Date Published: 05/20/09

250 Niger Delta Groups move against Fed Govt, hail Obama

 REPRESENTATIVES of over 250 civil society and community-based organisations in the Niger Delta, yesterday rose from a meeting in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, with a call on the United Nations (UN) to raise a human rights panel on Nigeria.

The groups which met under the umbrella of the Niger Delta Civil Society Coalition (NDCSC), also said that they  welcomed the decision of the Barack Obama administration not to visit Nigeria at this time , following what they described as ''the abysmal failure'' of the President Umaru Yar’Adua's administration to meet any basic tenet of democracy , good governance and human security. 

Chairman of the coalition, Mr. Anyakwee Nsirimovu, in a statement after the meeting said ''the clear message that Obama sends to Nigeria, is in keeping with his avowed statement  upon inauguration to the effect that the age is gone past, when  so-called leaders engage in civilian  despotism and ride roughshod  on the liberties and livelihoods of their citizens'' . 

According to the coalition, ''the decision to visit Accra, the capital city of Ghana first,  in his initial trip to Africa, extols the major achievement of Ghana in liberal democracy practice; a  is a pointer to the fact that Nigeria like Kenya   are fast failing states,  running what at best may be described as  diminished democracies fraught with absolute corruption. It is noteworthy, that the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nigeria,  visited Washington, D.C a number of times to practically lobby  for this visit, and was duly and rightly bluffed. It is also heart warming that some good Nigerians are rasing the heat level on the Nigerian regime in policy circles all over the world. In current geo-poliical context, this is a major set-back for Nigeria; that inspite of its population size and  strategic economic wealth,  it is  still considered as second best by reason of poor leadership capacities''.

The NDCSC notes  that President Yar’Adua’s   lack of political will in dealing with the Niger Delta crisis, electoral reform process, and  effective management of its own national budget is incumbent on how civilized nations see and rate Nigeria through a most retarding regime today. It is also very clear and well understood  in policy making circles in capitals of  world democracies, alleging that the president is very sick, and that sick people cannot offer any  leadership that can be considered meaningful in any manner. 

''This is further evidenced in the present poverty of decision of the president to abdicate his responsibility  to military men to invade communities of the Niger Delta region and glory in slaughtering of Nigerian citizens in   ‘self defence’, and pursuit of ‘criminals’'', they added.

The NDCSC also noted that the president preferred to turn a blind eye to the real criminals  within his party,  government, in the military outside of it, and his friends in the private and multinational oil sector that are leading  the  oil bunkering industrial complex , small and light arms proliferation that has  brought  the Niger Delta into its current disastrous state.

''The present war is obviously a war to open the creeks of the region for an unfettered illicit oil deals, nothing more. The ex-governors of the Niger Delta who stole the resources of the people with impunity,  created a sense of helplessness and hopelessness that  also  led some youths to a call for arms, are still being prevented from facing justice  by this regime, making complete nonsense of the regime’s rule of law mantra'', the groups said.

Continuing, they said President Yar'Adua has an invaluable opportunity to implement atleast  the recommendations of his own Technical Committee on the Niger Delta, beginning with militancy and conflict measures,  which would have made the latest maiming, slaughtering and displacing  of unsuspecting  citizens  in the region  unnecessary,  ''but he preferred to listen to the hawks in the military  who advised him that DDR is not necessary because they were not in a war situation, instead  preferring a military defeat which has left citizens slaughtered in their hundreds if not thousands, and homes razed, under a regime that has no shelter policy''.

They pointed out that from Adaka Boro to Ken Saro-Wiwa,  the Federal Government of Nigeria has responded to the demands of the indigenous and minority  peoples of the Niger Delta, in a genocidal manner, whether it is Odi, Umuechem, Choba, Odioma , Agge and today Gbaramatu kingdom communities.

''In all these, level of gross human rights violations following military occupation in the region, has remained hidden to-date, by reason of military arbitrariness.  The judicial slaughter of Ken Saro-Wiwa, destruction of Odi and others failed woefully to cow, nor stop the peoples of the region to demand for just treatment from  very repressive regimes;  it is unlikely that the present expedition aimed at  intimidating  dissent, collective punishment  of young and old, women and children, shall void the demand for justice from the over-punished and dehumanized peoples of the impoverished region.  The Military cannot defeat justice in the Niger Delta region'', they said.

The coalition is therefore, calling on the Federal Government to call off the hostilities and killings immediately, and embrace a peace and conflict transformation process, in order not to create a worse and faceless  monster by this action. Contrary to believes in some quarters, militancy as an option,  has widespread support within communities , across the region and beyond.  Military peace as opposed to just peace cannot hold in a rights empowered Niger Delta.

They are also calling on the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and the organ responsible for indigenous and minority rights,  to urgently dispatch  a team of rapporteur to the Nigeria to investigate first hand the level of gross and attested  human rights  abues – including extra-judicial executions, inhuman degrading treatment,  torture, rape, cultural, social and economic rights in the Niger Delta,  before the evidence disappears without trace.