Emma Amaize
8 August 2008
GOVERNOR Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State says the Niger Delta struggle, as it is presently being prosecuted, is not ideological and the militants are breaking the laws of the country by carrying arms.
Governor Amaechi who delivered the keynote addresss at the two-day South-South Legislative Retreat on Constitution Review, 2008, organised by Vanguard Newspapers suggested that the way forward was for the Federal Government to use force to disarm the militants since they are criminals, after which they would be socially rehabilitated.
Pointing out that he does not care whose ox is gored as long as he has spoken the truth, the governor stated that he had over N100 billion of Rivers State funds resting in the bank which he could not use to provide water, roads, electricity and other amenities for the people because of the activities of militants, who have scared investors and contractors away from the state.
His address: "The first aspect of my speech is what most of us are here gathered for: 'Is this country fair to the Niger Delta people? Have we been fairly treated? As we look at the laws, I have some of the laws that I have indicated, which also, you can find in the programme. I won't dwell much on it because that is why we are here. If you look at the National Inland Waterways Act, it has completely marginalised our people.
The Act even makes it possible for the Federal Government to even control the creeks and I am told, by the military officers in Rivers State, that we have about 3,000 creeks in Rivers State. It means that the 3,000 creeks in Rivers State all belong to the Federal Government. The implication, therefore, is that even if the Rivers man wants to collect sand, he has to go and get licence from the Federal Government.
There is the Territorial Water Act, that one again implies..., before, our people can go up to the ocean to fish, now you cannot, it is again created for the rich, for those who own trawlers from Rivers State, Bayelsa State to go to the high sea, fish and export and our people who used to go that way to fish can no longer fish. We are marginalised in that regard.
"There is another law that is called the Exclusive Economic Zone Act. It is structured in the same way for which you have to get licence to be able to exploit natural resources, including oil. The Petroleum Act, all of us know what it is. In the 1963 Constitution, we used to have 50 per cent derivation, now we are struggling with 13 per cent even though the constitution says not less than 13 per cent. We don't need constitution amendment to do that.
The constitution simply says not less than, it means you can get up to 70 per cent. Now, that is skewed against us. The Land Use Act is the worse even though I am a beneficiary as a trustee as a governor, but, it should not be so, our people should be allowed to own their land and they sell it as much as they want, land is capital.
The same thing you see in the Oil Minerals Act, the Oil Pipeline Act, and the Oil Terminal Dues Act. In fact, the Oil Terminal Dues Act relocated the people of Finima from where they were to where they are now with disregard to our shrine. Our grandfathers that were buried on that soil and all that, and how much was paid?
It is by virtue of one of these Acts that the Federal Government will pay you N2,000 maximum for coconut tree and you know that if you harvest that coconut tree for one year, you will get more than N50,000 but for the Federal Government to uproot that coconut tree, they will pay you N2, 000 and they have denied you your source of livelihood for the whole year. I will not bore you with all these; all of you know all that, which is why we are here.
"Let me take you to the most important aspect to me. The most important aspect is, we are gathered here, Federal Government is visiting us with injustice. Should we also visit ourselves with injustice? Should we? We are, we do and we are visiting ourselves with injustice. And I can tell you how we are doing that.
"The first thing to say is that in Baghdad, you know what the war is about. Don't you? It is a religious war between the Shiites and the Sunnis. In Rivers State, in Bayelsa and other parts of the Niger Delta, who is fighting whom, what is the war about?
What is the shooting about? The kidnap cases that are taking place are against whom? When you came into Port Harcourt, you saw it as a graveyard. This is not the old Port Harcourt that we used to have. There are three principal economic centres in Nigeria: Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt.
We are by ourselves killing our own economic centre. In the comity of nations, we cannot compete as we should because the nerve centre of our economic activities is beginning to disappear. At the same time, Lagos is beginning to become the hub of oil activities in Nigeria because we are on our own asking Lagos to assume the position of being the oil capital of Nigeria and we call it militancy and I call it criminality.
"The way to define criminality is that anybody who breaks the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is a criminal. The law says we shall not bear arms and so, anybody who bears arms has committed a crime and so, they are all criminals.
You may have been hearing gunshots, as you entered, who are the people being killed - the Niger Delta people. Julius Berger is moving out. They are leaving behind 4,500 Niger Delta people who work with them.
Those people will be thrown into the unemployment market. Michelin has left. All their staff from the Niger Delta are all unemployed and the economy is grinding to a halt and we are saying that is the struggle....
Militants' struggle not ideological
"The struggle for now, because it does not exist, because a struggle is ideological and there is no ideological bent to the struggle we are seeing.
Those who speak for us are no longer people like Justice Adolphus Karibi-Whyte (rtd.), Vice President Goodluck Jonathan. It is people like Ateke Tom that are our spokesmen. Does that mean that we have no graduate? Ateke Tom does not know how to speak English. So, if our leaders are Ateke and the rest and they speak on our behalf, imagine the quality of the people that we have produced. That is the indication.
"The first principle is self survival, if Nigeria has rejected me, should I reject myself? I will therefore fight not only for my right but for my existence and I ask, When they say our boys, whose boys? I ask, in whose interest? I have said before that while the oil economy is blowing away to Lagos, we are growing an economy based on criminality.
This economy based on criminality is evolving itself in so many spheres of life. Politicians are benefiting from it because they go to Abuja and say give us appointments and contracts, our boys will stop shooting, have they stopped shooting?
There are those who are forming NGOs, saying they want to organise one peace conference on the Niger Delta, oil movement from the Niger Delta, prayer conference on the Niger Delta. They go round looking for funds for these conferences and empty some of them into their pockets.
That is the economy we are growing. It will not affect those of us who are governors, we are allowed to take our allowances but no matter whom you are and what you do, as a governor, before you are the people. We weep for you, we talk among ourselves.
Ateke Tom, Soboma George, Asari-Dokubo not our leaders
"We ask ourselves one basic question: what are we voted here to do, what is our responsibility? Our responsibility is to ensure that the people who voted to put us here benefit from the resources we get from the Federal Government and ensure that we drive our economy to compete with other parts of the country but they are not allowing us to do that, they are not.
And when we hear people like Ateke Tom speak, the newspapers publish it. 50 per cent of the newspapers in this country belong to the Niger Delta and they present Ateke, Soboma George, Dokubo-Asari as our leaders, our spokesmen, no, the issues are beyond that.
The issue is that our leaders must move from here to Abuja for dialogue while we maintain this economy to be able to employ our people. I give you a typical example: I went to America, there is a company that wants to come to Rivers State to establish a plant and they said guarantee me security, which is what they are asking for.
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