Charles Ajunwa
23 July 2008
Lagos — The office of the Vice-President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan is no doubt inundated with various assignments. Of the assignments, the one receiving Jonathan's greatest attention is the Niger Delta crisis. President Umaru Yar'Adua who listed the Niger Delta as one of his administration's seven-point agenda, had in his wisdom appointed Jonathan to head the committee on the proposed Federal Government's 'Niger Delta Summit' which comes up later in the year.
Jonathan's mandate includes finding solutions to the myriad of problems in the Niger Delta which ranges from youth militancy, oil bunkering, pipe line vandalization, kidnapping, infrastructural and environmental decay to mention but a few.
As part of measures to ensure the success of the 'summit' Jonathan has tenaciously and innocuously been working round to find permanent solutions to the volatile oil rich Niger Delta.
Just last week Wednesday, Jonathan invited the governors of the Niger Delta States to a meeting in Aso Rock Villa, Abuja to brainstorm on the controversy generated by the modality for the summit.
At the meeting they all agreed to set up a committee to articulate the problems of the Niger Delta region. the committee's submission will be forwarded to President Yar'Adua.
"It is a complex thing. The committee will raise fundamental issues. what we believe is that the challenges will be presented to the Federal Government recommendations will also be made on the way forward. So when the document is presented to the President, we will look at it and then move from there," he said.
On the decision of the Federal Government to drop the word summit Jonathan said: "When you use the word summit, it becomes problematic because the people feel that when you say summit people will come from everywhere with different memos, sentiments, and make it a jamboree. It is not really what they want. We will raise the issues, present them before the Federal Government and we will dialogue.
"Even the Federal Government wants a discussion; let us listen to the issues in the Niger Delta. Different people have different opinions about the Niger Delta; while some think it is purely a security matter, others think it is purely an infrastructural matter. Some think it is a political matter, others think it is education; that you educate everybody and give skills to everybody," Jonathan said.
The Vice-President who said the government of Yar'Adua was committed to solving the problems in Niger Delta however said the issues in the Niger Delta couldn't be solved overnight.
"They are not issues you can solve overnight but the present administration is committed. The whole thing is growing like a cancer and it is going to consume everybody if nothing is done. That is why we are holding these various meetings.
"We must get to a point and move ahead. We have seen some mileage in terms of consensus on the way forward. That is the most important thing. We have agreed on how to move ahead with the Federal Government.
"I will continue to meet with different groups. I have a meeting with the governors after the National Economic Council meeting. But basically what we have agreed on today is that if there are problems in the Niger Delta, what are these problems? what caused these problems? what is the way forward, the challenges, the issues? So we have agreed that a committee would be set up to raise these issues and then the issues would be presented to the President. Then the journey starts from there," he said.
The Niger Delta Peace and Conflict Resolution Committee Chairman, Senator David Brigidi submitted its 2008 report to Vice President Jonathan last Friday.
Brigidi told newsmen in Abuja, that the committee visited all the militants' camps before submitting its report.
Apart from urging the Federal Government to commence the process of demobilising the militants and reintegrating them into the society, Brigidi said they advocated that an environmental audit of the Niger Delta be carried out to check environmental degradation in the region.
According to him, the committee also suggested the creation of a special account from oil revenues allotted to oil-producing states to address the infrastructural deficiencies of the region and also called for a review of some existing laws perceived to be inimical to the development of the region.
Ironically, while Jonathan was conferring with stakeholders on how to mitigate the problems in the Niger Delta, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Mr. Gordon Brown during Yar'Adua's four-day official visit to United Kingdom last week, announced that the British Government was ready to help Nigeria tackle the problem of security in the Niger Delta.
Brown's announcement to assist Nigeria in tackling the security problems in the Niger Delta came just a few weeks after the Federal Government of Nigeria was alleged to have mobilised heavy military weapons to the region. The movement of weapons to the Niger Delta by the military was suspected to mean government gradual declaration of war against militants who blew up oil installations in the region.
Reacting to this development, Chairman of the South-South Caucus in the Senate, Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba Ndoma-Egba said any plan that was not in line with the Marshal Plan would only aggravate the crisis in the region.
"I do not have the details about the agreement with the British government; but I must say that any plan in the region that is not tilted towards a Marshal Plan is sure to further aggravate the crisis in the region. The most urgent thing for the Niger Delta at the moment is development. There should be a marshal plan for the region and not a military pact."
Also, the Action Congress (AC) through its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said the problems in Niger Delta was caused by long years of neglect and hence does not need any military intervention but rather the political will and sincerity from leaders to right the wrongs of the past in the Niger Delta.
"This (military assistance) strategy amounts to curing the symptoms of a disease instead of the disease itself, cannot work.
"There is no doubt that Britain was not driven by altruism in taking that decision, but by enlightened self interest. Or may be it is pay back time for the British, after all Baroness Lynda Chalker backed Yar'Adua's controversial election at a time local and international observers tagged it the worst in the country's history," he said.
In the same vein, Afenifere, the pan socio-political organisation through its Publicity Secretary, Mr. Yinka Odumakin said Britain's interest in the Niger Delta would worsen the situation if the Federal Government accepts the British government's assistance.
"The pact is to protect Britain's interest in Nigeria, which is the oil. The British government had not taken into account the people in the region. All Britain wants is more money, more oil flow from the Niger Delta and Federal Government's interest in the region is more revenue as well.
"There is no way the issue of bullets will solve the problem in the region. The only way out is negotiation, but to show that you want to go and bring guns from somewhere to address the problem, you will aggravate the crisis that will go beyond proportion."
Jonathan's toughest moment as the head of the Niger Delta Summit, came when the appointment of former Nigeria's Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN), Prof. Ibrahim Gambari by Yar'Adua to chair the steering committee of the summit was stoutly rejected by the Niger Delta people and other interest groups. Although Jonathan toed the line of Yar'Adua by insisting on the candidacy of Gambari, analysts believe his body and soul were with his people in the Niger Delta.
According to Yar'Adua, the proposed summit was the critical first step and take-off point for peace and rapid socio-economic development in the region.
"One of the primary objectives of the Stakeholders' Summit is to evolve a consensus and commitment from all concerned parties to end the incessant violence in the region and engender a much more conducive atmosphere for the massive improvement of infrastructure and social services in the region," Yar'Adua said.
Analysts believed that dropping the word 'summit' from Yar'Adua's proposed 'Niger Delta Summit' does not change anything in the Niger Delta. They also believe Yar'Adua's government going by its body language already has a fixed mindset as to how to tackle the Niger Delta problems. The question now is can Goodluck dialogue?
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