Egbesu "Boys" or "cult" is a term used to refer to a group within the Ijaw community (The Washington Post 11 Nov. 1998; Post Express 6 Jan. 1999; Xinhua 2 Nov. 1999; HRW May 1999). Two sources state that Egbesu refers to "the Ijaw god of war" (The Washington Post 20 Jan. 1999; Tempo 10 Nov. 1999) while HRW writes that the term refers to "a traditional Ijaw god" (May 1999). This god "is believed by many Ijaws - and by many of the soldiers assigned to suppress their demonstration[s] - to give protection from bullets when a particular ritual is followed" (ibid.). Other sources corroborate this reported belief and the members' use of rituals (The Washington Post 11 Nov. 1998; The Independent 7 Nov. 1998).

According to The Independent Egbesu is:

an ancient local cult ... which had been dead for generations. The cult traditionally only comes alive in times of the severest crises, and the delta's Ijaw youth are using it now to declare a war on the Nigerian government and the oil companies. Members of Egbesu are supposed to be pacifists who have special powers to protect themselves from attack, but in today's war they are the aggressors.

"The people of the delta don't want trouble, but they are defending themselves against a long-term environmental war which the foreign oil companies have waged on them," said a minority-rights activist, Oronto Douglas. ...

Children and adults alike fled in fear of the powerful myth that anyone who crosses the path of the Egbesu will be buried up to their necks in mud and abandoned.

Among their many beliefs, a mixture of animism and Christianity, the Egbesu men believe they are invincible warriors who are immune to bullets. "No one can use a gun against me," said 17-year-old Joke Monday, who joined because he was unemployed and bored.

The new-found confidence of youths such as him, and the easy accessibility of automatic weapons in the area have proved enough to crack the backbone of Nigeria's economy.

Thousands of youths have joined the cult across the delta in recent months and have besieged the oil industry. They have taken control of more than 15 oil flow stations, putting a stop to the production of almost 250,000 barrels a day for much of the last month.

Numerous oil workers have been taken hostage and ransomed. Others have been evacuated by their companies with no immediate prospect of return. The companies that have been attacked, particularly Shell, the largest foreign oil company operating in Nigeria, are holding talks with the locals to try to persuade them to leave the flow stations. But the siege goes on.

The military government has sent soldiers into the delta to try to curb the violence, but some of the soldiers are scared of the Egbesu men's spiritual powers, and find it difficult to counter the guerrilla attacks of the fishermen (ibid.; see also Tempo 10 Nov. 1999).

It's members are frequently identified as youth (Post Express 6 Jan. 1999; ibid. 16 Sept. 1999; Xinhua 13 Sept. 1999; Manchester Guardian Weekly 22 Sept. 1999). Sources refer to it as one of a number of ethnically based "militant" groups that include the Oodua People's Congress (OPC), the Arewa People's Congress (APC), the Niger Delta Congress (NDC), the Ijaw People's Congress, and the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) (Jane's Intelligence Review 1 Mar. 2000; Post Express 19 Jan. 2000).

However, the Secretary General of the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) emphasized that the Egbesu organization is not a cult. She wrote:

The organization is called The Supreme Egbesu, and it is a deity of the Ijaw people. It is the god of justice. It is one of he most respected gods of the Ijaws. ...

The Supreme Egbesu Assembly is an arm of the Ijaw Youth Council. It is the spiritual arm of the Ijaw Youth Council. It is well respected and the chairmanof the council is in person of Wenepere Digifa. Though the president of the IYC is the overall head of the SEA.

The supreme Egbesu Assemblyis located in all Ijaw communities in Nigeria. The authorities in Nigeria dread it because the worshippers of Egbesu have natural bullet proofs if the beliefs are properly followed the worshippers are safe from bullets. It is the weapon of the Ijaw people.

Every Ijaw man and woman is a member by birth. But due to "civilization", the intrusion of Colonial customs and beliefs have reduced the normal traditional understanding of the black race. Members are recruited normally only if you are an Ijaw person. No other tribe should be a member even in pretence the "Obobo" will point you out. The "obobo" is a four square metal that four virgin boys carry, the obobo controls the youths and makes them do things that are spiritual.

There are no restrictions, all men especially the men are members.

Membership is not revoked, you will realise that your altraucities [sic] are becoming unbecoming and you will also realise that you might be facing death if you are not clean. By this I mean if you have defiled the commandments of Supreme Egbesu. eg having sex, going to the battle field when your wife is pregnant, stealing, killing, etc. Egbesu does not permit negative activities (13 May 2000).

However, this information was not corroborated during a 11 May 2000 telephone interview with the Director of the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) in London who is a civil-military relations scholar who studied at the Universities of Lagos, Ife and London where he received his PhD in War Studies. He is an adviser to various organizations on African affairs, including the British Parliamentary Human Rights Group, International Crisis Group and Norwegian Council for Africa. He is the Secretary to the Governing Council. He said that he was unsure whether it was officially linked to the IYC and that he was also unsure of the Supreme Egbesu Assembly's links to either the IYC or the Egbesu Boys. However, he stated that the majority of Ijaw persons are not members of the Egbesu. He said that its members are primarily "disaffected youth who are violent, upset, and discontented." He also said there are many young Ijaw living in the Delta region who are not members and that he would "very much doubt" if forced membership was a characteristic of the group.

In other information on Egbesu, there are references to police checking suspected Egbesu members for body markings that indicate an affiliation with the group (Post Express 2 Jan. 1999; ibid. 9 Jan. 1999; HRW May 1999), while there also references to Egbesu members wearing black and/or red cloths as identification (P.M. News 12 May 1999; ibid. 11 Nov. 1999; Tempo 30 Nov. 1999).

The following brief chronology provides information on the activities of the Egbesu as well as the reactions of government authorities. On 4 January 1999 P.M. News reported an allegation that police shot a suspected Egbesu member after taking him from a hospital on 2 January 1999, where he had been admitted with gun shot wounds on 30 December 1998.

Reporting on a truce achieved in January 1999 between the Bayelsa State government and "warring Ijaw youths" after the declaration of a state of emergency and a dusk-to-dawn curfew, Post Express stated that during the crisis staff at a hospital "fled their duty posts into hiding when armed security operatives invaded the hospital wards ... in search of some Ijaw youths suspected to be members of the dreaded Egbesu Boys fraternity who may have escaped with gun-shot wounds" (6 Jan. 1999).

"About 2,000 armed soldiers from Delta State stormed the town [Kolokuma Opokuma, Bayelsa State] ... and reportedly killed 20 indigenes in the fighting that ensued, while 50 others, including children and their mothers were arrested" (Post Express 9 Jan. 1999). The soldiers were reported to have traced the origins of the "Egbesu Cult" to that town and youths were also reported to have killed eight soldiers (ibid.).

The Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) wrote to former US president Jimmy Carter protesting proposed military operations in Ijawland (Post Express 8 Mar. 1999). According to the IYC the operations were to be known as "Operation Fox," would involve over 5,000 soldiers, and were "charged with the responsibility of flushing out allegedly 'Egbesu boys' who engage in kidnapping, piracy and hijacking" (ibid.).

"Gun boat war with the free use of sophisticated military hardware like dynamites, assault rifles and grenades resumed in the ever volatile oil rich coastal area of Warri, Delta State on Thursday, 6 May, between the mutually antagonistic neighbours of Itsekiri and Ijaw" (P.M. News 12 May 1999). In describing the conflict the newspaper stated

the Ijaws not known for imbibing the biblical injunction of turning the other cheek for a second slap, mobilized the militant to Ijaw Commandos belonging to the Egbesu Cult and went on a vengeance mission. ... Sources told P.M. News in Warri that Madanbo, which had a camp of armed soldiers numbering about 25 provided a feeble resistance to the overwhelming number and fire power of the militant Ijaw youths" (ibid.).

In September 1999, about 50 suspected Egbesu members were claimed to have been "executed" on their way to jail in Bayelsa State, by soldiers angry over the ambush and killing of four other soldiers (Xinhua 13 Sept. 1999; Post Express 17 Sept. 1999; Manchester Guardian Weekly 22 Sept. 1999). Post Express reported the Bayelsa State Governor as claiming that those killed were "suspected criminals" and not Egbesu members and alleged that the number of persons reported killed was inaccurate (20 Sept.1999).

In November 1999, following two days of fighting between Egbesu members and members of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) and the fleeing of "hundreds" of people from a Lagos slum, the local government declared a curfew (Xinhua 2 Nov. 1999). 15 people were reported as killed (ibid.). Following this incident in Lagos, another clash between Egbesu and OPC members occurred in Port Harcourt in November (P.M. News 11 Nov. 1999). Egbesu was said to have launched an attack in retaliation for the killing of Egbesu members in Lagos (ibid.). The newspaper reported a claim that Egbesu members "have sacked all police checkpoints mounted from Odi junction to Patani along the Port Harcourt/Warri Road searching every vehicle for anybody who is of Yoruba ethnic group" (ibid.). The state legislature condemned the violence and called on "the State Police Command to invoke all necessary legislation in this regard to curb the youth's excesses" (ibid.). The newspaper also reported that soldiers and police were in fear of identification as officers and were camouflaging themselves (ibid.).

On 14 November 1999 Post Express reported that ten soldiers at different oil installations had been killed by "rampaging youths" and that four of these had been beheaded by Egbesu youths in Bayelsa State.

In early November 1999, soldiers were accused of raping women in Choba, Rivers State and pictures of the alleged rapes were published in Nigerian newspapers (Post Express 14 Nov. 1999; Tempo 30 Nov. 1999; P.M. News 18 Nov. 1999). Military spokespersons denied the accusations and suggested the perpetrators were Egbesu members (ibid.; Post Express 20 Nov. 1999). The Director of Army Public Relations said that the photograph showed a uniformed soldier wearing a red cloth, which is a "well known Egbesu insignia" (ibid.; Tempo 30 Nov. 1999; P.M. News 18 Nov. 1999). A spokesperson for the "Supreme Egbesu Assembly (SEA)" rejected the military's accusations and

submitted that the red cloth worn by the uniformed soldier in the picture published by some national dailies (the picture depicted the soldier as raping a woman) does not resemble the 'alor' sometimes worn by Egbesu adherents.

Stating that Egbesu members abstain from sex if they must carry Egbesu signs and that the cult forbids the raping of women, the statement affirmed that Egbesu is a religious practice of the Ijaw. It added that Choba is not an Ijaw community and no that [sic] Choba indigene is an Egbesu.

It called on the security forces and some sections of the media to desist from branding all sorts of criminals as Egbesu. "Not everybody in the Niger Delta or even Ijawland is Egbesu. There are deviants in the Niger Delta, just like criminals exist in all parts of Nigeria and the world," the SEA asserted, and called on the authorities to support the actualisation of the Kaiama Declaration, "which as the position of Ijaw people is the solution to the crisis in the area" (ibid.).

The Ijaw Youth Council also took exception to the military's suggestions and also stated that Choba is not an Ijaw community but rather Ikwerre (Post Express 20 Nov. 1999). Ikwerre representatives corroborated this and stated:

the alleged rape could not have been committed by the Egbesu. The argument is that Choba is in Ikwerreland and not Ijawland and, therefore, Egbesu have no business in the area. "Nobody in this town has ever seen an Egbesu. We hear of them but we have never seen them. The only people we saw in trucks were soldiers who were guarding the premises of Willbros." said Agbaraosimini (Tempo 30 Nov. 1999).

On 24 November 1999 Post Express reported on clashes in Odi town Bayelsa State between soldiers and Egbesu youth and in which the town was shelled by the military "in an effort to restore sanity to the restive area." Newswatch reported that 12 policemen were killed in an ambush at Odi, on 21 November 1999, when "they attempted to dismantle some of the Egbesu regalia at one of the checkpoints. ... the director of the Ijaw council for human rights, Port Harcourt told Newswatch that about 86 youths have been killed" (8 Dec. 1999).

Six youths reported arrested while the military was pulling back from Odi included "one Derioteido Aganaba said to be the Chief Priest of the dreaded 'Egbesu' cult" (P.M. News 9 Dec. 1999). According to a military Public Relations Officer, Aganada is a former soldier who "dropped out" in 1996 (ibid.). This officer also claimed

that the soldiers in Odi met a force that had not been encountered in the history of internal security in Nigeria, adding that three of their soldiers were killed at Odi junction where the youths first engaged the security men in a fierce 3-hour battle.

Also speaking to newsmen, Mr. Ananaba [sic], the Chief Priest, said he was caught up in the bush where he was fishing and farming and had no option than to surrender himself to the army.

He stated that it was when he was being taken to where other arrested boys were kept that they (the boys) identified him as their chief priest. He added that he collected N20 to initiate some of them into the Egbesu Cult (ibid.).

On 29 March 2000, Post Express reported concerns of human rights groups that those arrested for the police killings had not been "presented to court" by police prosecutors on two different occasions in March when hearings were held.

In a 17 April 2000 article entitled "'Egbesu' Renders Bini Village Desolate" P.M. News reported:

Ijaw youths in their thousands from Ayaleoromo in Ovia South West local government area of Edo State have killed three and injured over 100 persons at Aigbobasimihun-Ofar village, a Bini settlement in the same area. ...

It will be recalled that the Benin monarch issued a statement last year to condemn the activities of Ijaws whom he described as tenants on Bini soil. This was after Egbesu boys attacked their Itsekiri neighbours some of whom had taken refuge in Bini homes.

Information on whether the Egbesu is active outside of the Niger Delta region could not be found in the sources consulted by the Research Directorate. However, with regard to whether a person can move within Nigeria to avoid this group, the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND) of the UK Home Office provides the following information in a section entitled "Internal Flight" within its September 1999 Nigeria Country Assessment:

Individuals who fear persecution by non state entities, for example, those involved in tribal disputes, problems with cult membership, religious difficulties and so forth, the option of internal flight is a real possibility in Nigeria, taking into account its size and population.

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum. Please find below the list of sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

References

Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), London, U.K. 11 May 2000. Telephone interview with Director.

Human Rights Watch (HRW). May 1999. Nigeria: Crackdown in the Niger Delta. http://www.hrw.org [Accessed 5 May 2000]

Ijaw Youth Council, Port Harcourt, Nigeria. 13 May 2000. Correspondence from Secretary general.

Immigration and Nationality Directorate, Home Office, London. September 1999. Nigeria Country Assessment. http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/ind/nig4.htm [Accessed 25 May 2000]

The Independent [London]. 7 November 1998. Hilary Andersson. "Nigerians Turn to Magic in Fight Against Oil Firms." (NEXIS)

Jane's Intelligence Review [Surrey]. 1 March 2000. Segun Adeyemi. "Ethnic Violence Threatens Nigeria's Nascent Democracy." (NEXIS)

Manchester Guardian Weekly. 22 September 1999. (NEXIS)

Newswatch [Lagos]. 8 December 1999. Chris Azuatalam. "Fire for Fire." http://www.newswatchng.com [Accessed 9 May 2000]

P.M. News [Lagos]. 17 April 2000. Victor Ofure. "Nigeria; "Egbesu' Renders Bini Village Desolate." (NEXIS)

_____. 9 December 1999. Casmir Igbokwe. "Nigeria; Egbesu Chief Priest Held." (NEXIS)

_____. 18 November 1999. Casmir Igbokwe. "Nigeria; Egbesu Warns Obasanjo." (NEXIS)

_____. 11 November 1999. Chris Konkwo Okafor Ofiebor. "Nigeria; OPC in Ijaw Crisis Ijaw, Yoruba Clash in Port Harcourt." (NEXIS)

_____. 12 May 1999. Okafor Ofiebor. "Nigeria; 3 Killed, 5 Soldiers Kidnapped." (NEXIS)

_____. 4 January 1999. "Nigeria; Curfew Lifted, More Die in Delta." (NEXIS)

Post Express [Lagos]. 29 March 2000. "Non-Presentation of Accused Persons in Court Attracts reactions." http://www.postexpresswired.com [Accessed 4 May 2000]

_____. 19 January 2000. Chuks Ohuegbe. "Obasanjo Seeks National Assembly's Nod." http://www.postexpresswired.com [Accessed 4 May 2000]

_____. 24 November 2000. Josiah Emerole and Ignatius Chukwu. "Death Toll Rises in Bayelsa Crisis ... No State of Emergency Yet, Says FG." http://www.postexpresswired.com [Accessed 4 May 2000]

_____. 20 November 1999. Iheanyi Amuta. "Ijaw Youths Fault Army Chief Over Choba Rape." http://www.postexpresswired.com [Accessed 4 May 2000]

_____. 14 November 1999. Philip Nwosu. "10 Soldiers Killed in Niger Delta Crisis." http://www.postexpresswired.com [Accessed 4 May 2000]

_____. 20 September 1999. Willie Etim. "Governor denies Death of 50 Youths in Bayelsa." http://www.postexpresswired.com [Accessed 4 May 2000]

_____. 17 September 1999. Lukkey Abawuru. "Students Condemn Bayelsa Killing." http://www.postexpresswired.com [Accessed 4 May 2000]

_____. 16 September 1999. Philip Nwosu. "Military Probes Bayelsa Killing." http://www.postexpresswired.com [Accessed 4 May 2000]

_____. 8 March 1999. Adagogo Brown. "Youths Write carter Over Military Presence in Ijawland." http://www.postexpresswired.com [Accessed 4 May 2000]

_____. 9 January 1999. "Two Soldiers Killed, Others Injured in Bayelsa Crisis." http://www.postexpresswired.com [Accessed 4 May 2000]

_____. 6 January 1999. Iheanyi Amuta. "Bayelsa Administrator, Ijaw Youths reach Truce." http://www.postexpresswired.com [Accessed 4 May 2000]

_____. 2 January 1999. Adagogo Brown. "Obi Asked to rehabilitate Victims of Bayelsa Crisis." http://www.postexpresswired.com [Accessed 4 May 2000]

Tempo [Lagos]. 30 November 1999. "Nigeria; The Story of Choba." (NEXIS)

_____. 10 November 1999. "Nigeria; Ethnic Warriors." (NEXIS)

The Washington Post. 20 January 1999. James Rupert. "Nigerians Take Hope in Democracy; Difficulties Will Come with Civilian Rule." (NEXIS)

_____. 11 November 1998. James Rupert. "Nigerian Uprising May Be Grim Preview of Future." (NEXIS)

Xinhua News Agency. 2 November 1999. "Curfew Declared in Nigeria's Slum After Ethnic Clash." (NEXIS)

_____. 13 September 1999. "50 Nigerian Cultists Killed by Retaliating Soldiers." (NEXIS)