Chioma Gabriel, Emma Amaize and Uduma Kalu
5 July 2008
From a secret meeting of the Niger Delta leaders has emerged a consensus that the proposed Niger Delta Summit that has been in the draft for over a year will not hold, after all, Saturday Vanguard can authoritatively report.
M.T. Mbu, former Board of Trustees Chairman of the South-South Peoples Assembly, SSPA; Mr. Ann Kio, Ijaw Women leader, Chief E.K. Clark, a notable chieftain from the region, Chief Frank Kokori and Comrade Eva unanimously agreed that there is really no need for another Niger-Delta Summit as the region has over the years been bombarded by all manner of summits, conferences, seminars and the like.
"I will put up a paper on this issue and there have been other papers and reports on Niger-Delta. that chronicled the peoples agitations. We keep saying the same thing over and over again and this time, I will revisit history and how it all started," Clark had responded.
Mbu who was the national chairman of South-South Peoples Assembly said that the time has come to collate everything that has been said in the past about the problem and come up with a white paper which would contain what the people want from the government that so as to douse the controversy surrounding the proposed summit.
"We have taken a decision on this matter. There is no need for another Niger Delta summit now until certain things are done. We are asking for a collation of all the recommendations made in the past about the Niger Delta problem.
"When this is done, we should then present this to the Federal Government because we have seen so many summits, conferences, seminars on the Niger-Delta question and none of the recommendations in these reports have been implemented by the government. President Yar'Adua said Niger Delta is part of his seven-point agenda. So, we don't want talks this time. We want action. We want a collation of past reports and recommendations made so we would agree on what government should do. That is what we are saying."
However, Mrs. Ann Kio, an activist and leader of Ijaw Women in her opinion said many people don't seem to appreciate the Niger-Delta problem. Chief Frank Kokori, former general secretary of NUPENG equally toes the same line of thought.
"The people are tired of this ritual of constant summits. There are too many of them in the past. We want government to gather these reports and see things that have been said in the past. They should separate the chaff from the substance and do something with them. All these reports are in the library somewhere and they contain substance."
Comrade Joseph Eva, coordinator of Ijaw Monitoring Group, IMG, thinks the federal government deliberately wants to create a problem for Vice President Goodluck Jonathan who is one of their own.
"It is not Gambari that is the problem. We don't want the summit to hold because we have held countless summits which reports never got implemented. We believe the Yar'Adua government wants to use the summit to buy time for their four years because it won't be able to do anything with whatever report would come out of the summit.
"But, it seems they want to create problem between Niger Delta and our son Jonathan. We are asking for a simple thing: implement the Alex Ogomudia report: The Niger Delta region should be like Abuja. That is why our boys are attacking oil stations. That is what our boys are saying."
Saturday Vanguard had learnt that a last minute attempt to soften opinion of those opposed to the summit was held in June 29, at Aguda Hall, in the Presidential Villa, by the Vice President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan.
Some of the dignitaries said to have attended the stakeholders' meeting, involving Niger-Delta opinion leaders, governors and National Assembly members were former Delta State Governor, Chief James Ibori who sat near the Ijaw nationalist leader, Chief Edwin Clark, former governor of Akwa-Ibom state.
Obong Victor Attah, former governor of Rivers state, Dr. Peter Odili, former governor of the old Rivers state, King Alfred Diette-Spiff, who led the Bayelsa state delegation, former Minister of Information, Prof Sam Oyovbaire, former Chief of Defence Staff, General Alexander Ogomudia (rtd.), whose Presidential Committee report on the Niger-Delta is one of the reports that people are calling for their implementation, instead of going for another round of talks, Senators Uche Chukwumerije, Ewa Henshaw and Victor Edoma-Egba, president of the Ijaw National Congress (INC), Prof Kimse Okoko, former Minister of External Affairs, Ambassador Matthew Mbu, Niger-Delta youth activist and president of the Federated Niger-Delta Ijaw Communities (FNDIC), Chief Bello Oboko, publisher of Thisday newspapers, Mr. Nduka Obaigbena, among many others.
Our source also said that there was political horse-trading before the meeting commenced with one of the governors and aides of Jonathan, leading a subtle campaign to help the Vice President have his way with the opinion leaders and others.
Some persons were allegedly recruited to persuade the hardliners to soften their position before the meeting. The previous day, Jonathan allegedly held a meeting with the governors to solicit their support and he was counting on their loyalty and ability to persuade the minds of the delegates from their states.
Saturday Vanguard gathered that there was no communiqué issued at the end of the meeting but the decipherable conclusion was that the Vice President should go back and tell his boss, President Yar'Adua that the Niger-Delta people did not want to attend any summit, much less one chaired by Gambari. They also urged Gambari to reject the appointment since the people were fiercely against him.
Whether the Niger Deltans will change their mind later to be part of the planned summit if Gambari is replaced with another person is not yet clear. But Saturday Vanguard gathered that the preponderance of opinion at the meeting was there was no need for a fresh summit. And that the federal government cannot on its own forge ahead with the summit when the people of the region have said they do not want it.
Moreover, leaders of the Niger Delta region in meeting condemned comments of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) that the Niger-Delta leaders were responsible for militancy in the region. They therefore upbraided the Northern leaders for their unguarded utterance.
Some of the governors, Saturday Vanguard learnt, had earlier advised the Vice President against the choice of Gambari for the summit, given the wide resentment against him. The Vice President was said to have remarked that he had gone far at that stage and it was not easy to withdraw his nomination.
The Vice President, in his address, was said to have noted the limitation of his consultation since the summit was mooted, adding that though it was not to slight the leaders, he was said to have explained that the communication gap was due to reasons beyond his immediate control.
Asking for the leaders' understanding, Jonathan allegedly explained how Gambari was drafted into the summit.According to the source, Jonathan owned up that if anybody was to be blamed for the Gambari choice, it should not the President but himself, Jonathan, because he took the decision.
Gambari, he is said to have told the gathering, is a staff of the UN and the body deals with presidents and not vice presidents of a country. In the case of Nigeria, it bent backwards to accommodate his request for the release of Gambari to chair the summit because of its interest in the Niger-Delta matter.
"The Vice President said he was not aware of the sentiments that have been thrown up on Gambari before his appointment and that three of them sat down in his office and took the decision. He said he was guided by the feeling that it was good for an international figure but not somebody from outside Nigeria should chair the summit so as not to give the impression that Nigerians cannot manage their own problems, adding that he saw Gambari's appointment as a home-coming for a Nigerian who had been rendering service to other countries of the world", a source told Saturday Vanguard.
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