There Should Be No Amnesty To Criminals In Niger Delta-Fubara

MR. Lamb-Caleb Fubara

MR. Lamb-Caleb Fubara, was an inner kichen aide to the former Governor of Rivers State, Dr. Peter Odili. He functioned at the Special Project Office. Within the context of oil politics in Nigeria, Rivers state is one of the key players in the Niger Delta, an oil region that is currently the hotbed of armed conflict by largely unemployed youths. Fubara spoke with Akanimo Sampson, a senior journalist, on a number of issues including militancy, kidnapping, Governor Chibuike Amaechi, and lots more. Excerpts:

Q: Hello Mr. Fubara, its been quite a while. Please, can you oblige me some few minutes chat on the state of Rivers State since your former boss, Dr. Peter Odili left office?

Ans. Chief Priest, its nice to see you. Its been really a while. Yes, no problem if such a request is coming from you.

Q:  Many thanks for the honour. Let me immediately start by asking you what is your opinion on Gov. Amaechi's style of leadership?

Ans: I’m actually doing a memoir on this. But to answer your question, i think i like his style if the present tempo will be sustained, because history has shown that most politicians start well, but end up as failures. I think the man is being passion-driven. The passion to outlive his immediate political past, the passion to impress the people of Rivers state, and the passion to leave a positive footprints in the sands of time.

Q:What is your take on the ongoing urban renewal policies of the Amaechi administration?

Ans:  I have always maintained that my stand as an ardent supporter of the governor, somewhat places a question mark on even what could be a candid and dispassionate assessment of the governor and his policies. In other words, there are those who will say i’m biased. However, for a government that has four years to run, I think it’s a bit too early in the day to assess the government, particularly in its urban renewal policies. But that notwithstanding, I think it is possible to presume that one area the governor is striving so hard to leave a positive footprint is in the urban renewal sector. This is evident in the unprecedented drive we have witnessed so far in terms of road construction, rehabilitation and upgrading. We now see some of the roads turn into dual carriageways. But while this is going on, it is also pertinent to add that the government needn’t loose sight on the need to address the perennial flooding which has become a nightmare and more threatening to Port Harcourt residents over the years in its renewal package. Having said that let me also add that the renewal programme needn’t be pursued in a manner that could portray the government as being insensitive to the plight of the masses. Government should also avoid being seen as using the renewal programme as a ploy to browbeat real and imaginary political opponents into subjugation. Some persons are already seeing the process as tainted with some form of iconoclasm; since it doesn’t make sense losing four hundred to get four hundred. 

Q: You were once quoted to have expressed a dissenting opinion with the state government on the setting up of the Justice Kayode Eso-led Truth and Reconciliation Commission; giving the benefit of hindsight, will you still maintain your earlier stance?

Ans: Incidentally, the benefit of hindsight only reinforces my position on the issue. You see except that government in our clime carries itself like one infallible institution, otherwise I still believe that the government was a bit flurry in setting up that commission. As a matter of fact, the benefit of hindsight was all that the government needed to have mirrored the inappropriateness of the truth and reconciliation commission. It wasn’t about bringing in big names as Justice Kayode Eso and other distinguished members to sit on the commission. It is simple logic; all the government needed was the benefit of hindsight to have realized the futility of such commission. Celestine Omehia and his reconciliatory team didn’t fail because they were not sincere, but because they failed to take cognizance of the futility in attempting to reconcile faceless criminals with God knows who? Take for instance, the slight on the respected Justice and the other accomplished members of the commission, who almost went out of their way in persuading one Ateke Tom to appear before the commission, all to no avail. What could be more embarrassing than seeing Ateke Tom refused to be ‘tricked’ according the warlord, out of his den, but rather took advantage of the commission’s shortcoming to give a very tall order as a prerequisite to reconciliation? I stand to be corrected, otherwise it is my opinion that one of the overriding intent behind setting up the commission in spite of all the misgivings and hiccups was to provide the needed platform for the governor to not only state his case but challenge his accusers to prove him a cultist, especially after the celebrated Chief Edwin Clark’s declaration. As far as i’m concerned the commission didn’t do much than replay certain chapters of our sordid past; apart from further revealing our political leaders as savage, unscrupulous and a bunch of power hungry hypocrites. And that all those who were in authority at the time but never found their voice to speak against the creation of a monster were simply accomplices. So, it shouldn’t be like the pot calling kettle black? Again the fact that a commission that was supposed to sit for three months, sat for almost one year leaves much to be desired. I’m aware that Rivers people are anxiously awaiting the report of the commission; how long that will take I don’t know. Yet it is one thing submitting a report and another implementing it, so it’s truly not yet uhuru. One would have thought that Omehia’s failed attempt should have acted as a guide. So let’s keep our fingers crossed.  

Q:What do you have to say on the spate of kidnappings in the state?

Ans: I think it is a very sad and worrisome situation. Yet it is a daily reminder that we once had a government that swallowed the soured grape and the people’s teeth set on egde today. The whole scenario tends to put a question mark on the effectiveness of our security agencies, even though it is difficult to put them down out rightly. You will agree with me that this is one area the governor deserves some kudos, even though the challenges are still very frightening.  The question is who ever gave out these guns, knowing the price of a gun and knowing the purchasing power of these hoodlums before 2002? Yet the perpetrators of these crimes will hurriedly point at oil bunkering as a cover up. Come to think of it, where were these bunkerers who later metamorphosed into cultists and now kidnappers before 2002 in Rivers State ? It is sad because the abominable has become the order of the day and, worrisome because the government and the security outfits now seem helpless. So far, the whole thing is like a game show, where the boys must continue to kidnap innocent citizens for ransom, while the Joint Military Task Force goes for the release of the victims. Whether ransom is paid or not is damn immaterial. Because, it beats logic that the hoodlums have continued to risk their lives on this thing call kidnapping only to release their captives a few days after just for the fun of it. I think these kidnappers are actually getting money from this unwholesome trade which has remained their source of inducement. Sometime last year I remember the immediate past commissioner of police parading some persons suspected to be kidnappers, but that was the last I have heard of them. What are the relevant agencies doing in prosecuting these felons? Is the judiciary on their own part ensuring that these persons are summarily tried, against the backdrop that kidnapping is a now threat to our corporate existence? At least let us begin to see kidnappers cooling off in jail. 

Q: Just recently, a commissioner in the state revealed that the government is contemplating granting amnesty to repentant militants; do you see this move assuaging the current spate of kidnappings and other related vices?

Ans: Not after the government’s hard stand on the criminal elements which is roundly applauded by good men. The question is what will be the basis for amnesty? Why do you think the holy book warned in unmistakable language that we should call evil, evil so that evil will depart from our house? Evil in whatever guise has to be confronted. There should be no palliative. That is why one tends to question the rationale behind the Chief Albert Horsfall led rehabilitation committee in the first place. Experience has shown that there is no shortcut in handling this menace. All this committees upon committee not only compound the issues, but rather beg the question. If I may ask, what will be the basis for measuring genuine repentance? Or have we forgotten so soon the truce between Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, leader of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force; and Ateke Tom, leader of the Niger Delta Vigilante and the Niger Delta Patriotic Force, a few years back with the Federal and Rivers State governments acting as facilitators/witnesses? How state funds were desperately applied to that infamous buying back of arms? How principal staff of Government House Port Harcourt began to outwit one another in the illicit trade, not until a driver attached to the then Chief of Staff paid the ultimate price? Today one sees Asari Dokubo angling to be regarded as a statesman and nobody is asking what happened to that state organized unholy truce. Let me say this, that the moment the government begins to talk amnesty with any of these groups, it should be ready to explain if it is not for the purposes of 2011 elections. So, i think it is not about amnesty, it is about government living up to his constitutional billing of maintaining law and order.  In other words, those calling for amnesty in this matter are a little unrealistic. And I don’t see the governor considering that option.

Q: If you don’t subscribe to amnesty as the way out, then what do you think is the way forward? 

Ans: Simple. Is there anybody who carries the tag of armed robbery for the society to identify him as an armed robber? No! It is only when a man is caught robbing with a gun that you can apprehend and arraign him before the law. In other words, if the man who says he is in the creek fighting the Niger Delta cause later realizes that the very Isaac Boro was unable to overrun the government with the use of arm, and then decides to throw away the gun that makes him live in the creek as a fugitive, do you need amnesty for him to come back and key into the various youth empowerment programmes of the government? No. Is it possible to arrest a man who has no gun on him and prosecute him for either gun running or as an arm robber? If you do that then the onus will be on you to prove beyond reasonable doubt in a court of law that the man is an arm robber. This means there should be no negotiation so that nothing is put at stake again. Of course, there is no reason why the man who is caught trying to dispossess his neighbour with the use of arm shouldn’t be made to face the law, if only to serve as a deterrent. While we give kudos to the genuine freedom fighters of the Niger Delta cause, distinction must be made between the chaff from the wheat. Nobody deserves to be glorified as a ‘militant’ just to cover up for his crime.   

Q: How would you assess the role of the elders in moving Rivers s tate forward?

Ans: With due respect to our elders, i think the Rivers elders are a bit docile in the business of state building. What is even more embarrassing is that a few of them have gone beyond aloofness by throwing scruples to the wind? I think it is the failure the present day Rivers elder that necessitated the various trips to and from Delta state where a cross section of our elders went desperate in search of just one elder who is not a Rivers man to be able to make political statements on matters that were exclusively Rivers. The only time you see an average Rivers elder commenting on state matters either by way of criticism or recommendation is usually when elections are around the corner just because he wants to run for one political office or the other. It bleeds the mind to see the same elders who were vehemently opposed to Amaechi”s candidature in 2006; elders who, in their desperate bid to stop Amaechi had to invoke the spirit of upland/riverine dichotomy in Rivers politics, today clamoring to be the man’s chamberlain because he eventually made it to become a governor. Tell me why elders who should ordinarily be operating from behind the scene by way of giving advice coming to serve in a capacity that is far below the position they held twenty years ago? The question is what legacy are these elders leaving behind? I see today’s Rivers elder wittingly or unwittingly promoting the syndrome of divide-and-rule which is the politician’s bait. In warning the governor concerning these elders, I once wrote that we knew those elders who were permanent faces at Dr. Peter Odili’s banquets, the same with the ill fated Omehia’s government, and that we could guess as at January 2008 those who will sup with him (Amaechi). Till date how many Rivers elders have found it pertinent to take the federal authority to task over the death of two prominent Rivers sons who died in very unusual circumstances? One is however consoled that out of the lot there are a few of them whose guts and intellectual contributions to the growth of society is not only internationally acclaimed, but infectious.

Q: Let me take you back to Amaechi. What leadership trait will you say is common to Governor Amaechi and his former political mentor, Dr. Peter Odili?

Ans: I think they are both Machiavellian. They are shrewd politicians, except that one is subtle and the other something of a bravado; men who cut their friends depending on the circumstances.

Q: Governor Amaechi had on several occasions maintained that his critics are those he has refused to share state funds with. As a former Government House functionary, could this be true?

Ans: Well, the much i know the governor i wouldn’t say he is lying. But, if i were him, i would rather restrain my myself from making such statement publicly when i’m not prepared to mention names; because it’s like history repeating itself going down memory lane. You will recall what Dr. Odili’s response was when the Late Dr. Marshall Harry was hitting hard on him to be transparent and accountable to Rivers people. Today the benefit of hindsight has shown that it would have been more rewarding if the governor then had really shared the money with Rivers people. I think it is quite unfortunate that all those individuals and institutions outside the state that benefited from the state’s blind philanthropy would ever deem it wise to show gratitudeto a state that ambitiously denied herself to make others. Incidentally, it has always been too late in the day before the people discover that a government that preaches absolute frugality could just pass for the worst squander the state is yet to witness.   

Q: The ban on motorcyclists popular known as Okada within the Greater Port Harcourt City has since generated mixed reactions from residents. How will you react to this?

Ans: Honestly, the ban on motorcycles as a means of transport in Port Harcourt and its environs would have been a great feat, but for its approach. First, the ban should have been gradual and in phases. Second, the government failed the public who had come to see okada as an alternative means of intra city transportation for well over a decade, when it failed to make adequate provision to cushion the effect of the ban. Third, which is a personal opinion, is the governor’s inability to restrain himself for at least three months after the ban before displaying his passion as a motor biker. This latest development tends to create the impression that the governor simply wanted the road for himself.  We were told that government was concerned about the people’s safety, yet the government is still to address the long queues and waiting at the different bus stops, while the people continue to yearn for their okada that wouldn’t have been banned in the first place going by a vox pox. We were told that okada aids and abet kidnapping, yet there seems to be resurgence in kidnapping since the ban on okada. I was honestly shocked to see the state sliding back into the days of “our big brother governor”, when the police hurriedly announced the reduction in crime in the state following the ban on okada. I hope somebody is not loosing sight of the fact that these criminals can also afford to buy power bikes, if they truly need it.

Q: Your opinion of government?

Ans: To my mind, government should be an institution of service and the enforcement of law and order; something that transcends personal ego.

Q: Your advice to Rivers youths?

Ans: To start engaging our political leaders constructively.  Government does not belong to those alone in power. As citizens, we have the right to question wrong doings and praise when necessary.