APCJ_1528_Win2010_00i_122_4 12/30/10 3:22 PM Page 40 40 AFRICA PEACE AND CONFLICT JOURNAL November 1999 to restore order following the killing of twelve policemen (ostensibly by members of a community gang who viewed the police as enemies for their role in hunting down youths regularly protesting against the state and the oil companies). Likely driven by revenge, the Nigerian army entered the small town, exchanged fire with some gang members, and then attacked the civilian population indiscriminately while razing nearly all its buildings. Although the government put the death toll at forty-three, others estimated that more than two thousand people were massacred.30 Such an order by the presidency in whatever guise could not possess an element of nonkilling as a principle for good governance. The testimony is seen in the outcomes of killings and the conditions that promote the killing, including frustration and anger on the part of community members who feel cheated and marginalised by the political and economic systems. Some scholars and local justice and environmental groups in the Niger Delta have accused the oil companies operating in the region of collaborating with the government in violating the environmental, social, economic, political, and cultural rights of members of the local communities, particularly because of the level of the environmental damage.31 The socio-economic implications of the damage have fuelled the anger that has become the cornerstone of local grievances against the companies and the government. Most of the communities in the Niger Delta have traditionally lived off the region’s environmental resources, for example, from farming and fishing, which have been greatly diminished through oil pollution and the flaring of gas. Environmental viability is at the heart of a nonkilling analysis of oil, politics, and conflict in the delta. Not only should the environment not constitute a threat to humanity in terms of lethality, the environment and its associated resources should not be destroyed or killed. As Paige notes, ‘[W]e kill the environment and the environment kills us. A nonkilling society requires a nonkilling ecology’.32 In reality, oil in the Niger Delta has caused enormous devastation to the environment, making fishing and farming impossible for some indigenous people who have historically depended on it for their livelihood. The activities of oil companies and the failure of the government to undertake properly its regulatory responsibilities have conspired to nurture and deepen a high rate of unemployment and underemployment and entrench poverty that envelops many youths and communities in much of the delta. It is common for unemployed and underemployed youth to become easy prey to mobilisation efforts of conflict entrepreneurs seeking to foment violent activities, in this case against the oil companies. The role that oil plays in the state of unemployment in the Niger Delta is noteworthy. Locals often complain that oil spills and other related pollution and activities that have destroyed their means of livelihood have also left them unable to find alternative sources of income. According to O. Olarinmoye, ‘Nigeria’s oil wealth is actually oil of poverty or a curse, because it has produced only 30 Nnimmo Bassey, ‘Trade and human rights in the Niger Delta’, Pambazuka News, 1 June 2006, www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/34801. 31. Interview, Celestine Akpobari, Bori, 5 May 2010. 32. Paige, Nonkilling Global Political Science, 120.