Gabriel Enogholase
29 June 2009
(Page 2 of 3)
They will be telling themselves, well, if we had known, but at the same time, they would also have, maybe, undermined their own integrity for being involved in the entire process. These people are not interested in the kind of condition that will lead to genuine peace in the Niger Delta.
They want to maintain the system that currently appropriates the resources of the Niger Delta privately into their pockets. They are not interested in the issue of justice because the Niger Delta question is that of justice. They have paying agencies, NDDC, the military and then of course they are appropriating arms into the Niger Delta. That will not solve the problems, but that is what they are interested in.
In the budget they made last year, say N444 billion, for security in the Niger Delta, they did not talk of development. That should give an indication of the mindset of those who are in power. They are not interested in the resolution of the crisis in the Niger Delta.
Take the power probe and other sectors where recommendations have been made, nothing happened. These people are not interested in governance, they are just interested in enjoying themselves, in stealing and saying to all parts of the world, look, we have conquered the people and we are enjoying their resources. That is what they are interested in.
In other words, does that justify the army of occupation currently in the region?
In fact, the army of occupation in the Niger Delta was part and parcel of the strategy of General Ibrahim Babangida. Chief Alfred Horsfall, a former Director General of the SSS said before OMPADEC was created, the chief executive of one of the oil companies whom I suspect to be Shell, came into his office detailing how government was going to deploy troops in the Niger Delta in other to smash opposition groups.
And he, Horsfall being the head of the SSS or NSO then said, look we don't need a military solution in the Niger Delta. He then went with the maps to Babangida and said, let us try and do something different and that was how OMPADEC came to be created.
But in spite of that, the militarization of the Niger Delta continued because that is the primary strategy for resolving the problem of the Niger Delta. All other ones are just cosmetic and a mere additives. Their main strategy is the curtailment of the Niger Delta through military means. So, there can be no reform along political lines, along economic lines, which are those envisaged by Ledum Mitee and his group.
That will not happen because the strategy of the ruling class in Nigeria is that military occupation of the Niger Delta is the only way that they can guarantee the extraction of oil and remember that they are doing this with the international capitalists and Governments like the USA and of course, multi-national oil companies there.
They have link with the security agencies of these other countries and their governments also. These are the ones who would continue to say that look, if we must continue to extract oil there, there must be military presence. Back home, anybody who thinks otherwise is simply wasting his time. These people are not answerable to Nigerians; they are not responsible to Nigerians. They feel accountable to interests outside Nigeria and so, they will not do anything that Nigerians want.
How then do you see the activities of criminals in the region as opposed to what the late Isaac Adaka Boro and late Ken Saro-Wiwa stood for?
The fact of the matter is that the Niger Delta resistance goes back to history. There was resistance during the colonial time, but it took the form of petition writing. People wrote petitions; people went to court and appeared before the Willinks Commission at that time.
But the colonial government said that the Niger Delta cannot have an authority of its own because the area is difficult, it cannot be developed and so, let it remain as part of the Eastern Region. So, it was on that basis that the problem of the Niger Delta began to fester and after that, in the sixties, Adaka Boro formed the Niger Delta Force and campaigned for the liberation of the region, declared a Republic which was then put down.
It was strictly a political struggle backed by the force of arms because people said, look the government at the centre was not ready to concede anything to the people of the Niger Delta. From that time on, following the example of Adaka Boro, Ken Saro-Wiwa emerged and he was interested in nationality rights and then started his campaign, the Ogoni Bill of Rights, which of course, led to the Kiama Declaration. Their message was let nationalities all over the country take control of their resources under their care and exploit the resources for the development of their people because of what had happened to the Ogoni people after so many years of the exploitation of oil resources.
The area was despoiled and there was gas flaring everywhere but no development was achieved. And it was this that led him to say, look let us have control over own resources. So, it was a very painful struggle. It did not involve military or armed activities.
So, it was when Saro-Wiwa was murdered that the whole situation changed. People then reali d that if you go by peaceful means it will not work, they then went back to the method that Adaka Boro had used. But then, after a period of time, people other than those genuinely interested in the political struggle for the region started using all kinds of means including arms struggle to liberate the resources for themselves.
So, if you go to the area now, there is a problem because there are people who are genuinely interested in the liberation of the Niger Delta and there are people who turned the struggle of the region as an avenue for making money. So, the criminalization of the area is in itself first, a way of discouraging those genuine forces.
If you read the letter that Obasanjo wrote to the former governor of Bayelsa State, D.S.P Alamieyeseigha where he said that the people of the region are criminals because some policemen were killed. He said, look, you have failed to apprehend them even though they are walking about during the day.
The failure of your government to do so and other things showed that you are all criminals. Even the governors of the Niger Delta States also called their own people criminals. Criminalization is also part of the large attempt to discredit those fighting genuinely for total justice. But that does not mean that there are no genuined militants involved in the struggle to express the people's cry for justice. So it is a strategy for ensuring that people get confused about what is happening in the region so that they do not then receive the kind of support that they should.
What I am saying is that, that criminalization of the area is a larger attempt to discredit the genuine forces fighting for freedom or the region. But that is not to say that there are no criminals involved in the struggle. The involvement of criminals is not enough for them to criminalize the larger struggle of the people for justice. I talked of them in my book on the Niger Delta; it is a question of justice, not freedom.
If you say freedom, then you are saying let each nationality go on its way and becomes autonomous and something like that. If it is a question of justice, then you are saying what will be the ideal relationship between the peoples of the region and other people in other parts of Nigeria . And I have always argued that other parts of Nigeria also have the right to the resources of the Niger Delta.
That is the question of justice and not the question of freedom. What the people are fighting for is justice, and they are saying look, if the resources are located in any area, have a derivation formula that enables us to maintain the environmental consequences that arise from the exploitation of the resources. If you give us 50 percent of the resources, that will enable us to take care of our problems.
In the fifties and sixties it was 50 percent. Now they are talking of 13 percent. In addition, the negative consequences, that arise from the exploitation of oil and gas resources are not accounted for in any form, not in the financial accounts prepared by the oil companies and not in the financial report prepared by the government. Those consequences are there and the question is, where will the resources come from in the future for the regeneration of the environment there? Who will pay the cost? Where will the revenue come from because they are not accounted for today in terms of the returns that both government and the oil companies make, so that is the question.
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