5 September 2008
Lagos — THE position of former Secretary General of the Commonwealth, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, that the Niger Delta crisis cannot be resolved through force of arms should, once and for all, stop promoters of the militarization of the region in their tracks.
Chief Anyaoku took this position, which several other statesmen and patriots have taken, in his address as chairman of the first Delta State Information Summit, which had as its theme, "Media, Peace and Development as Building Blocks of Democracy."
Chief Anyaoku, whose position was backed by Delta State Governor, Emmanuel Uduaghan, and most of the dignitaries and participants at the summit, counselled that a distinction must be made between activists seeking to ventilate their people's legitimate grievances and criminals who are exploiting the situation.
He said further that while an accelerated, comprehensive development programme should be undertaken in the region to get the genuine activists to give up militancy, special anti-oil bunkering and anti-kidnapping squads should be set up to tackle the criminal elements.
Chief Anyaoku's position cannot be assailed. Indeed, any one who has the interest of Nigeria at heart would not canvass any other option because at the root of the Niger Delta crisis is the bitterness arising from the utter neglect of an area that should be treated specially, considering that it accounts for almost all of the revenue of the country.
The accelerated and comprehensive development programme advocated by Chief Anyaoku can only be achieved if considerable funds are pumped into the region and are utilized for the purpose of the development of the area. Such funds would go into the transformation of the infrastructures of the region to first class standards as well as towards human capital development and enhancement of the largely polluted environment.
Delta State currently dedicates 50 per cent of its oil revenue towards the development of its oil- bearing communities and the summit's communiqué recommended that the National Assembly should follow this example and approve at least 50 per cent derivation for the development of oil producing states as well as states where any other forms of natural resources are found.
The case of the Niger Delta is unique in the sense that its peculiarly tough terrain makes the construction of roads and bridges more difficult than in other parts of the country. This situation necessitates the injection of a lot more funds than would be needed on normal terrain for the same length of road or bridge.
The argument for the physical development of the Niger Delta as a factor for dousing the fires of militancy are valid. The rise in militant activities in the region is traced to the Gen. Sani Abacha million -man march in Abuja. The youths of the Niger Delta who attended and saw the highways, flyovers and the architectural master-pieces of the new federal capital territory were angered by the fact that money from their region was used to achieve such feat in a record time while their area, the goose laying the golden eggs, was left in squalor, without any of the state-of-the art facilities they saw in Abuja.
It follows, therefore, that if these justifiably aggrieved Niger Delta people, who have become weary of preachments begin to see serious action in form of the appropriate funding of standard infrastructural facilities in the region, the current high tempo of militancy will reduce considerably.
The argument that funds allocated to the Niger Delta in the past have been mismanaged by the region's leaders has been addressed by those who argue that the region should be given their due.
Once this is done, the onus would then be on the people, through their representatives, to monitor the use of the funds. Gov. Uduaghan showed the way to transparency in management of the resources of the zone by signing into law during the summit, the fiscal responsibility bill. Other governors in the region and, indeed, across the country, must follow this example so that the funds coming into the region, and into all states of the country, can be more transparently spent and be more easily monitored.
The other critical dimension is manpower development. It is important that the youths of the region, like their counterparts elsewhere in the country should be educated, should be armed with skills that would make them marketable and should be gainfully employed in the oil and gas companies, in the manufacturing companies that should spring up in a transformed region and in the agricultural sector that should receive a major boost.
The states and local governments should be major centres of action for the rebirth of the Niger Delta, but of course, the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) must be further empowered and fully funded to optimally perform its role of an agent of rapid transformation of the Niger Delta region.
We, therefore, more than before, align with Chief Anyaoku and others who insist that militarization of the Niger Delta is not the solution to the festering crisis in the region.
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I am with you, Daily Champion. We need more people like Chief Anyaoku and hope the Deltans will continue to listen to his credible voice of reason and realpolitik and less of people like Gambari and his old, tired diplomacy of failures and tribalism.