N/Delta & its midnight children
By Louis Odion [louisodion@sunnewsonline.com
Sunday, August 19, 2007

It is difficult to contemplate the sheer carnage Port Harcourt has turned lately and not be tempted to conclude that, alas, the leading characters had bolted from Adebayo Williams’ best-selling novel, Bulletin from the Land of the Living Dead, to engage in real-life rampage.

True, a reality check today will hardly validate all the details of the apocalyptic picture meticulously painted by the ageing professor of a decomposing nation under an equally demented martial order in post-colonial Africa.

But there, surely, remains a few parallels between that fiction and the reality of today that are eerily unnerving. The spectacle of militants audaciously barricading city highways, of the demons of insurgency openly engaging the might of the federal military in the creeks, only tends to attest to the uncanny capacity of life to imitate art indeed.

The orgy of needless bloodletting reached a head Thursday in Port Harcourt with the wasting of no fewer than thirty lives in the clash between security forces and the “insurgents”. Penultimate Saturday, the city had equally quaked as gunmen took to the streets, shooting indiscriminately, generally unleashing chaos. State targets (including a radio station and NNPC mega station) were torched.

But the big difference is that whereas Williams’ fictive insurgents were clearly inspired by some patriotism and held out nobly till the epic gridlock was resolved on the basis of class reconciliation, the new insurgency in Port Harcourt and elsewhere in Niger Delta appears fuelled by carnal motives if not bare-faced banditry.

Perhaps, for the sake of clarity, the psychology of this new insurgency needs to be classified from the outset. Long years of deprivation or denial of access to opportunities have, it must be admitted, invariably bred generations of youths who do not believe in dignity of labour, but quick money obtained by foul means. They would camouflage such criminality as part of the “struggle”, aided by default by the roguery of the political elite.

They are the illegitimate offspring, the midnight children, the urban cultists, graduate felons, the seemingly incurable and the ethically uneducable. The threat they now pose to society as an idea dictated primarily by regard for the rights of others is, therefore, beyond homicidal proportions. It is an under-class community, completely insulated from the niceties of the extant Niger Delta advocacy as an intellectual undertaking. By feeding their greed, we have reared a monster.

The chief executive of one of the nation’s popular eateries narrated a bizarre experience few years back at the hands of these youths. As part of the expansion plan of his company, a new outlet was to be opened in Port Harcourt. He did his own bit by obtaining the necessary permits from the local authorities. Of course, the project meant more jobs as well as a boost to the local economy.

But these youths would not allow him erect his structure until after a ransom was paid. In their warped reasoning, they tend to see or choose to regard any business proposal or venture for that matter as a continuation of the existing exploitative capitalism. More challenges lay ahead for the hapless investor from Lagos.

At some point, he felt it was only proper for him to discharge his social responsibility. He chose to construct the communal access road already in a sorry state. On the day caterpillars assembled in the neighbourhood, the usually ubiquitous youths soon slithered out of the street-corners, brandishing dangerous weapons against the work-men. They retreated only after the payment of another ransom.
At macro level, the picture is no less sordid.

In the past, Niger Delta advocacy was the preserve of the intellectuals. But those who made peaceful change impossible inadvertently made violence inevitable. The grammar of seminars has been supplanted by the staccato of AK-47 and grenade. Violence has replaced logic and dialogue. And predictably, the revolution has since begun to consume its own children. More like the proverbial demented fowl feasting on its own suckling.

Anyone still in doubt only needs to examine MEND’s disclaimer against Asari Dokubo Tuesday. While threatening to resume hostilities by the end of August over the failure of Federal Government to address the “core of our demand” (fiscal federalism), MEND labeled the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force (NDPVF) leader an “informant and a spy for the Nigerian government” in what clearly opens yet another vista in Niger Delta’s now obviously apocryphal narrative.

In June, MEND had declared a unilateral cease-fire to give the new government some time “to settle down and do what is right”. Of course, part of its demands was the release of Dokubo and former governor of Bayelsa, DSP Alams. Happily, the duo have since been released in what would seem a well-choreographed judicial drama directed by the Abuja establishment.

But today, Dokubo’s erstwhile “comrades” in MEND must be at a loss as to why he now seems to spend much of his time either at Aso Rock or the Bayelsa Government House holding brief for the vice president, generally sounding like another palace coutier. Much more insidious is what appears the new Ijaw triumphalism.

There now seems a deliberate attempt to demonize or scape-goat every other authority figure in Niger Delta outside the Ijaw clan. Following the attack on Jonathan’s country-home the other day, for instance, it was quite convenient for the new mob to quickly reduce the infamy to the machination of those who want to “create the impression that the vice president has no solid home-base”. Such reductionism.

Now, former allies must be sickened by the haste with which Dokubo, until last month a state captive, salivates at invitation to mount joint press briefing with the Inspector General of Police against the “enemies of progress” in Niger Delta. Could this possibly be what the “struggle” is all about? Co-incidentally, Dokubo also spoke on the day MEND disowned him. And guess where he fired his own verbal missiles from – Kano Government House! So, from being a “revolutionary”, the NDPVF leader, they seem to think, has morphed into a “renegade”.

But many saw this coming. The first misconception is to assume that granting amnesty or doling patronage to insurgents is the cure-all therapy against Niger Delta’s otherwise festering gangrene. Paying ransom to hostage-takers only feed their greed to seize more. Until 2005, NDPVF would appear the most visible if not dominant. But while the NDPVF strongman cooled his feet in captivity in Abuja, the virus only proliferated in the creeks. Now, former apprentices seem to have become full-fledged practitioners.

Emerging from the gulag last month, Dokubo had promised to help arrest the incidence of hostage-taking. But in what clearly suggests that the falcon can no longer hear the falconer, the spectre only seems to be degenerating into another monstrosity. From the preference for expatriate white oil workers, the “freedom-fighters” now target fellow Nigerians as well: kids of the affluent or the mothers of famous politicians.

Unless something is done urgently, we are in for more degeneracy. In summary, experts have defined the Niger Delta question; what remains is to change the situation. Appraised critically, so far, the tactics and strategy of the Yar’Adua administration has been that of motion without movement. To remember that the president yet promised to arrest the slide within three months of assuming power. Yes, the president has repeatedly lectured the Niger Delta governors “not to steal” and hosted a meeting of “stake-holders”.

But such measures only look like a rehash of what his predecessor did. Indeed, if truly the president has fresh ideas, we are yet to see. We also witnessed the formal presentation of the new NNDC master-plan to the president. That could serve as a fall-back position. Of course, embedded in that document are some short-term prescriptions. How much of those will be considered?

Having said that, I think it is also necessary to say that time has, more than ever before, come to distinguish between what is clearly a noble advocacy for Niger Delta and criminality of the oil underworld of that blighted province. Sadly, we need to concede that the activities of the latter have the potentials of polluting the atmosphere against the former (which is what we are now witnessing).

In fact, the excesses of the latter should now be regarded as the greatest threat to the former. On the part of the security agencies, the situation now requires creativity in the application of tact where possible and force when necessary. Criminals are social enemies and should be treated as such.