WHO REALLY IS MARGINALIZING NIGER DELTA?

There are times when negotiation doesn't make sense to me, especially if you are a government holding superior power. Sometimes negotiating to appease ends up setting a bad precedent. That is exactly the scenario that has been playing out in Nigeria for some years now.

President Obasanjo negotiated with Cameroun and we lost Bakassi peninsular through a dubious International Court of Justice ruling which we could have rejected. Instead of rejecting the ruling, we chose to accede to a disingenuous Green Tree Agreement which France with her entrenched interest deceptively brokered to favour Cameroun. Today the people of Bakassi, hitherto a territory of Nigeria with a senator representing them in our National Assembly, are still lamenting their fate. They are asking to come back to Nigeria, but it is too late. The damage has been done.

President Yar Adua negotiated with MEND, NDPVF and other splinter groups and the result was Boko Haram. Boko Haram felt that since MEND and NDPVF were appeased, they too must be appeased. Ditto Niger Delta Avengers and its offshoots, the Reformed Niger Delta Avengers and Niger Delta Greenland Justice Movement. All these groups were created, not to represent the ordinary people of the region but to cause trouble for government and force it to call them to a roundtable where bribery disguised as settlement would be hammered out. Settlement that end up making billionaires of a few and leaving the greater majority more impoverished than ever.

Who knows who else we shall be negotiating with tomorrow? One day may be even herdsmen will start asking for negotiation and settlement in order to stop attacking communities and killing innocent people. When and where will all this nonsense stop? Sometimes the state needs to deploy its full power. That way you nip an ugly situation in the bud and send strong signal that you are ready and able to defend Nigeria and Nigerians at all times. Allowing all these nonsense to happen in the name of democratic freedom ultimately makes matters worse for the country. Democratic freedom surely does not include freedom to privatize arms and turn it against the state.  

A policy of appeasement should not be resorted to all the time. These rent-seeking militants don't have the support of the whole of Niger Delta people. They are simply a few bandits after their own pocket.

What has been the result of all the appeasement policies deployed to the Niger Delta over the years? 13% derivation, Niger Delta Development Commission, Ministry of Niger Delta, Amnesty Program – all were appeasement policies. Where is the result of all these? All these without exception were managed by people from Niger Delta. Yet no result; the greater majority of the people of the region still suffer. So who really is marginalizing who?

I once lived in Burutu. Burutu is the headquarters of Burutu Local Government Area of Delta State. Burutu is in the heart of the Niger Delta region. It is a few kilometers away from the theatre of the current Niger Delta Avengers campaign.  As a young employee of the only bank in the whole of the local government then, I witnessed, first hand, how millions of Naira ear-marked by Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) for building well equipped hospital and school at Burutu was shared by elders and leaders of the community.

SPDC had called a town hall meeting with the community where they told them of the oil giant's plan. The hospital and school were to be built, equipped, manned and managed by Shell, and of course most of the staffers were to be drawn from the catchment area.

But guess what? The elders and leaders said they would rather have the cash. Of course the cash was released. I'm talking of millions! This was in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Today there is neither good hospital nor good school in the area. And of course the bank has since left Burutu. Am not sure there is any bank in the whole of that local government today. Whose loss is this?

I bet this scenario is replicated in many Niger Delta communities. So I ask again, who is really marginalizing who?

I can bet my last nickel that even if all the oil fields are left for the Niger Delta states to manage, no meaningful development would still come to the region. The leaders would simply sell them off and take the proceeds to Dubai and other capitals of the world.

I can bet my last nickel that even if all the oil fields are left for the Niger Delta states to manage,  no meaningful development would still come to the region. The leaders would simply sell them off and take the proceeds to Dubai and other capitals of the world.

It is about time we in the Niger Delta region begin to ask critical questions. Who really is marginalizing us? This victim mentality we display all the time is not going to help us. This sense of entitlement won't either. If every state that has a resource begins to take up arms against the country, where will Nigeria be? If Lagos, for instance, decides to shut down the port and begins to demand compensation, where will the country be?

Rather than taking up arms we should be demanding accountability from our leaders. We should begin to ask them to account for all the money we have been getting over the years? It is not only in Abuja that accountability should be demanded from. States, local governments and even community leaders owe us a duty to account for our revenue, and it is our duty to demand it from them.

How is it that we cry "our oil, our oil" all the time without anything to show for it? And it is not as if the oil was taken without compensation oh! Yes, you may argue that the compensation is not enough, but that is why we have elected leaders – governors, senators, House of Rep members and House of Assembly members – to take up our demands on our behalf. Our representatives are adequately, nay, are the most compensated in the world. So let us hold them to do the job we recruited them to do. If they are not doing it, let’s use our power to remove them.

Solution does not lie with blowing up oil and gas pipelines and destroying our ecosystem in the process. Let's begin to ask ourselves basic questions.  What have we done with the little we have been receiving over the years? The region has had its fair share of national leadership. What was their contribution to the development of the region?

How is it that states that do not have oil, such as Kano, Kaduna, Ogun, Oyo and Lagos (well, until recently) are far ahead in terms of development? Do their leaders have two heads? What is it they have been doing that our leaders have failed to do? These are questions we should be asking our leaders.

Please let's search our souls. Sponsoring militancy is a smokescreen to deceive the people and divert their attention from asking critical questions. It is unfortunate the youth are falling for the trick. Militancy won't get us anywhere. We will lose if push comes to shove.