By Okanga Agila
\nDear Chief Edwin Kiagbodo Clark, Call your children to order.
\nPermit me to again write you another letter in the space of three weeks
\nsince my last open letter to you. I would have exercised some patience and
\nsee how well the issues I raised in the previous communication are being
\ntreated. However, the bruise I called your attention to has festered into
\nan open wound that could become gangrenous if we continue to treat it as a
\nmere sore.<\/p>\n
In my earlier letter, I asked you and other elders in the Niger Delta to
\nstop kicking against military deployment to stop the destruction of oil and
\ngas installations in the area, which you are opposed to based on
\nself-interest and greed. The appeal was for the elders of the area to allow
\nthe military to deploy to the Niger Delta since there is still time to
\nclean up the mess that you and other elders created.<\/p>\n
Your response to that letter, in which you accused me of being vicious,
\nwicked and not a patriotic Nigerian for stating the truth, failed to
\narticulate any possible suggestion that would contain the activities of
\nthese misguided children of yours but rather elected to focus on the
\nanti-corruption crusade of the current administration.
\nEven as you continue playing the ostrich over your role in the crisis
\nthreatening the stability of the country, things have turned uglier in the
\nspace of these three weeks. Your children continue to destroy vital
\neconomic infrastructure even as the few that have seen the light openly
\nnamed you and other leaders in the south as being sponsors of the Niger
\nDelta Avengers (NDA). They did not only mention your name but prominently
\nso.
\nGiven the venom you spewed pre-2015 General Elections about how the country
\nwould burn if your godson, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, was not re-elected; your
\ndenial of any links with the NDA is laughable. The most positive reaction
\nit drew from Nigerians was to feel vindicated that they have been proven
\nright. It turned out you shouldn\u2019t have bothered distancing yourself from
\nthe NDA or denying what the Reformed NDA (RNDA) said about you and other
\ningrates from the region. The RNDA specifically narrated how the present
\ndestabilization plan was hatched, put on hold when Dr Jonathan conceded
\ndefeat and again reactivated when corruption investigations and trials were
\nbrought against members of that administration of which you were the one
\nthat called the shots.
\nDespite your denial and half-hearted assurances to call your rampaging
\nchildren to order, they continue to bomb economic infrastructure and have
\ntaken implementation of your agreed plan to the its next phase with a
\nthreat to declare secession from the Federal Republic of Nigeria by October
\n1st.
\nThis shows it is you who is unpatriotic.
\nYou of all people know the significant of October 1st and we are not
\ntalking about Nigeria\u2019s Independence Anniversary. Rather it was the day
\nyour godson, Dr Goodluck Jonathan became a spokesperson for terrorists on
\nOctober 1, 2010 when he stridently refuted responsibility for a bomb attack
\nthey carried out in Abuja. His complicity in issues of insecurity is well a
\nknown fact. It must also be on record that it was that infamous blast that
\nopened the floodgate of bombing in Nigeria.<\/p>\n
Also recall that when a former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo had to
\nhold a meeting with Dr Jonathan in the presence of Pastor Enoch Adeboye and
\nBishop David Oyedepo to resolve his numerous letters that went
\nunacknowledged by your godson. Chief Obasanjo accused Dr Jonathan based on
\nsecurity report that the then President was training and arming the youths
\nthrough NIMASA, then headed by Akpobolokemi. What did you ever do about
\nthat ugly episode? Nigerians expect that you will use your influence among
\npersons identified as sponsors of NDA to ask Jonathan or either of these
\nhighly respected clergymen to tell the world what Jonathan’s answer to
\nObasanjo was.
\nYou did nothing about the revelation that your youths were being armed and
\nit will be redundant to now urge you to call your children to order in this
\ninstance that they want to declare a problem republic because even a brain
\ndamaged youth without the benefit of education should know what treason is
\nand its attendant consequences. If the threat of secession is being
\nbolstered by the pre-election cache of weapons, militants that trained as
\ncommandos under the pretext of amnesty rehabilitation, and worthless
\nassurances from some foreign powers, then it means yourself, elders and
\nmilitants of the Niger Delta failed to read up the relevant portions of
\ninternational laws and conventions that allow nations to defend their
\nterritorial integrity when the need arises. So I nonetheless urge you to
\ncall your children to order and that is assuming they can still listen to
\nyou.
\nAs you would have noticed, the Nigeria Police Force has issued a warning
\nthat your boys must not dare the Federal Government by going ahead with the
\nprovocative plan. This must tell you that the beat has changed: while there
\nwere appeals to allow the military deploy to the Niger Delta to arrest the
\nsabotage of oil and gas installations there would be no need for such
\nprotocols should your children proceed with the manic plan. It is one thing
\nto be detonating explosives that security operatives have now confirmed to
\nhave been planted in preparations for blowing up the country over Dr
\nJonathan\u2019s election loss, it is another thing completely to contemplate
\ntreason.
\nA republic must necessarily have a capital and government with officials so
\nthere will be no doubt as to who to arrest for treason and where to get
\nthem.
\nThis is what makes what your children are contemplating seriously different
\nfrom the cowardly hide and seek of blowing up pipelines. It is also what
\nshould give you concerns that once they expose themselves for arrest a next
\nlogical step is that the connection of the elders to them would be exposed.<\/p>\n
You must advise your colleagues not to risk using a few riffraff as place
\nholders for the declaration of secession so that security agents won\u2019t be
\nable to make connections with the real sponsors of the plan. History will
\nnot be kind to the elders if they repeat the folly that gave rise to
\nmilitancy and militant warlords. Their latest plan risks creating the
\nemergence of a new power bloc peopled by thugs whom you falsely think you
\nare arming to harass the Federal Government. These same weapons being
\nplaced in the hands of the youths will soon turn against those that
\nsupplied them.<\/p>\n
Yourself and fellow Niger Delta elders must now begin to contemplate how to
\neat that humble pie when October 1st arrives and there is no republic to
\npresent to the masses that you brainwashed into being used as tools. You
\nmust also worry that the dawning culture of accountability will force the
\nhundreds of thousands of your impoverished people to start asking why they
\nlive in squalor and your children and grandchildren live in gilded
\nopulence. This is the real revolution that will occur as opposed to your
\nexpectations that the poor will again offer themselves as cannon fodder \u2013
\nsacrificial animals \u2013 to preserve the life of entitlement that Niger Delta
\nelders and militant leaders live.
\nIf you find time to call a press conference to address the issues raised in
\nthis letter, kindly do well to objectively digest the issues so that your
\nreply does not shot off at a wrong tangent. What is needed from you is to
\ncall your children to order. They must stop all attacks, disband all
\nillegal group they have formed and stop thrash talking the rest of the
\nnation. These must happen without anyone expecting goodie bags as happened
\nunder the watch of your godson, it distorts the economy and rewards
\ncriminals.
\nIn case you have not noticed, fiscal federalism is something that all
\nconstituent ethnic nationalities in Nigeria are clamouring for and many of
\nthem are doing it without resort to violence. If we allow you get away with
\nwhat you are asking for then we will be confirming our ethnic nationalities
\nas inferior to yours simply because we do not have oil wealth. We are not.
\nOkanga, a traditional minister in Agilaland contributed this piece from
\nBenue State.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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