NIGER DELTA: STILL IN SEARCH OF DEVELOPMENT ROAD MAP

The truth is very hard to accept especially in Nigeria where everything is warped. The Federal Government knows what to do for the betterment of the living standard of the people they are ruling but government only wish the Nigerian masses (particularly the people of the Niger Delta) don’t know what to expect from them. On the crisis in the Niger Delta, the Government knows where to go and who to talk to, but the only problem is that the operators of government already have a mindset on what they want to hear in response and it is not going to work that way.

It is very funny for the Presidency to acclaim that “what is happening today in the Niger Delta is that genuine agitation has been taken advantage of by people who want to make money through stealing and smuggling crude oil. Those people who are interested in stealing and smuggling crude oil sponsor most of the aggressive activities in the area. People are now exploiting it and making big money.” 

If Government is sure of the allegation that crude oil smugglers are the ones causing the problems in the Niger delta, then the problem is half solved. Questions: What has the government done or planning to do to check these oil thieves? Are the bunkerers more powerful than the Federal Republic of Nigeria? So who is deceiving who?

If these people are clearly identified as oil thieves what stops the Nigerian government from harassing those countries where stolen crude oil from Nigeria are received and refined, that is if we cannot deal directly with the thieves here in Nigeria ? Government has not done anything of such because as an Ijaw elder puts it, “na the same people.” The federal government is simply looking for explanations for its failure to address the Niger Delta crisis.

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The Presidency’s assertion that the essence of the controversially-proposed Niger Delta Summit is to take a major step forward from previous reports and recommendations on Niger Delta development would have been taken wholeheartedly on its face value by the people of the region but for the serial lies or rather deceits the people had received from this same Government in the last nine years. If the Federal Government had been executing specific developmental actions in the Niger Delta region on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, by now the idea of a summit might have been out of the question because what the region needs is outright development and not village square meetings.

On the stance of the Niger Delta elders, they were very right when they told the Presidency that what Federal Government should do is to set up a body to appraise the various reports that have been submitted on the way forward for the Niger Delta, from the Willinks Commission of 1958 to 2007 and “let the body come out with the things to be done or not done from the different reports, and then, the larger house like the stakeholders gathered, could be called to fine-tune and ratify the final report.” However, there are very serious problems with this suggestion. Are the elders aware that for their recommendation to be effective/productive, it may take up to 24 months or more to produce a workable and generally acceptable blue print?

So between now and when the final roadmap will be ready, passed through the national assembly for statutory backing and executive endorsement, and then money sourced for and released for take-off of the ‘quick’ intervention projects, what is going to happen to stern the deteriorating security situations in the region?

Are the elders going to permit the federal government to deploy cantonments of army, navy and airforce personnel to the region for territorial defense? If not, are the elders going to ask the militants to observe a truce until the new road map is packaged? Do the elders actually have a firm influence over the militants at least the genuine ones not the oil thieves, to insist and maintain absolute peace across the region? Supposing the security problem in the region was actually created by local and international oil thieves as alleged by both the elders and the federal government, does the elders have any form of control over this category of ‘militants’ to dialogue or rather enforce compliance to whatever agreement to be reached between the delta people and government. Can this group of militants (oil thieves) be identified by the authourities- government or elders?

More importantly, can the youths- both active and dormant militants, trust these elders to represent the genuine interest of the region without pursuing their selfish or political agenda at some point? Also, if the elders are clamouring for another document of actions, what would be the fate of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC)? Should the organization be scrapped? If yes, would they give account of their stewardship or just allowed to vanish into the air?

The present stance by the elders of the region for a compilation of all previously suggested road maps for the development of the region could best be described as a vote of no confidence on the NDDC. This is the correct picture and the outright truth. It has been suggested that the harmonized roadmap would be produced under the direct supervision of a steering committee of eminent people and this same committee would also directly supervise its implementation. So where does NDDC come into all these proposals?

Needless to say that the failure of NDDC to record meaningful impact in the region despite huge resources received by the agency was a major cause of the present armed confrontation by both the real and imaginary resource control activists (the oil thieves- indigenous and foreign). The amount of money the NDDC had so far received within its existence would have been able to achieve very tangible infrastructural development in the troubled region, at least in some sections.  Although the NDDC may not accept this, the agency failed to live up to its purpose, no matter how anybody looks at it. More so, when the managers of the agency, rather than focused wholehearted on the business of its mandate, were more of PDP chieftains and party financiers across the region even up to Abuja. It should be very clear to the administrators of the NDDC that the current proposal on the way forward in the region does not sound very different from the recent clamour for the probe and/or scrap of the agency as presently structured.

The proposed collation of all the previously suggested roadmaps for the development of the region into a single, generally acceptable document to be endorsed by the Federal Government was another way of saying that the much trumpeted NDDC master plan was a charade that failed to bring together previous proposals into one document. By implication, the NDDC master plan also was not accepted or rather endorsed by the federal government and this is another indictment.

Another question: Can the Niger Delta elders/people trust the federal government enough this time to accept and endorse the proposed almighty formula?

There is something not very straight or rather clear in the entire argument. There is a very urgent need for both sides to clearly understand and appreciate each other. A gap analysis would clearly show that the gulf of insincerity between the elders of Niger Delta and the Abuja government is so wide that it may swallow the entire conscription presently called Nigeria . A word is enough for a fool because a wise does not need any word.

BY: IFEANYI IZEZE
IFEANYI IZEZE IS AN ABUJA-BASED CONSULTANT ON POLITICAL STRATEGY AND
GRASSROOT CONSULTATION (iizeze@yahoo.com