|
Militants would go back to
the creeks – Momoh
By AIDOGHIE PAULINUS
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
 |
•Tony
Momoh
Photo: Sun News Publishing |
|
Former minister for information, Prince Tony Momoh, has said that
the Niger Delta militants would return to the creeks if the country
fails to take advantage of the prevailing peace in the region. Speaking
exclusively with Daily Sun, the elder statesman said, “We
will encourage them to go back to the creeks if we sleep on our
oars.
They can acquire more deadly arms and nobody is going to give peace
a chance in future.” According to the Yerima of Auchi kingdom,
“Nobody can win a guerrilla war in the creeks.” Excerpts:
Sir, Nigeria is 49, what is your simple assessment of our dear nation?
Nigeria is 49. 49 is an age. But if you look at the age of Nigeria
at 49, it means you are looking at Nigeria from the time of independence
in 1960. Nigeria has existed long before then. At least, what we
have as Nigeria came together through British manipulation in 1914
by amalgamation and by 2014; we will be 100 years old. So at 49,
we have come a long way and the issue is, what have we achieved
politically, economically, socially, educationally, culturally and
even in foreign policy? And if you look at them one by one, you
will be upset that there is a huge level of degeneration. For instance,
once upon a time, we were Africa’s toast, today, I doubt that
anybody recognises us even as a leader.
Educationally, lots of people came here. We have more than eighty
institutions that offer courses at tertiary level. Today, for three
months, we have had the universities on strike. Even our educational
qualifications are no longer recognised anywhere. In the area of
health, there is nothing to write home about. In Lagos alone, in
one Local government area, I saw in a publication, where you have
about 35 hospitals. And there is no local government area in the
whole of Lagos state where you have less than 15-20 hospitals. You
have clinics, lots of areas of laboratories et cetera, but when
someone has headache, they go to Saudi Arabia, London or India.
It doesn’t make sense.
And yet, at independence, three promising countries where identified:
Nigeria, Brazil and India. India and Brazil are relatively in outer
place but Nigeria is still in the cave. I think we have castrated
the whole country through castrating the political structures. Politically,
we are in disarray. We have perfected the act of stealing. So, the
people just go through the zombie routine of voting even when the
people who manipulate the elections know they have written off the
results.
The structure we run where you have full-time local council supervisors,
full-time councillors, full-time lawmakers – everything full-time,
is wrong. And we are paying from the federation account. It doesn’t
make sense. We have not structured Nigeria to make Nigeria grow.
And Nigeria must grow whether we like it or not.
Socially, we have destabilized the whole country. Nobody is feeling
safe in most parts of the country. Kidnapping! People kidnap and
we don’t even know that this kidnapping is a step in the direction
of a revolution. If you have a beautiful car, you can’t ride
it. You sleep in the night with one eye open.
There is also this question of infrastructures. In Nigeria, most
of the warehouses have been turned into Churches, while in Europe;
most of the Churches have been turned into warehouses.
We are not industrialising. We are not doing anything. There is
no light. In my office here (referring to his law chambers), I come
to the office and put on the generator. I go home and I put on the
generator. When are we going to attend to the power sector? You
discover that everywhere, there is nothing to sing about. There
is nothing to sing about at age 49. And we are going to be 50 years
old as an independent country next year. What are we going to celebrate?
Are we going to celebrate failure?
Sir, what actually led to this degeneration?
That is what I have just told you. The structures are faulty. In
1954 for instance, we had federal structure where you had autonomy
for regions. Each region even accepted independence at its own pace.
The Western and the Eastern regions became independent or rather,
accepted self government then, Northern region later became self-governing.
Nigeria achieved independence in 1960 and these groups were moving
at their own pace. Later, we created the Mid-West state through
due process – constitutional process. We had four regions.
The 36 states we have today are arbitrarily structured. We did not
follow the constitutional procedure for doing them. We are just
packaging Nigeria, a federation into hapless, worthless, begging
units we call federating units. And all of them are waiting for
allocation from the Niger Delta when they should really grow the
country. Look at the resources.
They can invest in, if it is agriculture, cash crops, tourism, anything
they invest in so that they can grow that thing and contribute to
the centre. Everybody is waiting for money from the federation account
which comes from the Niger Delta apart. It doesn’t make sense.
You just mentioned the issue of Niger Delta. The crisis has become
one of the perennial issues, in fact, the most important issue in
our national development. In your opinion, why do you think the
crisis has lingered for so long, escalating beyond proportion?
It has escalated beyond proportion because our definition of justice
does not accord with the world’s recognition of justice. You
see, injustice is our motto and there is one sin that Almighty God
says He will never forgive. He says He will never forgive injustice.
When for instance you tackle orphans, when you deny people their
rights, steal from people, you even make things difficult for people,
and when you are unjust, God will never forgive you. Nigeria has
been very unjust to the Niger Delta. You have all over the country,
before now – that is, before military rule, we had a structure
where we contributed to developing the centre through marketing
boards.
Cocoa: 50 percent of the earnings of cocoa went to the centre. Palm
produce, 50 percent to the centre. The groundnut pyramids in the
north, 50 percent to the centre. The same thing applies to hides
and skin, rubber, palm oil, et cetera. But the fact is that today,
the whole cocoa produced in Nigeria has become internally generated
revenue for the South-West. The whole groundnut in the North is
internally generated revenue for those people that grow them. The
whole palm produce, if it is still in Nigeria, is internally generated
revenue. And so, it is with hides and skin.
What we did was to make laws to even deprive the people of the Niger
Delta of access to the land, which is their God-given land. We took
over the oil, took over the minerals, and took over everything;
polluted the place and left those people in penury. God does not
forgive such things. What the president has done now with the amnesty,
for want of definition, I accept the word amnesty by saying everybody
let’s come together. If you have ever committed an offence,
we forgive you, come! But it is a wrong word to call it amnesty
but let us use the word amnesty.
It means we are ready to settle. Everybody come! He has been doing
that and I commend the president for it. But the thing is, I see
amnesty as a journey. The journey did not start in August to end
on October 4. The journey started October 4 because you do not say
leave the creeks and they come, you host them in Abuja and everybody
goes to sit down. Because there is no shooting, there is no blowing
of pipelines, everybody now starts collecting oil, the revenue increases,
and then we sit down and not develop the Niger Delta. We must develop
the Niger Delta.
And if the Niger Delta is not developed, then the people will return
to the creeks. Because they were earning more in the creeks through
all sorts of things: blowing up pipelines and stealing (because
there were bad boys there too). If you do not give them what can
make them stay out of the creeks, they go back into the creeks.
And the only way you can make them stay out of the creeks is to
move into the creeks and develop the creeks. Infrastructures: industries,
educational institutions, roads, everything –. Let people
go to the roads, bridges, health facilities, and housing. There
are people who can build 1000 housing units in one month.
Bring them and put 1000 houses in where you have those huts and
you employ the people. Bring light and stop this flaring of gas.
Do you know that if we tapped that gas, oil money will be pocket
money? We are flaring millions of dollars everyday and we have been
doing so and everybody is looking, polluting the area.
It is very easy to solve the Niger Delta problem. Nigerians are
living on the Niger Delta and it is the goose that lays the golden
eggs. So you shouldn’t kill that goose.
But the issue took a serious dimension in the Obasanjo regime, resulting
to kidnapping. Would you say the former president directly or indirectly
contributed in institutionaling kidnapping in Nigeria?
Was Obasanjo collecting money from those who kidnapped? Obasanjo
did not contribute to anything about kidnapping but the fact is
that the outcome of government policies sustained the injustice,
which led to reactions and kidnapping is one of the reactions.
Being a leader from the region, would you say the leaders contributed
immensely in resolving the crisis or the other way round, contributed
in escalating the crisis, thereby exploiting the region?
The fact is that you cannot talk of leaders from the region escalating
crisis. Leaders from the region have always said; please do unto
others what you would want them done unto you. That means, do to
the Niger Delta what you would have liked done to you if the resources
in Niger Delta were with you. I am quite sure that if this oil in
the Niger Delta had been in some other parts of the country, nobody
would
Make
N450,000 Online Monthly. Click Here |
