What kind of death awaits a country whose existence depends on crude oil from the Niger Delta and aims to kill off the indigenous peoples on the way to the oil?  Your guess is as good as mine.

But there is a dimension to the madness of the Nigerian ruling cabal.  Today, we have a President from the Northern part of Nigeria who so far qualifies as the most insensitive president going by the way he persistently abuses the spirit of Federal Character.  President Yar'Adua did not find his voice when his Federal military recently destroyed five Niger Delta communities.  He did not see it necessary to visit the sites of the havoc.  In reaction, some youths from the destroyed communities have allegedly fought back by attacking an offshore oil installation, the Bonga oil field operated by Shell in a Joint Venture with Nigeria.  This has enraged Nigeria's President.  Enraged enough that he has commanded his military to do all that is necessary to retaliate and cause further destruction of communities.  In short, he has declared war on the Niger Delta, a Southern part of Nigeria with a history of neglect by successive federal and regional governments.

I feel him.  He derives his sense of being from that oil.  He has to do all that is necessary to stop anyone from disrupting the source that provides for his well being.  Unfortunately, those close to the President seem to be shirking in their duties to give him needed history lessons.

In the beginning of Nigeria some young Ibo military officers took it upon themselves to eliminate the prime minister of Nigeria of northern extraction.  They also eliminated the foremost northern religious leader.  To add salt to injury, a senior military officer of Ibo extraction took over as head of state of Nigeria.  To further add more salt to the injury, the new head of state did nothing to bring the country together.   The result of these short-comings, I believe, is general knowledge.  Over a million innocent Nigerians lost their lives to the craze that followed.

So, when a President of northern extraction uses the federal military to destroy southern communities, he is not being prudent.  When the President of northern extraction insensitively makes extra-budgetary allocation to plan to build a multi-billion naira boulevard in the northern Abuja but declares as expired what is due to the Niger Delta Development Commission, he is not being prudent.  When a President of northern extraction hops up and down and around the globe but makes only political campaign stops to the southern Niger Delta which is in need of urgent attention, he is being imprudent.

The Niger Delta lays the golden egg for Nigeria.  This fact is not stated sufficiently.  The people of that place live in very difficult condition as a result of the laying of this egg.  The environment is destroyed and polluted and sources of living are destroyed thereby placing the people of the region in a self-reinforcing poverty trap - the kind described by Jeffery Sachs in his book "The End of Poverty:" where poor health and poor infrastructure reinforce one another (see [3]).  A trap that the ruling elite is not in a hurry to help untangle.

To declare war on the people of such a place is heartless and cruel.  Worse more that the person declaring the war is a spoilt northern kid who ain't any idea of how it is like to live in the Niger Delta.

When it started in Columbia decades ago, they thought it was child's play.  America thought Iraq's mission was "accomplished" five years ago but their Presidential Candidate Senator McCain now thinks it will take another 100 years.    Like a child who says his mother will not sleep, the Israelis can't sleep with all eyes closed despite their superior fire power and military, as long as a Palestine lives.  A northern president  in Nigeria should know better.

I have already written about Nigeria's incubation of future suicide bombers (see [1]); I have freely given ideas on how to resolve the Niger Delta question (see [2]).  With the way the new leadership of Nigeria is conducting itself, Nigeria is being speedily undone.  The Niger Delta Question is a veritable catalyst in this undoing.

What is this so-called Niger Delta Question? It dates back to pre-independent Nigeria.   It is the same question for which the Willink 'Minorities and Fiscal Commission' reported in mid-1958 after an exhaustive series of hearings across the country. Though recommendations of the commission were manipulated by the powers-that-be before the final release, there was a somewhat bold and remarkable recommendation that:

Those recommendations have not been carried out till today.  The Ibos who controlled the regional government at the time did not allow it and the other major ethnic groups never bothered.  So, the question remains and will keep asking us Nigerians in the face until a sincere answer is provided.

They say a word is enough for the wise but there are enough words already.

Hosiah Emmanuel
Singapore


Reference:
1.  THE NIGER DELTA QUESTION: INCUBATING THE FUTURE SUICIDE BOMBERS OF NIGERIA by Hosiah Emmanuel
2.  THE NIGER DELTA DEVELOPMENT QUESTION: A PLANNING PARALYSIS? by Hosiah Emmanuel
3.  The End of Poverty by Dr. Jefferey Sachs