By: Ifeanyi Izeze
As aptly said by the Holy Bible, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge,” not any other thing at least they have convincingly shown that they can be good militants in their protest against the federal government’s neglect. How come the people of the Niger Delta especially the Edwin Clark-led Ijaws have become so short-sighted that they cannot decipher that the new federal government’s approach to dialogue with cliques in the region rather than the bloc was nothing but an outright divide and rule ploy to pitch one section against the other?
Do we learn at all from the past?Niger Delta region agreed to embrace dialogue as the only way forward and so mandated the Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), an aggregate of majority of the ethnic nationalities of the region, to discuss with the federal government on their behalf towards proffering workable solutions and way out of the violent militant activitiesdisrupting oil operations in the region. So what was the essence of the visit of the Vice President, Yemi Osibanjo, to dialogue with only Delta state Ijaw leaders?
What happened to the initial arrangement of bloc meeting/discussion with representatives of the region under the auspices of PANDEF?It was clear from the vice president’s statement before the Gbaramaturu visit that the Buhari government has jettisoned the idea of bloc dialogue.
The statement issued by the Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to the Vice President, Laolu Akande, had it that: “In further demonstration of President Muhammadu Buhari’s readiness and determination to comprehensively address the Niger Delta situation, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, will be visiting a number of oil communities across some Niger Delta States starting on Monday, January 16, 2017, when he travels to Delta State.“At a later date to be announced soon, the Vice President, Prof. Osinbajo would also be visiting Bayelsa and Rivers States.“At these visits, the Vice President will lead high-level delegations of the Federal Government that will interact with leaders and representatives of the oil-producing communities in continuation of ongoing outreach efforts of the Buhari administration towards a long lasting and permanent resolution of the Niger Delta crisis.
”It should have been clear to the Niger Delta people that there is a deliberate plot by the federal government to decimate the region by sowing seeds of discord and mutual suspicion among the different ethnic nationalities?
Did it surprise anybody that the first major report from the Gbaramaturu visit was that “the Itsekiris are posed to dispute the ownership of Okerenkoko?”
Is this not another ploy to throw Delta state and the entire region into another inter-ethnic crisis?
Okerenkoko has never been disputed by the Ijaws and the Itsekiris before now. So where is this purported dispute coming from?
Now to a small section of Delta state mainly the Edwin Clark’s Ijaws the Federal Government has given definite approval for the opening of the Nigeria Maritime University, Okerenkoko, as well as the Export Processing Zone (EPZ) comprising the Gas City Project at Ogidigben and the Deep Seaport in Gbaramatu, all in Warri South-West local government area, Delta State as being celebrated by the Edwin Clark-led PANDEF.
If you promise the Gbaramaturu people so much, what did you promise the Urhobos, Isoko, Ndokwas and other ethnic nationalities that equally has enough miscreants to create discomfort for the federal government by disrupting oil and gas activities in their respective areas? The core issues for the agitation are community or specific area- based and so tilting the promised appeasement heavily to one side alone will be counterproductive.
The Urhobos have already declared that they are not ready to play a second class citizenship to any group in Delta. And as clearly warned by Chief Gbagi, if the government wants to take some sections of the region more seriously than the others, then the authourities should be ready to bear with the fallout of such divide and rule ploy.
This is just for Delta state and when you cascade it down into all the other parts of the oil and gas producing areas across Bayelsa, Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Cross River and even Imo and Abia states, you can properly imagine what i am looking at.It should be clear to the Niger Delta people that PANDEF is tactically being decimated by this federal government’s planting of mutual suspicion in the minds of all the other non-Ijaw ethnic nationalities that agreed to be part of the regional representative body.
It is a calculated attempt and it’s not by default at all.What did Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who presented himself as an emissary of President Muhammadu Buhari actually said to the Ijaws in Gbaramaturu apart from that “The President has already directed that this project (Nigerian Maritime University) must move on.”?Question: when did the establishment of the Maritime University in Okerenkoko become the focal point of the Niger Delta agitation? You see that there is something mischievous in all these and that mutual suspicion has already been deeply planted amongst our peoples!
My people shine your eyes!Severally it has been posited that we don’t even need any 16 or zero point agenda for discussion with the federal government, all that is required is for the President and his people to convincingly show sincerity and serious commitment on their feign interest in correcting the development imbalance of the oil producing region.
The NDDC Master plan and the Mitee Technical committee report as inadequate as we perceived they are, has the President and his office even bothered to look at the plans and programmes with a view to implementing critical quick-fix recommendations?
Why are the reports not being adopted as working documents and take-off point for action in the Niger Delta?Is there a single item in the PANDEF’s 16-point agenda that was not thoroughly captured in the NDDC Master plan or the Mitee Technical committee report?
Why is the federal government dodging to solve the problem from the root, preferring to attack the symptoms and creating more problems?
Can the federal government show some level of sincerity of intent by simply picking and executing some of the recommended actions- projects and programmes by the Mitee Technical Committee which could best be described as extracts from almost all the existing positions and demands of the various oil producing communities and ethnic nationalities and peoples of the region?In funding of this year’s budget, N1.5 trillion is expected to come from crude oil sales.
And as aptly said by my sister Ann Kio-Briggs in her interview, the reality is that, as the President and his people are dragging their feet and displaying outright arrogance and lack of will-power to be honest in this matter they may not be able to fund the 2017 budget as was the case with that of last year.
“It depends on who want to face the reality or who want to live in cocoon land.” Period! Let the crocodiles smile all they want to, they will soon realise that such smiles will be short-lived and will end in tears! God bless Nigeria!(IFEANYI IZEZE lives in Abuja: iizeze@yahoo.com; 234-8033043009)