Emma Amaize
10 January 2009
analysis
BORN January 9, 1959 at Ezebri in Bomadi LocalGovernment Area of Delta State, P. Z, as foremost Ijaw activist, philanthropist, orator and acting Executive Director, Finance & Administration of NDDC, Elder P.Z. Aginighan is fondly called by admirers clocked the golden age of 50, Friday, January 9, 2009.
To a very large spectrum of youths in the Niger Delta and Nigeria, he is a role model. As a public sector finance manager, Aginighan represented the defunct OMPADEC as a member of the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC).
Militants have made their point
He has received very wide exposure locally and internationally, participated in the prestigious and the Executives Leadership Course at the Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, United Kingdom and the Executive Briefing Session at the International Civil Service Commission of the United Nations at New York, United States of America.
Aginighan, also an ordained Elder in the Apostolic Church Nigeria and happily married to Amerikaere for 25 years is blessed with four boys and three girls. In this interview with Saturday Vanguard, he speaks about his life, his job with the NDDC, his pains for the Niger-Delta, militancy and the way forward. EXCERPTS:
The pains I have is that we have largely self inflicted wounds. We the people of the Niger Delta have not adequately taken our destiny in our hands, we have not demonstrated a will to redress our ugly past.
The water in which I was bathed in Ezebiri where I was born in 1959, which very dirty water is still where the people drink from but it is now even more polluted with oil unlike in my days.
Fifty years of my life on earth has brought me immense favours, but, the pains I have is a situation whereby the resources given to us are not properly utilized by us. From local governments to state governments, a situation whereby our sons and daughters cannot swear that they have been faithful to themselves, that is a challenge.
There is no good government and righteousness in government, which is why you can still find schools in the Niger Delta where pupils learn on bare floors with leaking roofs, which ought not to happen.
Do we expect the federal government to renovate classrooms for us in our villages in the Niger Delta? The result of this is that we have short changed ourselves as a people. If what we have received from various governments, if only one third of it has reflected in the lives of the people, the Niger Delta people will not be where they are today.
Challenge for FG
I still have a challenge for the federal government, from 1957 when the minority commission of inquiry was set up by the colonial government in response to the cries of marginalization by the ethnic minority, particularly the Niger Delta people, and the commission was given among other terms of inquiry, to inquire into the affairs of the minority in any part of Nigeria and to propose a safeguard for allaying those fears whether well or ill-founded.
This is number one term of reference of the Willinks Commission that is being quoted today. The commission made elaborate recommendations on how to address the issues of the Niger Delta.
For instance, it stated in one of its recommendations that it is not easy for a government or legislature operating from far inland to fully understand or appreciate the problems of a territory where communication is so difficult, building so expensive, education so scanty.
He also went further to say that it requires the co-operation of the Western, Eastern and the federal governments, not because it concerns only these regions but because the whole of Nigeria is concerned. This is part of Willinks report. And it further said "the area is poor, backward and neglected".
Itsekiri, Ilaje are most devastated
In August 1959, James Robertson proclaimed the Niger Delta special area to comprise the territory of the Ijaws and the Ogoni's because that proclamation defined the special areas for the purposes of the Niger Delta development Board. Not all the ethnic minorities were part of the board. The Board has representatives from Eastern region and western-Ijaw division, the southern Ijaw of the Mid-West. The Ijaw land was seen as the most deprived part and still the most deprived territory in Nigeria.
These facts were acknowledged by Prof G.G Darah in his public lecture "Niger Delta from Bondage to Paradise". This scholar is not from Ijaw land but he acknowledged the fact that the most disadvantaged territory in Nigeria is Ijaw land in terms of human capital development, physical infrastructural development, etc.
If all the indices of development are taken, the most devastating territory amongst others are the Ilajes in Ondo State and the Itsekiri's in Delta State, living in a territory that produces so much wealth for a nation yet it's a paradox of pervasive poverty.
The central governments of Nigeria have not demonstrated sufficient sincerity. The Willinks commission report led to the establishment of the Niger Delta Development Board, which was to carter for the special area for a period of 10 years.
Within 10years, the territory was to be developed to bring it into parity with other parts of the country but the 10years were not completed before the military struck in 1966. At the period when the military struck, the board had not done anything, except endless feasibility studies. Then, from 1966-1976, a period of 10 years, there was a cry resuscitating the Basin Authorities, the then military government set up River Basin Authorities for all rivers, and all creeks in Nigeria.
Indeed the Niger Delta Development Basin Authority was created after the 10 River Basin Authorities. The 10 Basin Authorities were created in June 1976 while the eleventh which ought to be the first was created in August 1976 and when the Basin Authorities were categorized from A-D for the purpose of discriminatory funding, the Niger Delta Basin Authority was kept in category D, the least funded.
Elder P.Z. Aginighan
The question we ask is if this is fair? I remember the words of Winston Churchill at the height of the war; he said "never in the fields of human conflict, has so much been taken away from so few by so many". In Nigeria, we can say never so much been taken away from so few because the wealth that has been taken away from the Niger Delta is reflected in the quality of lives of these people. This area would have been a tourist attraction for this country.
I had the privilege of attending the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting as a representative of OMPADEC. In my three years, twice they reversed their calculation due to some observations I made when they excluded OMPADEC from sharing excess crude oil money. I raised objections and the then Minister of State for Finance upheld my observations and the allocations were reversed and more monies were given to OMPADEC at that time.
Even then the 3% OMPADEC allocations were never correctly calculated. The 3% was calculated after removing payment for federal government priority projects like Aluminum Melting Company at Akwa Ibom State, NNPC priority projects, NNPC Joint venture cash-calls; all sorts of deductions were removed. So what remained was 3% of nonsense that was given to OMPADEC.
If we as a people are united and we are doing well with the resources given to u, of course, we have all the moral courage, moral grounds to confront the centre where we feel we are short-changed.
Militants have made their point
Every opposition has the right to resist. It's a natural law for the oppressed to resist oppression. When constitutional means prove ineffective, it is always open to oppressed people to resort to extra -constitutional means to ensure that there is equilibrium in the polity. In the Niger Delta, I will say from Isaac Boro, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Asari Dokubo to the Kaiama declaration, all these I will say are legitimate expressions of the anger of a people.
They have made their points and the other part is for the government to have dialogue with representatives of the militants and this shows that they recognize that there is a problem in that place. Otherwise, carrying guns when you are not authorized to do is illegal because one of the charges against Isaac Boro was treason and illegal position of fire arms and for which he was sentenced to death.
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