Port Harcourt — Militancy in the Niger Delta region has been linked to the failure of Niger Delta leadership and not the Federal Government.

Professor Ebiegberi Alagoa, Emeritus Professor of History of the University of Port Harcourt the state capital, made stated this recently, while delivering a lecture in memory of late professor Claude Ake at Omoku in Rivers State.

The scholar who spoke on the topic entitled: "The crisis of Leadership in the Niger Delta", stated that the dialectics that brought about militancy came more as a result of failure of leadership from the elites and elders of the Niger Delta communities than the adamancy of the federal government.

He argued that the leadership in the communities of the Niger Delta was not transparent and community service oriented thus leading to loss of confidence by the youths in the ability of their political and traditional leaders to convince the federal authorities to address their plight.

Professor Alagoa stated that prior to the present era of militancy that the youths had been restive against leadership in the Niger Delta communities.

"The youths have always been restive to a degree in the Niger Delta communities challenging their rulers and elders to account for their performance. We may argue if the scale of restiveness and challenge has reached the crisis level, but the message is clear. The youths have lost confidence in the ability of their political and traditional leaders to deliver."

Continuing, the scholar said because of this failure and lack of community interest and selfless community service of the leaders, the youths decided to take their destinies in their hands and to confront the federal authorities directly, stressing that if the leaders had done what they ought to do the struggle would not have degenerated to blood letting but would have achieved better results through constructive non-violent agitation.

Similarly, Prof Kimse Okoko, the President of Conference of Ethnic Nationalities in the Niger Delta (CEEND), blamed the political leadership for the present crisis in the region.He said pecuniary interest rather than community service has been the bane of the political and traditional leadership of communities of the Niger Delta in the struggle for the emancipation of the region.

Prof Okoko appealed to them to learn a lot from the life and times of late Professor Claude Ake where he devoted his life and time to community service without material benefit.

In the similar vein, one of the conveners and also the Secretary of Ogba Solidarity, Mr. Onwusameka Ogbowuokara, an activist based in Sweden, said the memorial lecture was packaged to showcase the community service quality of the late Professor Ake.

He said the idea was to persuade and enlighten young elites to learn from these rare qualities of the late academic sage.