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Obasanjo’s Provocative Declaration On The Niger Delta Question By Senior Fyneface
Again, the pronouncements of President Olusegun Obasanjo in Abuja, Thursday Jan 18th 2007 at the quarterly meeting of the stakeholders in the Niger Delta clearly supported earlier assertions that he has questionable crisis management capacity expected under a democratic dispensation. When he was an army officer, such statements would have been taken as one of the chantings of a biafran war veteran, but we are in a democracy or rather supposed to be in an era where the constitution holds sway.
For President Olusegun Obasanjo to publicly describe as “criminal,” the protests and the associated style of drawing attention by the Niger Delta young men was an outright expression of the hereditary insensitivity of President Obasanjo and other rulers of the country to the plight of the Niger Delta people. Truth be told, the act of hostage -taking became an option to the agitating youths of the Niger Delta as result of the nonchalant attitude of the Federal Government in addressing the genuine and legitimate agitations of the people of the area.
The declaration from the number one citizen of the country clearly indicated the mind of the Presidency and an exposition of the covert unwillingness of the rulers to listen and frontally tackle the obvious issues at stake in the Niger Delta region.
Imagine the head of state of Nigeria threatening that “the government’s restraint should not be mistaken for weakness.. We can hit back.” Who is the President going to hit back at: groups of young men that have managed to sustain their protest despite the heavy presence of government’s joint military taskforce all over the creeks of the Niger Delta?
“That we are not hitting back is not a sign of weakness, and we can hit back. In this day and age, there is nowhere you can hide that we cannot see you,” this was Army Chief Obasanjo talking.
“Despite government’s spirited attempt at developing the region, all we get back for this is hostage-taking.” This was really provocative. What has the federal government actually done to improve the quality of life both to the human and physical environments in real terms? Nothing. I say nothing.
The so called spirited effort of the federal government started with OMPADEC which of course failed woefully as a result of the in-built mechanism for non-performance. Then we have the disabled NDDC which has succeeded only in making more billionaires from other parts of the country. Always, there have been inherent mechanisms for non-performance and failure in all the federal government’s alleged efforts at correcting the development imbalance of the region.
The federal government should make bold to publish an account balance sheet for the funding of the NDDC since 1999. What is the amount of money that was supposed to have been given to the agency for development projects in the region? What percentage of the total entitlement has been remitted to the agency so far and has the remission been as at when due? Who are the contractors that have been involved in white elephant projects execution in the region, are they from within or outside the region? The federal government should publicly answer these questions if it is sure that it has been doing what was supposed or rather agreed to be done.
In his sermon at Aso Villa, the President tried very hard to lecture his invited crop of privileged Niger Deltans declaring that, “Hostage taking is no longer a means of addressing grievances, it is a criminal act. It is not an act of agitation. It is not as a result of marginalization or lack of opportunity to express their opinion that is making them take other people hostage. It is simply an act of criminality that should be treated as such.”
Is Mr President not aware that extremism represents a concept that depends solely on the locus standing of the person doing the definition? To an extreme leftist, from his point of protest everything becomes right and every other person with differing opinion falls into opposing group or rather leftist posture. This also applies when an extreme rightist takes his stand and defines his situation. In this situation, the president could be said to have made an extreme leftist declaration that is capable of fueling the amber of violence of the rightist Niger Delta peoples’ right activists.
No wonder Jomo Gbomo, the leader and spokesperson for MEND in a press statement last year informed President Obasanjo that “The world must be getting sick of Obasanjo’s threats. His army commanders have assured him there can be no military victory in the Niger Delta protest. How does he hope to achieve this feat? The oil companies are much wiser now and will rather have him open and operate the oil fields in the area at the cost of their license.”
To say that it was wrong to associate hostage-taking with agitation for greater government presence in the Niger Delta area was another clear expression of insensitivity. “This is costing us (Abuja Government) very dearly and the only reason this is happening is because you do not have the love of your people and country at heart and no person who calls himself a community leader should condone this.” It has not started costing you anything. Just continue to be adamant to the agitations and request of the people of the area, a point will come when the federal government would want to negotiate with the agitating people of the area and nobody would be interested in talking anymore. That is when Mr President, if he would still be in office, will know the actual cost of neglecting the Niger Delta region.
"In our discussions, we have to come to terms with how to handle this. We have used carrot.. We have used kid- gloves. We cannot continue indefinitely. It is costing us dearly,” and would cost even more dearly if nothing convincing is done to develop the area and empower the women and youths who remain the most affected in the area.
The federal government’s adamant posture towards the plight of the youths of the area produced the present crop of well organized and sophisticated elite activists; if you like call them militants. This is the stack truth. And the danger is that with each day that passes, the young men and women involved in the agitation get more and more organized and sophisticated making it even harder for the security agencies to match. Also, swans of new volunteers sign-in just in sympathy or rather to offend Government and its agents.
If the Federal Government continues with its present stance, a time will come (and very soon too), when we get to a point of no return because none of the militants would even be ready to talk or negotiate with anybody whether from the states’ or federal government. The time to sit down with these young men is now.
SENIOR FYNEFACE, ELELEWON STREET, GRA II, PORT HARCOURT, RIVERS STATE NIGERIA.
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