GAMJI
Niger Delta Under Siege: The Princewill's Option
THE PRELUDE
Ahamefula Ogbu a Journalist with Thisday Newspapers described the
early attack of the militants on the residents of Port-Harcourt the
capital of Rivers State thus 'Rambo could not have done better. With
automatic rifles in their hands and hate, revenge and murder hanging
around their necks, warring cultists took Port Harcourt, Rivers State,
by storm yesterday for the second day running. Pandemonium broke out
as residents ran for safety. It was sorrow, tears and blood. At the
end of it all—or, more aptly, at the interval, for no one knows the
end yet—15 persons had been dispatched to their early graves' and true
to this unsung prophet no body knew the end as the next few days saw
about eighty innocent souls wasted by an agitation uncommon to our
people in the Niger Delta.
Okey Ndibe a respected opinion on national issues in Nigeria in his
recent article titled 'a blood soaked city' described the current
happenings in Rivers State in these words 'That the once idyllic Port
Harcourt was now a scarred place, a war zone, a city soaked in blood;
the city under siege with thousands of citizens displaced; that its
once quiescent boulevards and avenues were now ruled by marauding
militiamen and by the fierce soldiers deployed to dislodge them.
Sudden death by bullet was now a generalized hazard for the city's
trapped and hapless residents'.
COST OF SECURING PEACE AND SOURCE OF DESTRUCTIVE WEAPONS IN USE
At the time of writing this piece, a seven day curfew and now extended
with seven more days has being imposed on the people of Rivers State
and the Military has not only being invited to quell the uprising in
Port- Harcourt but are to stay and maintain peace for the next six
months according to the Governor of the State Sir Celestine Omehia
after holding meeting at the Government House with the Security Chiefs
that comprise the Chief of Defence Staff, Lieutenant General Andrew
Azazi; the Chief of the Army Staff, (COAS) Lt. General Luka Yusuf; the
acting Inspector General of Police, Mr. Mike Okiro; the Flag Officer
Commanding Eastern Naval Command, Chief of Army Training, Nigerian
Army Headquarters; Head of Military Intelligence, Director General of
the State Security Service (SSS), the Brigade Commander, Brigadier
General Samuel Saliu and Commander of Operation Flush out III. Others
include the Commissioner of Police, Rivers State Command, the Army
Public Relations Officer (APRO) and the Police Public Relations
Officer (PPRO) among others.
With the coming of the Joint Task Force (JTF) the following large
cache of arms and ammunition has being seized from the militants
amounting to billions of Naira- 1. 57 general pumping machine guns
(gpmg) 2. About one million 7.62 CTM ammunition 3. 7,000 of 5.6 mm
ammunition 4. 50 cartridges 5. 50 dynamites 6. 5,000 of 9mm ammunition
7. 10 local pistols 8. 2,000 of 7.62 mm ammunition 9. Special 10 SMG
Rifle 10. 20 Ak 47 machine guns 11. 20 fragmental jacket 12. 50
machine gun rifles recovered from a man that wanted to sell them to
the militants.
One bereted pistol and ten pump action. Efforts according to the
report contained in the Nation Newspaper of 19 th August, 2007 to
smuggle into the region arms and ammunition worth N6 billion in a
couple of weeks in order to intensify the activities of the militants
in the region is the offing except if the ship conveying these arms
is intercepted there is very possibility that the gun-runner will
supply these arms to the region in the next few weeks but the
unanswered question is: from where does these militants get these
billions of Naira to acquire these deadly weapons according,thesame
Nation Newspaper of 19 th August gave an answer ' the Militants in the
Niger Delta raise money through political patronage and illegal
bunkering which is currently a booming business in the coastal areas'.
The aspect of bunkering is in tandem with the position of the Rivers
State Government as confirmed by the Hon Commissioner of Information
Mr. Emma Okah while at Lagos recently. Throwing more light on the
sponsoring ship of the activities of these militants MR. Gbomo Jomo
the Spokesperson of MEND recently in Edo State accused politicians in
the state of employing the services of warring cult groups in the
state to ensure their "victory" in the last elections is sustained. He
said further 'what is happening now is that the politicians are merely working against elements that were not in their support during the
last election' Alhaji Asarin Dokunbo the Leader of NDPVF in conformity
with the stance of Mr. Jomo had at various occasions accused the
administration of Sir Peter Odili in Rivers State as the brain of
equipping and encouraging most of the activities of these militants in
the State.
The Port Harcourt Telegraph a local tabloid published in Port-
Harcourt in its edition of August 20-26, 2007 in a front Page report
titled; 'The Odili Years of Blood, Tears and sorrow' catalogued the
genesis of the modern militancy in Niger- Delta and the caliber of
industrious sons of Rivers State killed while Odili holds sway as the
Chief Executive of Rivers State for eight bloody years in the State. A
patriot and a nationalist, Prof Tam David-West in this report of
Telegraph was quoted as blaming Odili for the violence in the State.
One George Oraeki in an article published in the Leadership of 21st
August, 2007 titled ' Rivers Of Blood: The Challenges before Omehia'
affirmed the position of the PH Telegraph newspaper accusing Odili as
the mastermind of the activities of militancy in the State .
On the other hand the Inspector General of Police recently as a Guest
Speaker at Lagos during activities for the inauguration of National
Think –Tank Committees in a Lecture titled ' Security of life and
Property lend credence to the above assertions when he said '
politicians assuming the reigns of leadership through a dubious
process as well their failure to provide good governance in Nigeria
serve to aggravate crime rate in the country' this aptly described the
pathetic state of affairs in Rivers State where the people's mandate
was stolen in such a way that governance is totally alienated from the
people and that is the sacrosanct truth.
Tonye Princewill the Prince and the rising Star of Rivers State
Politics in his contributions appealed to our youths that 'we should
abhor criminality in all its ramification and stopped any further acts
of hooliganism, destruction of lives and acts inimical to the peace
and growth of our State not minding that it was the same evil forces
that we are fighting today that equipped you people to suppress,
intimidate and scare away the electorates from voting in the
candidates of their choice during the elections thereby given room to
the 'selection' exercise that took place in Rivers State. During the
April's election you people were called heroes the same people are
today calling you villains and that you should be rooted out! We
highlighted and warned of the consequences of using our youths to kill
and intimidate political opponents but we were mocked and today the
fruits of their evil deeds are trying to consume the entire region the
AC's Leader stated.
AIM
The major goal of this effort is not to apportion blames but to trace
the motives, genesis and highlight the possible options as suggested
by Tonye Princewill one of the shinning stars and Prince of Rivers
State politics who as a concerned stake-holder in the political
happenings in this region proffered in bringing this epidemic roaring
to consume not only Niger Delta as a region but the entire country as
a whole.
THE CAUSE OF THE YOUTHS RESTIVENESS
That this region that produces about 90% of Nigeria 's wealth has the
most poverty reddened people is like over flogging the issue and
stating the obvious. In this region so neglected there are no good
schools, no pipe borne water, our people can no longer farm due to
environmental degradation and pollution through oil spillage and gas
flaring by multinational oil companies; fishing that used to be the
mainstay of our people has being destroyed because of offshore oil
exploration so we now depend on iced-fish. The despoliation of the
environment, the short-circuited future of the youth, ravaging
illnesses and excruciating poverty that rates among the worst
nationwide, destructive acid rains, devastating oil spillage, death of
agricultural production have become the lots of our people. Our region
today good drinking water, qualitative education, electricity, and
hospitals are alien to us thereby fostering a new breed of agitators
call militants on Nigeria.
According to an official source, the region has in the last forty
years, a cumulative production of about 19 billion barrels of crude
oil, making it one of the world's leading petroleum provinces. Our
status today as a country as the world's six largest producer of crude
oil is a result of the impact and the implication of the oil mining
activities in this region.
PAST EFFORTS OF GOVERNMENTS
The major recognition of the plights of our people and efforts to
address some of our problems was in 1958 when the Willinks Commission
recommended that there should a special development agency to address
agenda of the region which led to the setting up of the Niger Delta
Development Board in 1960. By 1992 the Oil Mineral Producing Areas
Development Commission (OMPADEC) came in and was replaced in 2000 by
Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC with an increment of 13%
derivation and sadly despite all these efforts there has been no
noticeable socio-economic impact in the region due to corruption on
the side of our Leaders couple with poor funding that led us to our
present state of quagmire in the region. The N30 billion due to the
Delta State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission (DESOPADEC) are
yet to be released to the commission.
Chief Olusegun Obasanjo former President of Nigeria fashioned out a
nine-point plan to deceive our people. The agenda rolled out in 2004
had a string of definitive measures to develop the coastal states of
the Niger Delta – the agenda was to cover employment generation,
transportation, education, health, telecommunications, environment,
agriculture, power and water resources. Under this development plan,
Obasanjo had promised that the government would resume the
construction of the abandoned East-West highway with an estimated
investment of N230 billion to link the Niger Delta region with Lagos
with the construction of the East-West highway project – all these
were grammar and only as good as the paper it was written .
MILITANCY IN THE REGION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
The efforts of Issac Adaka Boro in 1966 in raising the awareness and
consciousnesses of our people over their plights couple with the
efforts of Ken Saro-Wiwa and Asari Dokunbo to renew these efforts and
the unfortunate hijacking of this noble vision geared towards the
emancipation of our people by some of our mis-guided youths who
allowed themselves to be manipulated by greedy and evil politicians
couple with lack of employment and total neglect of the region and lip
service to issues affecting the region by past administrations gave
birth to the sad and unfortunate trends of kidnapping exercise in
order to extract money from their victims for survival. To Tonye
Princewill ' as a stake holder in the Niger Delta issue, the new
dimension of indulging in acts of criminality in the struggle for the
emancipation of our people is not acceptable to me. This latest ploy
has not only brought shame and calamity to us as a region but negates
the principles of our struggle for a better Niger Delta. We accept the
fact that we produce about 90% of the total income of our country's
income and all these years our region has remain impoverished and
treated like a pariah geo-political section in Nigeria but this act of
criminality by few youths that have decided to hijack and portray us
in a very bad light thereby negating the good intentions and noble
goals of Issac Boro and others is not acceptable to me as a focused
person interested in the greatness of this region. I condemn with the
strongest terms this criminally induced hostage taking in our region
as it's contradicts any principled strategy of attracting the
attention of both the Federal Government and the International
Community to the plights of our people. The present Government has
demonstrate a enough commitment, vision and focus in attending to some
of the problems of the region; we must give them a chance and see how
far they can go considering that at the moment, our own son is the
Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria not minding that the
election that brought them in is still before the Tribunal'. 'I urge a
total stoppage of any form of further hostage-taking in the region.
This unacceptable stance portrays us as unserious and unprincipled
people that take pleasure in inflicting pains on innocent families and
scaring away investors that have come to assist in developing our
region. We therefore call for collective effort by the entire stake-
holder in the region to isolate the criminals trying to hijack our
struggle before an irreparable damage is done on both our psyche and
image as a people'. The upsurge in youth militancy has forced most oil
companies to shut down operations and forced many expatriates to pull
out of their operational areas in the region. Lamenting this ugly
development, the former Group managing director of the Nigeria
National Petroleum Company (NNPC), Funsho Kupolokun, made a sobering
disclosure on the cost of the crisis. Receiving the Chief of Army
Staff (CAS), Lt. General Luka Yusuf in his office, the NNPC chief
revealed that about 600, 000 barrels of crude oil is being lost daily
to the lingering crises in the Niger-Delta region.
Apart from the staggering loss in crude oil Nigeria is suffering other
debilitating losses over the seemingly intractable crises. Foreign
investors are now afraid to invest in that region, which they see as a
serious threat to their lives and investment. Some countries have
warned their citizens not to go to the region for work, which is fast
becoming a high loss to the region. Nobody wants to invest in an area
where there are crises.
THE SOLUTIONS
Many concerned Nigerians have variously offered one suggestion or the
other on how to get the nation out from this intractable dilemma. To
some school of thought the solutions lays on the immediate
implementation of the ' master plan' according to them this will see
that infrastructures will be seen in almost every community, so that
no one will have any excuse to say that we are agitated because
government is doing nothing on our plights as a region- NDDC that was
set up as an interventionist agency to address some of the plights but
not adequately funded – what impact do one expect from such an agency?
Apart from the fact that the funding is not forthcoming but even if it
comes it is inadequate. In this regard let us consider the 2007 budget
that has N24 billion for NDDC whereas the FCT had N67 billion – FCT is
one city you are appropriating for. NDDC has nine states operating a
budget of N24 billion. If you divide N24 billion by nine, you get how
much? What can you do with that? The effect of that budget in one
village alone in the region may not be felt.
In the thinking of Professor Itse Sagay, SAN, a member of The Patriot,
a group of elder statesmen that voiced against certain constitutional
infractions of the Obasanjo regime, proffered two key solutions to
the Niger-Delta crisis, "If the real owners are now engaged in the
process of determining those given the licenses to explore the oil,
then they would have a say about the regulation of the operators in
the petroleum industry and on the control of pollution. They should
also be given a percentage of the money. I am not talking of 13 per
cent derivation that is given to the state. No. In addition to that, I
am talking of communities having a direct stake in what happens to the
oil in their area. I am talking of a community-by-community
involvement.
To Joseph Evah, coordinator of Ijaw Monitoring Group (IMG), 'what the
Niger Delta people need now is more action and less talk. "If,
immediately after Yar'Adua was sworn in, he took steps to correct all
the wrongs that Obasanjo has done to the Niger Delta people, like
paying the backlog of money due to the NDDC then we would have taken
him serious''
Second Republic President, Shehu Shagari, however, came up with a
solution to the age-long resource conflict in the Niger Delta crisis.
He ruled out the use of force, and advised Yar'Adua to embrace
dialogue as a means of ending the problem in the region. Certainly,
speaking with the benefit of hindsight, Shagari said dialogue would
serve the purpose of healing the wounds in the minds of the people of
Nigeria, especially those of the Niger Delta region. He says such
dialogue could be achieved through a conference in a neutral ground
where all sides to the various conflicts could peacefully exchange
ideas. He described militancy in the Niger Delta as the biggest
problem Nigeria faces today, but believed it can be resolved through
dialogue.
One-time Minister for External Affairs, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi,
declared that all Nigerians should be ashamed of the current imbroglio
in the Niger-Delta region of the country. He said: "We should all be
ashamed of ourselves allowing the problem of Niger-Delta to degenerate
to this level. I am not talking of shame deriving from individual
responsibility, but of shame deriving from a collective responsibility
as Nigerians." he noted: "This crisis did not creep on us unawares. We
did not wake up one morning to find ourselves confronted by this
crisis. We have had enough signposts, some of them dating back to over
40 years, if we use the Isaac Boro 1966 declaration as a major one.
Yet we ignored the signals .We went to sleep and left the fire burning
on the rooftop. Now we are paying heavy penalties of not being able to
sleep".
The chief executive officer of the Newswatch magazine and indigene of
the region, Ray Ekpu contributing traced the road to the current
crisis in the restive region of the country to 1956 when oil was first
discovered in Oloibiri, Bayelsa State. "As expected, the oil industry
grew in relevance and revenue but this growth came with a price – the
waters of the region were polluted, farmlands destroyed, air fouled
and the people impoverished. No noticeable improvement took place in
the region and the people commenced a regime of agitation that was led
by Boro in the 1960's, which was followed by the playwright, Ken Saro
Wiwa, in the 1990's and Asari Dokubo in this decade. Ekpo indicted
successive governments for failing to implement various reports on the
way out of the crisis. He listed the 1983 NNPC report, and two other
committee reports that were allowed to gather dust without being
implemented.
To the Benin monarch, Omo N'Oba Erediauwa 'the root of the Niger
Delta crisis is traceable to neglect of the indigenes by
multi-nationals involved in oil exploration and exploitation'.
Senator David Brigidi, a member of the last two Senates, leading
environmental activists in the region and presently the chairman of
the Niger Delta Peace and Conflict Resolution Committee, lamented; "despite the huge oil revenue that was accruable to the nation from
that region, the economic deprivation forces still persist …so, people
over the years built up a pent up anger against the Nigerian political
elite, both the military and political structures for neglecting their
environment".
As far as Chief Patrick Okomiso, the National Chairman of the Niger
Delta Youth Forum is concerned; government should replicate the
infrastructure in Abuja in the Niger Delta area. He said: "Infrastructure is lacking in that place yet they produce the money we
all use. They went to Abuja and saw the good roads there and then they
came to Lagos and saw the third mainland bridge, yet they don't have
any of these good things that their money is producing in other areas. "Do you think they will rest after seeing all these things? We should
stop deceiving ourselves, we need to concentrate on the Niger Delta
and develop that place too. Let them replicate the third mainland
bridge in the Niger Delta; let them construct those types of roads in
Abuja there and see if militancy will not stop. How many schools are
in the region for the people to go to? How many hospitals are in that
place, how many will you count in Abuja alone'.
Contributing, Chief Edwin Kiagbodo Clark an elder statesman and a
onetime Federal Minister of Information in the first Republic
advocated that the only solution to the lingering security crisis in
Rivers State 'I implored President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua not to
dilly-dally in imposing a state of emergency on Rivers State, doing so
would be tantamount to postponing the evil day ' He continued'. Omehia
was not fit to be governor of Rivers State in fact he is a major part
of the problem and an unserious and insensitive personality; where is
the seriousness in Omehia? If he is a serious governor or politician,
why should he abandon Rivers State when the state was still boiling to
go and take part in a birthday bash in Abuja for his godfather, Peter
Odili? We can't fold our hands as elders, and continue watching
situation degenerate."
THE CONCLUSION
In conclusion we can not ignore the observation of President Yaradua
when he addressed the Governors from the region recently at Aso-Rock
according to Mr. President ' that with national and global attention
focused on the area, the Governors must now commit themselves to a
judicious application of the resources allocated to them for the
benefit of their people. , apart from working towards improving the
living conditions of their people, the governors must make
transparency and accountability intrinsic parts of their
administrations'.
Mr. President continued "The problem we have in many states today is
that of transparency and accountability. Nigerians are yearning for
leaders who will be more accountable and live by examples rather than
precepts," 'I am very concerned about the state of insecurity in the
region and the Governors must give more urgent to the restoration of
peace, law and order to the region', Mr. President stated.
Concluding Engr. Tonle Princewill the Prince of Rivers State politics
stated " Without doubt, the grievance that arose from many years of
neglect and social decay is responsible for the massive unemployment
and restiveness among the youths in the region. Yet, the latest ploy
of hostage-taking and continued destruction of oil facilities, in the
region, can only lead to an avoidable vicious cycle of declining
derivation earnings causing more misery, unemployment and frustration.
Having said this, I will like to appeal to the Federal Government to
start addressing the genuine concerns of the peace loving people of
the region without further delay. what our people need now is not
formation of one peace committee or the other but serious intervention
on the pitiable situation of our people and a committed and pro-active
agenda for job creation, poverty alleviation and infrastructural
improvement in the region The Niger Delta problem is our problem and
as committed sons from the region' we are capable of solving this
heinous and hydra-headed problem once the FG takes the right steps in
redressing the issues and major concerns of the region and ready to
work with those who are committed towards this course and not
politicians not truly elected by our people as presently constituted
in the region. Let the FG help us to salvage this sad and unfortunate
situation and that way we can all be helped. 'Oil for nothing is no
more a fashionable concept'. We must start to put back, sow before we
reap and let us preach and practice justice. This applies to all of us
and that way peace and development will be brought to this region the
lays the golden egg that sustains us as a country".
To demonstrate the lack of vision on how to tackle the Niger Delta
crisis by the Omehia's administration, they came with the funny
strategy of given the repentant militants the sum of N1 million which
they have started implementing as the panacea to solving the militancy
which they created but hear what Tonye Princewill has to say on this
unfortunate strategy "To me the strategy of giving the sum of one
million Naira to any militant who denounces membership of militant
group shows the highest level of amateurism in governance and total
lack of basic elements of administration by Sir Celestine Omehia and
his friends in governance. A child of five years can easily deduce
that this step is just another ploy to sustain and encourage the
activities of militancy in our State. How many militants do we have in
the State and how many millions do we have to give out to these
militants? How do we establish who is a militant and even when
established how do we prove that the so called militant will not
collect the one million naira and still go back his vomit"? As a
solution, "I have developed a three blue-print strategy on how to
tackle the restiveness in Niger Delta starting with Rivers State which
is at moment the hot-bed of crisis and make Rivers State a haven for
all Nigerians and foreigners -My strategy for countering the Niger
Delta Problem is what I call the Double E C (EEC) approach.
1. Education and Training: Does anybody ask the question "What happens
after the oil is finished." Our dependence on oil money is the root of
our problem. We forget that our biggest resource is human capital. My
government aims to tap it. To do it we will need to go beyond talk to
action. Aside from our team very few have the capacity or the vision
to do this.
2. Employment and Empowerment: Again how many jobs are being created
and how many people are employed? What are the skill sets of the
people most impacted by the current problem and how do you (having
established these answers) begin to segregate those who are pointed at
employment, empowerment, education and training?
3. Crime Resolution: Tough on Crime, Tougher on the causes of Crime:
The truth is all these steps must happen in parallel. Which comes
first the cause or the action? Provide people with positive options
and stand firm in the deliverance of law and order for the security of
our people. They are tired of excuses and so any government worth its
salt has to be able to deliver peace and security. A stronger law and
order structure must form the hallmark of any development. This is
what we need in Rivers State". Can anybody fault these? – coming from
a genuine and committed leader of our people
Finally, I am convinced that if the injustices during the last
election and efforts to implement the master plan and the appeal of
Mr. President to the Care-Taker Governments in the region are
followed; by the time we assume office very soon all things being
equal, the dream and vision of our people will come to pass by the
grace of God Tonye Princewill concluded. The ball is now in the court
of the Election Tribunal and the people of Rivers State- I have given
my options and ready to serve''.
By
Eze Chukwuemeka Eze : Mediaconsultanttpcorivers_07@yahoo.co.uk
Eze Chukwuemeka Eze is a Media Consultant based in Port-Harcourt
