness of this sorry discovery has led to the complex problems that have over the years bedeviled the Niger Delta, Nigeria till this date.
While the government tried to arrest this situation, various types of militia groups sprang up and the result was pipeline vandalization and kidnapping, including wives and children of the oil workers.
Women’s interests have been neglected in peace-making processes, and this is a challenge for women who determined to be active decision makers. War has terrible consequences, and the result is female-headed households with limited social, economic, and educational resources leading to increased poverty and diminished educational opportunities especially for young women and girls.
The Niger Delta Women’s Movement for Peace and Development took the elusive role of mainstreaming women into an early-warning network for conflict prevention. By providing time to prepare, analyze, and plan our response, this method has been very effective in the region and has reduced the rate of conflict in the area. Early-warning information is used to forestall a resurgence of conflict and violence. It is important to note that the women’s poverty rate and increased economic burden placed on them during conflict forced most women into prostitution.
If we imagine a secure region, whether it is the Niger Delta or the world, what would it look like through women’s eyes and how can we help to bring it about?
First and foremost, we must redefine local, national, and global security to it focused on human dimensions rather than being virtually synonymous with weapons-based security.
Women in the Niger Delta Region are insisting on a broader vision of security which puts human rights at the forefront and where people can live free from all forms of violence, including HIV/AIDS, rape, and sexual assaults. It is this vision that has inspired the Niger Delta Women's Movement for Peace and Development to mainstream gender issues into the peace enlightenment campaign in the Niger Delta Region.
Recently, when we visited the creeks of the Niger Delta where the conflict seems to be looming and talked to women and girls whose lives have been devastated by the communal clashes, they ask the government to put an end to impunity for crimes against women during conflict. Sometimes the female teachers will be sexually harassed and they will flee the area in order to seek protection, and the result is that the children do not have access to education.
Finally, women alone cannot carry the burden of finding a solution, but their participation is vital to forging the consensus necessary to a lasting peace.