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Written by Simon
Kolawole I imagine that President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua is at a loss on what to do with the Niger Delta. I have observed him closely for one and a half years now and I myself cannot get his message clearly. He has spoken lovingly about developing the region "after years of neglect". He has spoken sternly about "dealing with the criminal elements". He has promised us a summit (and now a dialogue), but he has also put the leader of the militant Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND), Mr. Henry Okah, behind bars. So, really, the signals are very confusing.
And I don't blame Yar'Adua. The Nigerian state has never known what to do with the Niger Delta. For years, for decades, we only fantasized about the Niger Delta in terms of the lure of crude oil, the same way you think of a prostitute only in terms of sex. Niger Delta meant just crude oil. So we treated the region crudely. In fact, if you asked a typical Nigerian to name the ethnic groups in Nigeria, you would hear: "Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba." Indeed, Ijaw, Ibibio, Efik, Urhobo and other ethnic groups in the Niger Delta never really existed in our imaginations. It was all crude oil, petrodollars, gas until the militants struck. Even as we have now realized we are in a serious crisis that cannot be wished away, we are still in confusion and denial. I have listened to analysts and politicians. And what I've been hearing is not good for the ear - neither will it address the problems. Senator Bukar Abba Ibrahim, former governor of Yobe State, said Niger Delta governors should be blamed for not developing the region. This would seem to suggest that Yobe State is now next to Singapore after Ibrahim's record-breaking three-term rule there. This was also the view of Governor Ibrahim Shekkarau of Kano a few years ago. I don't know how helpful these comments are. I think they worsen matters. Perhaps the most provocative comment on the Niger Delta came from the late Dr. Bala Usman in his paper, "Ignorance, Knowledge and Democratic Politics in Nigeria", which he presented at a symposium at Bayero University, Kano, on Tuesday, April 17, 2001. He advanced two arguments. One, the Niger Delta belongs to Nigeria since the British colonialists had captured it and made it part of the federation they created in 1914. So whatever is in the Niger Delta belongs to Nigeria, not to the people of the region. Two, and very uncharacteristically, he argued that the waters and debris that form the natural wealth of the Niger Delta come from up North. He argued that Niger Delta lands are only the secondary producers of oil and gas. The primary producers of these products are up North from where come the Niger and the Benue drain farmlands, dead bodies, faeces, etc., from which the minerals in the Niger Delta are made. He wrote: "Therefore, those states of Nigeria, upstream from the delta, in the Niger-Benue basin, should take exclusive ownership and control of the river water and its sediments drained away from them to form the delta and its hinterland, and demand their share from the returns from the export of crude oil and gas in proportion to what their vegetation, faeces, dead bodies, animal remains and fertile soil, generally contributed to the making of these minerals for hundred of thousands, and even millions, of years." This is the kind of mindset that we've always had towards the Niger Delta! That is why Gen. TY Danjuma could open his mouth and say the people of Niger Delta should shut up because the oil in their soil belongs to Nigeria and was not put there by their efforts! That is why ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo had no hesitation sending the Nigerian military to wipe out the people of Odi in 1999 under an operation code-named "Hakuri II"! The great Gen. Sani Abacha eventually hanged minority rights campaigner Ken Saro-Wiwa after a state-sponsored campaign of terrorism in Ogoniland. The commander on ground, Major Paul Okuntimo, who happens to be my kinsman, regularly boasted to BBC and VOA of how he was crushing the defenseless people of Ogoni, how he was preventing them from returning from their farms everyday, how he made sure they were bitten by snakes and scorpions by forcing them to sleep overnight in their farms, and so on and so forth. There is also a new song about "the criminal elements" in the Niger Delta. You know them: the kidnappers and ransom-takers, the oil thieves, the ship hijackers. Crush them! Crush them!! The major problem we have in Nigeria is that we hardly look at the root causes of our problems. When we see symptoms, we begin to deal with them. The real disease remains untouched. It's like someone who has typhoid, of which headache could be a symptom. Then he continues to use paracetamol to treat headache whereas the typhoid is clinging deeply to his intestines! If we seek to ask the right questions, were there kidnappings, hijackings and ransom-taking in the Niger Delta in 1956? In 1966? 1976? 1986? Even 1996? When and how did the militancy start? If we are able to honestly answer these questions without talking down on the people of the region and without claiming to know better than they do, maybe we will be on our way to properly diagnosing the problems and separating the symptoms from the diseases. I, by no means, endorse criminal activities. I don't even support militancy. But what made it possible in the first place? That is the question to ask and to answer. We should not ridicule the root problem or gloss over it.
My own fear about the Niger Delta is that things have gone so bad that I am afraid we still have a long way to go in resolving the crisis. Virtually everybody is benefiting from the crisis. Politicians are regularly becoming billionaires. Negotiators of ransom sums are making a kill. Government officials and security agencies are feeding fat. Youths are getting stupendously enriched. Elders are swimming in money. Oil thieves are having a field day. Cheap money could be so sweet. To take people away from easy money or take easy money away from them is going to be very difficult. It is not in the interest of such people for the crisis to be resolved. That is my major worry. So what is the way forward? That is where we get stuck. A lot of ways have been devised - such as 13 per cent derivation, Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) and all sorts. But, ironically, things have become worse instead. Now, should Yar'Adua treat the militants as "freedom fighters" and talk amicably with them or see them as nothing but criminals and bomb them? I think that is the president's dilemma. If you dialogue with them, you may be seen as weak - especially with those talk-toughing non-Niger Deltans who are playing a key role in this government. If you treat militants as criminals and go all out to get them, you may further worsen the situation. Obasanjo thought "Hakuri II" would "teach them a lesson" and bully the people to submission, but it failed woefully. In fact, I think "Hakuri II" pushed the people to full militancy. These are my own suggestions. The summit - or dialogue - should go on. Every major group should be represented. Government should avoid the well-worn practice of choosing representatives for the people. Let them choose their own representatives. Government must be ready for compromises - amnesty is one of them. Decisions reached must be faithfully implemented. This does not in any way mean that the crisis will disappear overnight, but allowing people to ventilate their anger and frustration is crucial in this circumstance. If we are all party to the "dialogue" and we reach an agreement, then we can genuinely re-start the peace process. (Nothing entirely new will be agreed upon; we all know there have been reports and recommendations over the decades on the burning issues - but talking afresh and pretending to reach new agreements will symbolically be a new landmark from where we can move on). The criminal activities can only be stopped in conjunction with the locals. If the Nigerian military authorities and the British government think bombs will solve the problem, I wish them luck. There is an extent to which bombs can go. The most difficult war to prosecute is against guerrillas. Even Israel is now discussing with Palestinians despite having all the artillery in the world to crush them. It shows that bombs and bullets have their own limitations. Those who are goading Yar'Adua not to constructively engage with the militants should have a rethink. I am not really bothered about the oil - my prayer is that the oil will dry up or lose value anyway so that we can now focus on creative ways of making money, principally by using our brains (human resource) like the Japanese and Singaporeans. But we all need the peace first so that we can concentrate our energies on making Nigeria a great country. This I believe. |
If
anyone is to ask questions about accountability, I don't think it is my
governor or any other governor for that matter. That is purely internal
affairs. The people of the Niger Delta should be allowed to ask those
questions themselves. When one governor is asking another governor to
account for his allocations, what's the meaning of that? With the work that
the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) did under Malam Nuhu
Ribadu, I don't expect any governor or former governor to just open his
mouth wide and talk anyhow any longer. We now know that the thieves are not
just from the Niger Delta - there is adequate quota system in looting.