allAfrica.com: Nigeria: Arewa Flares Tempers in Niger Delta (Page 1 of 3)

WHILE the fury over whether to attend or not attend the planned Niger-Delta Summit and tension build in the creeks over the attack and counter attacks by both the militants and security agents are still on, the Northern group, Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, last weekend, stoked the fire when it accused the Niger-Delta leaders of being responsible for the militancy crisis in the region. As expected, Niger-Delta leaders flared up, replying the Northerners point by point.

The militants who are carrying the guns also spoke, exonerating the leaders of the Niger-Delta and pointed accusing fingers at the Federal Government. Cynthia Whyte is an authoritative voice in the Niger-Delta struggle and is the spokesperson of the Joint Revolutionary Council, JRC, an amalgam of the fighting units of the Movement for Emancipation of the Niger-Delta, MEND, the Reformed -Niger-Delta Peoples Volunteer Force, RNDPVF, and some other militia groups in the Niger-Delta.

The talking head said the "greater than before agitation" in the Niger-Delta today is as a result of the "greater than ever impudence" of the Nigerian state in dealing with the socio-economic and environmental problems of the Niger-Delta. Also the spokesman of the MEND, Jomo Gbomo, in response via electronic mail to an enquiry said the North is to blame. Vanguard captures the machinations in this report.

IT'S an aphorism that to mediate in an argument, the mediator does not come with a knife that cuts - but a needle that sews. And so, when the Northern group, Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, last weekend, hopped into the conflict between the Federal Government and militants in the Niger-Delta at a time Niger-Delta leaders were also sweating it out with the Federal Government over a planned Niger-Delta Summit with a Northerner, Prof Ibrahim Gambari, as the chairman of the Steering Committee, it was sensibly thought that they would come with a needle to manage the tense state of affairs.

But shockingly, the Northern leaders exacerbated the matter by accusing their Niger-Delta counterparts of being responsible for the worsening militancy problem in the region.

In a communiqué issued at the end of its national executive council meeting in Kaduna, the influential group slammed leaders of the region for wasting the huge resources accrued to their people in the last couple of years and failing to invest in developmental projects for the enhanced standard of living of the people.

Though, it sympathized with the people of the region for the environmental degradation due to oil exploration without commensurate efforts at mitigating their sufferings, it noted that recent regimes have embarked on spirited efforts to address the Niger-Delta region and pointed at the defunct OMPADEC and the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), aside the 13 per cent derivation formula.

It said it was because of such a formula that ... "a state in the Niger-Delta region would have a budget of N377 billion while another state in the same country would have N53 billion as its budget".

According to the communiqué, which dripped with venom, as fresh as last month (May) "some states in the Niger-Delta took home as much as N42 billion while many of the non-oil producing states went home with a paltry N6billion".

It submitted, "If these huge resources have not translated into developmental projects and enhanced standard of living, then it is simply not fair to blame the national government alone; the managers of these resources in the Niger-Delta region are more culpable".

It then embarked on a voyage of sermonisation to the people, that they should "have a rethink of their manner of agitations with a view to improving on their management practices of resources made available to them as well as to embark on constructive engagements with the rest of the country in the national interest of fairness, socio-economic justice and for unity of the country".

Speaking to the Niger-Delta youths, the group said:

"Taking up arms against one's fatherland in an endless manner can never solve problems", adding also that the insecurity being visited on the region by violent militants was internecine in the sense that it scares away foreign investors at the collective peril of the entire nation.

It was not clear whether the upbraiding of both the youths and elders of the Niger-Delta region, who, they literally accused of not giving their wards home-training was meant to test the depth of the river. But if that was the intention, you do not test the depth of a river with both feet.

In deed, it was like the ACF ignited a spark of fire in the creeks of the Niger-Delta with its communiqué because no sooner did they rise from the Kaduna meeting than the leaders and youths of the Niger-Delta poured their own venom. As the wound inflames the finger, so the caustic words of the Arewa inflamed their minds.

web allafrica.com	Enter your search terms	Submit search form
OR subscribers use AllAfrica's premium search engine


Use our pull-down menus to find more stories

Today's Most Active Stories