Freekick

No body took thought for the Niger Delta insurgence of today. Everyone was taken unawares despite the proven volatility of the area since time immemorial. When in November 1995, General Sani Abacha hanged the Environmentalist, Kenule Beeson Saro Wiwa, against public outcry; he and his co-travelers thought they had effectively latched away the Niger Delta struggle.

But Saro Wiwa’s dictum remains loud and haunting today, “You may kill the messenger but you cannot kill the message”. The message remains, assuming inordinate proportions.

The Niger Delta was like any other part of Nigeria until the arrival of derricks upset the equilibrium of the place, displaced the people and foisted off on it a reign of near-anarchy.

A trip around the Niger Delta backwaters inundates your view with rust-tarnished roofs, wasted farmlands, soils washed bare and forests wrung thin of vegetation. You would see rivers and ponds in degrees of pollution way beyond the conventionally acceptable indices, the disorienting intellectual lacunae, and military outposts in every turn of the road.

And then you would be in a position to appreciate the enormous challenges of the area and the people. You would be callous to expect youths reared in such atmosphere of gross deprivation to evince good breeding. You would understand their foul language, hostilities and earthy propensities.

Injustice fossilized, embalmed and entombed by successive Government gave birth to the Niger Delta imbroglio. It came gradually but was allowed, in our usual nonchalance, to fester and befoul Nigeria. When Major Obi Umahi and Col. Paul Okuntimu-led forces respectively overran Ogoni land with telling tolls on the beleaguered Community, Nigerians slept on one flank. Condemnations were few, muffled and isolated.

What moral rights have we today to speak out against militancy when we expressly cordoned the excesses of the Nigerian State that armed the Creeks in the first place? Why is it that the pieces of injustice perpetrated by the multinationals are still unaddressed, swept under the carpet and backed by the levers of power? The employment quota for host communities in these multinationals has long been discarded even as the last vestiges of indigenes are weeded out progressively at each re-organization. Do we need a forum led by a top UN diplomat to inform us on the wisest solution to the Niger Delta imbroglio? Would the recently inaugurated technical committee, whose composition I deem responsible enough, provide the elusive panacea for the Niger Delta quagmire?

There is the saying, who is most difficult to awaken is who pretends to be asleep. Some powerful cabal seems to be in mute complicity with the detractors of the Niger Delta. The Onshore-Offshore dichotomy, which has taken enormously from the allocations to the Coastal States, was a concrete proof of growing indifference to the challenges of the area by the Government. The recent creation of a Niger Delta ministry, ahead of the recommendations of the technical committee on Niger Delta seems preemptive, insincere and diversionary. Would this Ministry be run independent of the stranglehold of the presidency?

What is the sphere of influence of such ministry, the emergent minister, who, no doubt, is already a stooge of the ruling class? Would the ministry be well funded or starved, a stillborn contraption of transient effects? With growing disenchantment over the status quo, generality of up and coming youth gravitate to militancy. Luscious youths sapped by years of progressive disillusionment. If you have appraised these militants, a natural chord runs through them. They are graduates disenchanted to points of denaturing. Though experts in various disciplines, they are unable to find employ in the numerous multinationals that litter their communities with Christmas trees, which have rehearsed ouster clauses in every job opening to ensure just that.

Not only should the activities of these multinationals be opened to scrutiny, an extensive probe of the various malpractices tilted against host communities is the very first step to ending militancy in the Niger Delta area. On the other hand, the intellectual leverage, tour de force, sheer bravado evinced by these militants needed appropriate re-channeling. In Ancient Greece, it was when Rivers Alpheus and Peneus were re-routed into the Augean stables that the greatest challenge of primitive Greek was overcome by Hercules.

You would be astonished that these tension-impregnated coastal communities are depository of competences that are remarkably Olympian. You would stumble upon, if ever you repair to these remote places, swimmers who could shut themselves off in the murky waters, only to resurface several miles away, in record time – act that frequently overawed me.

You would light upon rowers whose dexterity with the paddle is legendary. These are presages of – your guess is as good as mine – medal feasts at subsequent Olympiads, should there be proactive solutions towards the Nigerian barren medal haul at the Beijing meets. This would also deplete the ranks of militants, as prospects of international media exposure with dollar haul would be tempting. Boat regatta could be organized in these riverain communities too with the view to isolating talents. Who knows how many Michael Phelps are wasting in the Creeks, undiscovered.

What is required now is concrete action. A mega city in the cast of Abuja could be a beginning. In the conception, planning and construction of this mega city, which could be sited equidiscent from most Coastal States, indigenous contractors should be engaged. If no local contractor is competent, an excuse usually canvassed preparatory to denying them stakes, they could be trained in world-class facilities, awarded these contracts and supervised to completion. Grassroots participation in all tiers of the projects, from formulation to execution would assuage the inconsolable Creeks, and reclaim many a militant.

We have come to the end of the labyrinth. The internecine feud between the Creeks and Aso Rock is one that requires urgent solution and sincerity of purpose from all and sundry. The ennoblement of the struggle, rapidly being criminalized is necessary, while the Government on the other hand needed to initiate urgent remedial actions to address the complaints of the Niger Delta peoples. The government should, upon completion of the committee’s assignment, immediately implement the recommendations of the present technical Committee on Niger Delta.

Chief Clarius Ugwuoha, A Public Affairs Analyst, writes from the Ezeali Palace in Egbema.