By Samson Jaja
When on March 13, 2018, President Muhammadu Buhari appointed Prof. Charles Quaker Dokubo Special Adviser on Niger Delta Affairs, not a few saw the appointment as most deserving.
As Presidential Adviser on Niger Delta Affairs, Dokubo doubles as Head of the Presidential Amnesty Programme inaugurated a little over10 years earlier by the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua to stem militancy in the Niger Delta. This militancy had cut Nigeria’s oil production by more than 30 percent.
Prior to Dokubo’s appointment, Yar’Adua’s great idea to address the issues of poverty, neglect and environmental degradation in the Niger Delta, had been turned into a huge cake to be shared at will by a few persons from the area.
The result was that funds earmarked for developmental projects and empowerment of persons from the region, in order to keep them off militancy, became the birthright of a few lords with connections to Abuja.
Pandering to the antics of these lords, several advisers before Dokubo fell for their cheap blackmail and ended up losing focus. Perhaps they failed to realize the lesson in the adage, “when you give a mouse a cookie, it demands a glass of milk.”
When, therefore President Buhari appointed Prof. Dokubo, he expected the new adviser to, not only shake several tables, but to clean the Augean stable which was swarming with paradites. Armed with profound knowledge of history, political science, peace studies, and nuclear weapon proliferation studies, Dokubo set out to do just that.
From Day One, he told all who cared to listen that he’s on a mission to make every kobo of the Presidential Amnesty Office count. “I’m here to work and assist Mr. President deliver on his promise to make all parts of Nigeria prosperous, particularly the Niger Delta,” says Dokubo.
He’s worried that “some persons still think that it is business as usual and that once they put in their claims they get paid even if they’ve done nothing to warrant a dime.
” Initially, they were shocked that we insist that due process be followed. After some time, the shock turned onto frustration. Now, it is fully blown anger. That is why they are stealing documents, doctoring them, with crazy figures to create the false impression that we are cooking the books.
“We don’t need to be distracted. See, I’m a very busy man. My days are so busy that sometimes, I don’t even have the time to eat, let alone afford the luxury of listening to gossip,” noted the professor.
Dokubo vowed that nothing will distract him from focusing on President Buhari’s desire to make the Niger Delta one of the safest places on earth for doing business.
“When they realized that we weren’t going to do their bidding, they tried to use some ex-agitators against us. Fortunately, we were able to meet with them and laid our cards on the table. Most human beings are rational. They’ll reason with you if you tell them the truth” he added..
The truth remains that,confronted by mounting attacks on oil installations by Niger Delta militants, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo who was until 2007 president, ordered troops into the region to “flush out the militants”.
Like the US military adventure in Afghanistan, Nigerian lost hundreds of soldiers to ambushes by the militants.
In May 2007, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua succeeded Obasanjo.
Radically departing from the stick approach to the restiveness in the Niger Delta, the late Yar’Adua felt that listening to the militants, and perhaps offering them carrots, might save the country billions of US dollars.
Aside the plunge in crude oil and natural gas production, Nigeria was losing several men and officers of the Army and Navy deployed to engage the militants. The reason wasn’t farfetched.
Since the end of the Nigeria civil war, where the 3rd Marine Commandoes led a very successful push against separatist Biafra from Port Harcourt, the Nigerian Army and Navy have not had cause to fight in the creeks. Thus, when the militants took to the creeks, blowing up oil installations and kidnapping foreign oil workers, the Nigeria military was largely helpless.
Perhaps it was this, among many other reasons, that prompted the late Yar’Adua to seek the path of peace, eventually having a one-on-one meeting with kingpins of the militancy on the Nigerian military wanted list just weeks earlier.
Hot on the heels of Yar’Adua’s meeting with the warlords in the Aso Rock villa, Abuja, were public shows of militants surrendering their arms in exchange for the window of amnesty.
The sophistication of the arms surrendered by the militants were mind boggling. Some machine guns had to be towed to the venue of the surrender. The events left many wondering if the militants weren’t bettered armed than our military?
It us heartwarming that the Amnesty Programme is experiencing a turn around, thanks to the strict rules put in place by Prof. Dokubo. The Amnesty Office, which used to look like a marketplace for contractors, now wears new looks. Visits are strictly on appointment, and persons aren’t expected to loiter.
Perhaps owing to Dokubo’s long stay as a student in the UK, activities of the Amnesty office are conducted with military precision. Workers there have become more serious no thanks to Dokubo’s zero tolerance for nonsense.
And coming from the academia, Prof. Dokubo isn’t given to politicking. Due process is strictly followed in the appointment of contractors and consultants. Files don’t pile up since, according to the Special Adviser, it is the piling up of files that breed corruption. “Contractors would then begin offering monies to some elements to help them push the files. This we have effectively stopped,” he disclosed.
Of course, there are those who ate displeased with the new Sherrif in town. They see Prof. Dokubo as antithetical to their nefarious activities. Is Dokubo worried? “Oh no! ” he fires back.
“My needs in life are limited. I’m not swayed by money or position. I trust God that what he’s destined cannot be taken away from you. My desire is to contribute my quota to the development of the Niger Delta, nay Nigeria, so that in 30,40, or even hundred years, people would be able to say, ‘ Prof. Charles Dokubo did his best. That’s all”, he added.
Jaja writes from Port Harcourt and can be reached on samjaja1@yahoo.com