The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) emerged in late 2005 from a fusion of the surviving Ogoni and Ijaw militant cells (the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force of Mujahid Dokubo-Asari arrested September 2005, the Niger Delta Vigilante, and the Egbesu Boys) under the public-facing pseudonym 'Jomo Gbomo'. Its operational commanders were Henry Okah, Government Ekpemupolo ('Tompolo') of the Federated Niger Delta Ijaw Communities and Soboma George of the Outlaws.
The first major MEND operation — the 11 January 2006 attack on Shell's EA Field — kidnapped four expatriate oil workers and announced the campaign objectives: 100% Delta control of oil revenues, withdrawal of federal armed forces, and the release of Dokubo-Asari and former Governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha. From 2006 to 2009 MEND attacked an estimated 38 oil installations (Bonga, Forcados, Bonny, Brass terminals), kidnapped over 200 expatriates, and forced the partial shutdown of Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Eni operations. Nigerian oil output collapsed from 2.6m barrels per day (2005) to 1.6m bpd (2008) — a $25bn annual revenue loss at then-prices.
President Umaru Yar'Adua, inheriting the crisis in May 2007, opened back-channel negotiations through Niger Delta elders (Edwin Clark, E.K. Clark, Tony Uranta) and on 25 June 2009 announced the Presidential Amnesty Programme — unconditional amnesty for surrendered militants, ₦65,000 monthly stipend, vocational training, and re-employment promises. Approximately 30,000 men accepted. Henry Okah, who refused, was arrested in Angola in September 2008, returned to Nigeria, then linked to the October 2010 Eagle Square bombing on Independence Day; convicted in South Africa in 2013 and sentenced to 24 years.
The Amnesty Programme has cost the Federal Government over $1bn since 2009 (about $500m to direct stipends, the balance to training and contractor schemes). It has paid the militants without addressing the structural causes: oil pollution remains uncleaned (UNEP Ogoniland report 2011, $1bn cleanup pledged 2016, less than $200m disbursed by 2024); the derivation formula remains 13%; and the post-Amnesty 'security contracts' awarded to ex-militant warlords (Tompolo: ₦15.4bn surveillance contract, 2022) have institutionalised militancy as a business model. The MEND template — armed shutdown of the federal revenue base producing a paid settlement without structural reform — is the exact template the Unknown Gunmen of the South-East have applied since 2021.