Emma Amaize
16 July 2009
opinion
BELIEVE it or not, Henry Okah has become a force to be reckoned with in the Niger-Delta struggle. The Federal Government had calculated his being kept in the coolers would kill the spirit of the struggle, but, for the nearly two years he was in detention, militants in the Niger-Delta region continued their devastation of oil facilities with more deadly brutality.
If there was still disbelief, the inability of the Joint Task Force (JTF) on the Niger-Delta to effectively clip the wings of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger-Delta (MEND) with its orchestrated Cordon and Search operation, the specialized ease which the militants bombed more oil installations across Delta, Bayelsa and Rivers states, and even extended their attacks to Lagos, last Sunday, made the doubting Thomases to have a rethink.
Before now, intelligence information available to government was the only person that could get the militants to stop the bombardment is Henry Okah, who it was holding in detention. It was a complicated decision, but, the Federal Government was forced to bow to his release, believing that it would bring respite to it in the volatile region. How far will Okah's release go in bringing peace to the region? So far, MEND had declared a temporal ceasefire on account of his freedom. In this report, Vanguard examines the variables.
On Wednesday, July 8, MEND in a response to a July 7 electronic mail inquiry by Vanguard declared emphatically that it was not considering a ceasefire to its shattering war, codenamed "Hurricane Moses", which kept the government, security agencies and oil companies on edge, but, a week later, Tuesday, July 14, to be specific; the chief militant group in the region announced a 60-day temporal ceasefire.
In the 24-word reply, MEND's spokesman, Jomo Gbomo stated, "We are not considering ceasefire without the government wanting to address the root issues for discussion. In fact we are considering intensifying our attacks".
However, the group, which in point of fact intensified fire on Sunday, July 12, by bombarding the Atlas Cove Jetty in Lagos, the nation's former capital in the Southwest region, using its preferred parlance, downgraded to a "Tropical Storm" in the night of Tuesday, three days ago. It announced armistice.
Again in the words of Jomo Gbomo, "Effective, 00.00 Hrs, Wednesday, July 15, 2009 , the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) will be observing a temporary ceasefire for a 60 day period".
"During this period, the Aaron team of wise men and women will be put together after consultations with relevant stakeholders. They will speak on our behalf and convey our demands to government.
"A compulsory prelude to talks is the withdrawal of the military Joint Task Forces from the Gbaramatu communities and the return of all the displaced persons back to their various homes.
"Hopefully, the ceasefire period will create an enabling environment for progressive dialogue", he stated.
Anybody who has been following the activities of MEND in recent times will know that the only thing that could have led to such monumental decision on the part of the militant group would be the release of its leader, Henry Okah.
Hear Jomo Gbomo on the primary reason for a change of heart: "Several factors necessitated our decision; chiefly was the release of Okah from government custody".
In a response to an inquisition by Vanguard some days earlier on the possible release of Okah and cessation of hostilities, he had responded, "The release of Okah has nothing to do with MEND because he is an individual adult who can choose to accept or reject the terms of his pardon. Mandela was offered freedom many times but chose to remain in prison until the terms were favourable to the cause he was fighting. If Okah comes out alive and goes for his treatment and asks us to ceasefire, we will obey. Okah's release was never tied to MEND's acceptance. If the government decides to free Okah then that is good for the country because he is the only one that can ask us to cease hostilities".
Okah himself was released on Monday, July 13, after spending 23 months in detention and in a record 24 hours, the militant group, which has rebuffed the appeal of Niger-Delta elders and other stakeholders to pipe down, announced a ceasefire. Though, what it publicly announced was a 60-day period of armistice, it is palpable that a well armed insurgent group in the calibre of MEND would not have declared a total truce even if that was its shrouded game plan. It still has to be negotiated.
Whatever is the case, whether for a month or two months, the important thing is that there is a temporal respite in the region, particularly in the oil sector and many believe the ball is now in the hands of the government to negotiate a lasting peace.
Will Okah's release bring peace?
The question that some top government officials from the region have been asked by the Presidency over and over since the rapprochement for the release of Okah reached a critical point was if his release would guarantee peace in the region. Nobody could answer the question with exactitude but it was clear that Okah had to be released one way or the other to appease the militants, who have proved they have the capacity to cripple the nation's economy if government continued to employ the hard tactics of using the Joint Task Force (JTF) on the region to intimidate and cow them to submission.
Yet again, anybody who understands the Niger-Delta struggle would know freedom for Okah will not stop the struggle.. It is beyond Henry Okah as a person. His death cannot even kill the spirit of the struggle, if it were so; the death of the late Major Isaac Jasper Adaka-Boro would have eclipsed the fight back.
The fact that the "war" continued even more ferociously while Okah was in detention for 23 months even shows that there are many Adaka Boros and Henry Okahs in the creeks of the region. Before Okah happened on the scene with his arrest in Angola in 2007, the leader of the Niger-Delta People Volunteer Front (NDPVF) and People Salvation Front (PSF), Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari was and still remains a leading freedom fighter in the region. The misunderstanding between him and Okah apart, he joined others to call for his eventual release and insisted up till date that there was nothing wrong in anybody carrying gun in the Niger-Delta to ask for the rights of his people.
With Okah now a free man, it is believed that Ijaw leaders and other stakeholders would ensure that the bone of contention between them is settled soon, probably after Okah would have travelled abroad and returned from treatment of his health problem. If nobody else undertakes to do that, trust the leader of the Ijaw ethnic nationality and former Federal Commissioner for Information, Chief Edwin Clark, he will assume the responsibility except his 'boarding pass' at the departure lounge expired before that time.
Gospel truth
If truth be told, however, Okah's release from detention will not guarantee peace in the region. But it will facilitate the return of peace if properly handled.
Okah in an exclusive interview with Vanguard on Wednesday confirmed this position. He said his release from detention would not change the situation in Niger Delta unless the Federal Government addressed the root cause of the crisis in the region.
His words, "One thing I know is that those fighting in the Niger Delta are not fighting for nothing and I don't think they were fighting for my release. That is not the main issue. As long as the main issues are not resolved, I don't see how the problems in the Niger-Delta will just go".
"Like I told you, my detention was not the problem. So, not much will change, except the Federal Government does something about the problem in the area", he added.
Okah's suspicion
If the Federal Government had sustained the peace process after the Vice President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan visited Henry Okah in South Africa, the Niger-Delta problem would have be a thing of the past by now, two years after it started the process, but the subsequent arrest of Okah in Angola some months after the visit, his deportation to Nigeria, secret trial and detention for 23 months has led to a lot of suspicion.
Despite his release, he would read meaning in any move by the government towards peace in the region and already, he had been quoted in one of the national newspapers as saying that he would not accept appointment from government.
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