Ejiro Imireh
10 October 2008
opinion
Against the background of charges by some Niger Delta elements like Alhaji Asari Dokubo that the North is a parasitic component of the Nigerian federation, a meeting of Northern Governors Forum was held where the governors resolved to squarely address agricultural development.
Though Governor Babangida Aliyu of Niger State spoke on behalf of the forum, knowledgeable correspondents who covered the meeting attributed the resolve to develop agriculture in the region to the governor of Adamawa State, Vice Admiral Murtala Nyako (rtd). Nyako's colleagues, according to news reports, had no difficulty agreeing with him, because apart from the fact that much of the food and meat consumed in the whole country are from the North, Admiral Nyako is widely regarded as Nigeria's biggest farmer. It is not for nothing that he has for several years been the president of the association of the nation's farmers.
Much as one is from the Niger Delta where petroleum resources-the nation's economic livewire-are produced, it is clearly unfair to allege that any part of the country is parasitic. There is no part of the country which, frankly, does not contribute substantially to the commonwealth, as the venerable erstwhile vice president, Dr Alex Ekwueme, has pointed out in a lecture. Petroleum alone does not constitute our economy or our social well-being. Some parts of the country contribute enormously to the growth of science and technology, some to commerce, some to professions, some to educational advancement, some to industry, some to public administration, some to the armed forces and so forth.
To deny these invaluable contributions simply because large deposits of oil and gas are found in only two or three sections of the country is counterproductive. Nigeria is far more than oil and gas. And even without these twin natural resources, the nation will still survive. Crude oil, let us bear in mind, has not always played a central role in our national life. After all, oil was discovered in commercial quantity only in the late 1950s. The First Republic of 1960-66 is often called the golden era of Nigeria's development and the revenues with which the regions were developed came from such agricultural produce as rubber, cocoa, palm oil/kernel, and from solid minerals like coal, tin ore, limestone, clay, etc.
If anything, oil has been more of a curse than a blessing to Nigeria. Its large-scale production has caused Nigeria to be infected with the notorious Dutch disease. Not only was agriculture abandoned, the development of solid minerals upon which such big industries as Nigercem at Nkalagu in Ebonyi State, Ewekoro Cement Company in Ogun State and Cement Company of Northern Nigeria were founded, was dumped. National productivity was replaced with unearned huge revenues from petroleum developed by western multinationals. Indolence and fraud became the order of the day.
All parts of the country became truly parasitic on the natural resource of petroleum. In the Niger Delta which produces nearly all the nation's oil, the crisis of values generated by oil is too glaring. Young men hardly seek legitimate work, but prefer to steal both crude oil and petroleum products and use the proceeds to lead lives of debauchery in expensive hotels and drive the costliest vehicles usually used by Hollywood stars. Our Niger Delta governors from 1999 to 2007 were easily the least productive in the country because they have too much money arising from the criteria used in sharing national revenue. In 2001, for instance, Victor Attah, then Akwa Ibom State governor, travelled to the United States with as many as 21 people ostensibly in search of foreign investors. The visit and others produced no tangible results. The huge amounts spent on estacodes and travel tickets, among others, could have been used to build some hospitals or schools or roads.
If there has been a reincarnation of Mansa Musa in this democratic dispensation, it is Dr Peter Odili, who until May 2007 was the governor of Rivers State. Musa, in case you have forgotten, was the ruler of Mali Empire who went on a pilgrimage to Mecca from 1324 to 1326 and caused inflation in every place he passed through because of the stupendous amount he and his entourage spent everywhere. Like Mansa Musa, Dr Odili was more than a Father Christmas to everyone privileged to come into contact with him. He procured Brazilian-made jets to campaign for the presidency and disingenuously claimed that they were for medical emergencies. His development record in Rivers State remains scandalously poor.
James Ibori, Delta State governor between 1999 and 2007, is standing trial for corrupt enrichment. Among his exotic acquisitions while in office are palatial homes in London and South Africa. He has also made a $20m down payment for a private executive jet manufactured in Canada. Anytime he appears in court, hundreds of ordinary people hired all the way from rustic communities in Delta State threaten to go naked in public in protest against the trial of their "hero".
Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, then governor of poverty-stricken Bayelsa State, returned from a month's vacation in the United States in 2006 and went back two weeks later, this time with all his commissioners, special advisers, special assistants and personal assistants. The mission? To watch the daughter of His Excellency, the Governor General of the Ijaw Nation, graduate from a community college! How much infrastructure would have been provided with all the colossal amounts so frittered away?
When Alamieyeseigha was arrested in London for money laundering, he escaped from detention and returned to Nigeria where his deprived Ijaw people treated him to a hero's welcome. When he was eventually arrested and tried for mind-boggling corrupt practices, it was revealed that he had invested his enormous loot everywhere but the Niger Delta. Yet, he is revered by people who should know better, including the president of the Ijaw National Congress, himself a political science professor!
The military government of Ibrahim Babangida set up the Oil Minerals Areas Development Commission (OMPADEC) to speed up development in the Niger Delta. It was headed by Chief Albert Horsfall from Buguma in Rivers State. After several years and millions of dollars spent on OMPADEC, not even one single project did it complete. Horsfall is today one of Niger Delta's leaders. At the time Horsfall was at OMPADEC, his cousin, Dr Ombo Isokrari, was the chief executive of the Federal Government's richest commercial company, National Fertiliser Company of Nigeria (NAFCON) located at Eleme, Rivers State.
He became so wealthy that he established the first daily colour newspaper in the country, Sunray, with the staff earning mouth-watering salaries. Of course, NAFCON collapsed. Like his cousin Horsfall, Dr Isokrari fled abroad the moment he was relieved of his post. Prof. Eric Opia, who succeeded Horsfall as OMPADEC chairman, was to flee overseas when he was removed as boss of a dying OMPADEC. Chief Ibori, speaking as the Delta State helmsman, asked the Federal Government to leave Prof. Opia alone because the money he was accused of stealing "belongs to the Niger Delta and the people are not complaining".
This public statement is reminiscent of the drama at Igbosere Magistrate Court in 1994 when Dr Edmond Daukoru, who had just been removed as the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, was being tried for corrupt enrichment. Hundreds of people came from his native Rivers State (Bayelsa State had by then not been created), stormed the court with placards saying that the money he was accused of stealing is "our oil money and we are not complaining". How can meaningful development occur in the Niger Delta with this kind of mindset? The problem is not in our stars but with us.
All parts of the country are really parasitic, relying on unearned oil money. It is now time for change. If Governor Nyako has convinced fellow Northern governors to embrace modern agricultural development with gusto, other component groups of the Nigerian federation should quickly identify the aspects of the economy that they can develop profitably. That's how the country can make meaningful progress.
Imireh works in an oil-servicing company in Warri, Delta State.
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