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The secret fear of becoming politically irrelevant shall not forever hold the nation completely hostage. European countries will readily come to the aid of any country at their backyard in Europe faced with the threat of civil war and destruction to arrest a deteriorating situation. History has however taught the lesson that they will readily provide food aid and medical assistants to victims of war in any African country. But contrary to what they would in their own backyard, they would seek to improve their own economic growth by also selling arms to warring parties in Africa and ensure that wars drag on for as long as possible. Sometimes they add diplomatic recognitions to their arsenal of war-promoting weapons.

If the Niger Delta militants are dreaming of any rosy future in separatism, they will definitely have a sorry story coming their way and only the poor folks will pay the bills with their precious lives. Enough is enough!

 

The vicious circle of the Niger Delta: Shame of a Nation!
by Frisky Larr

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It started like a child’s play. It was a struggle in the interest of the suffering masses. The highlight of the struggle was characterized by environmental pollution. A serious development that ended up denying the local folks their erstwhile fertile farming land and healthy fishing water. The environment was badly polluted by oil drilling business magnates of multinational identity. The symbol of the struggle in the days of its holy peak was Ken Saro-Wiwa. The folks rose to their feet and stood up against the profit hyena of multinational acclaim. Resources were exploited much to the detriment of the local folks. But indiscretion and misguided political judgment led to the execution of the symbol of the struggle. He dared the military government of Sani Abacha to stand up for truth and justice. In the end, the bright and promising writer with the scholarly gift of literary excellence Ken Saro-Wiwa was killed against all pleas. He was murdered by Sani Abacha, who now stands at the center of a regionally choreographed debate as Nigeria’s best political leader ever. Unfortunately however, these days were thought to be long gone. Painful memories were thought to have been soothed in the spirit of national reconciliation. But alas, little had anyone known in the days of Saro-Wiwa’s murder that his struggle was to open another avenue for a different form of homegrown terrorism in the guise of justified separatism. For close to seven years now, Nigeria has been held to ransom by some armed mob and helpless lunatics of Niger Delta origin. But first, some fact-checking. The so-called struggle for the emancipation of the Niger-Delta is sold internationally today, as the frantic and last resort to the power of force by the oppressed and downtrodden masses of the Niger Delta. Many of Ken Saro-Wiwa’s arguments are being invoked and spread today in the search for the justice that is so fraudulently and desperately propagated. The need for the region, on which milk the entire nation feeds, to be granted a better share of accruing revenue has been persistently highlighted, not the least, for the improvement of the lot of the common Niger-Delta masses suffering pathetically from the impacts of pollution and inequitable revenue allocation. A lot has also been done to address the anomaly. Revenue allocation has been consistently revisited, adjusted and fine-tuned to favor the region in dramatic hikes. Commissions have been established to focus on the concerted elevation of the standard of living of a folk that is not alone in sharing the collective plight of a nation’s shame. The shame of underdevelopment in the face of glaring abundance! Numerous public works-projects are on course in the Niger Delta far more than anywhere else in the country. The systematic self-service mentality geared towards personal enrichment away from the universal understanding of the essence of governance has long been a household tradition of political leadership in Nigeria. It has excelled in a consistent pace of steady metamorphosis for the worse throwing Nigeria into darkness and hunger in the midst of dusty roads and dry taps. Reasons abound to take the ruling elite to task. But what is the emancipation of the Niger Delta all about? Is it a battle to wrest Nigeria from the hands of a filthy political elite that has long been a national liability and an obstacle to affluence? If it were, many more regions would have joined the struggle. Is it a fight to save the Niger Delta from the rest of the country that has been very well developed and advanced at the expense of the Niger-Delta that is still wallowing in poverty? If that were true, many international voices would have spoken out. Unfortunately, none of these is the case. If anything, this movement is the banditry of cowardice born out of greed and utter disregard for damning consequences. Observers have long been asking where on earth these so-called holy emancipators were when Sani Abacha murdered their son in cold blood? They chickened out in fear from confronting a military government. Indeed it will be no surprise to understand that many of the retired senior military personnel training these bandits today were collaborators of the murderous system. It all started as a joke. Politicians sought to make a point and provided finances as long as the fight was aimed at their opponents. Disgruntled operatives who felt left out of what they saw as the “kill and divide” insider practice of the Olusegun Obasanjo administration financed the acquisition of weapons. Everything was deemed legitimate that taught Obasanjo a lesson that he was not god. Many who could have intervened to stop the dangerous insurgency at its budding stage either kept mute, supported it actively or jubilated at the sight of Obasanjo been in serious trouble. All these were being fostered under a civilian experiment that was condemned to cautious reaction in handling civil strife. It was cowardice indeed. No observer has been in doubt today that a battle of this sort launched against Sani Abacha’s killing machine would have been blessed with nationwide support. Today, what started in the collateral impact of destabilizing a hated government and dressed in the cloak of seeking justice is threatening to take apocalyptic dimensions away from the sphere of control of its founding fathers. In fact, while claiming to be fighting for and representing the interest of the Niger Delta, millions of dollars were extorted through the arbitrary kidnapping of foreigners at the height of anti-Obasanjo agitations. None of these millions of extorted money ever found their ways to public work projects in the interest of the Niger Delta. They were spent on more weapons and shared amongst the big guns, who grew richer by the day. Indeed Orji Uzor Kalu was more than cynical and could not disguise a sly grin of malicious pleasure in a BBC interview while stressing that Olusegun Obasanjo only didn’t know how to solve the problem of Niger Delta militancy. Indeed, the pleasure with which he expressed confidence that he as a President, would have the key to unravel the impasse, prompted suspicion of his clandestine involvement in fanning the flame of violence. Today, Orji Uzor Kalu has a friend in Umaru Musa Yar’Adua doing his best to shield him from corruption-based prosecution. A governor in Rivers State that was not democratically elected and imposed on his folks by the supreme judges of a supreme court has long taken up the daring task of getting to the root of the problem in the state under his governance. Thanks to Governor Rotimi Amaechi’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the nation today, has not only gained a brief insight into the machinations and mechanisms of this murderous militancy, it now knows a few names of those who perpetrated militancy in that part of the nation. A retired military operative has even been named, who was said to have been spotted training some militants. Yet no judicial investigation of any sort has been insinuated by a government wielding the mantra of the rule of law. What has changed today since the exit of Obasanjo and the inauguration of a more Kalu-friendly regime has been the discontinuation of hostage taking. Like Obasanjo, talks have been held by the present regime. Stakeholders have been consulted. Efforts intensified at pacifying and appeasing emotions in the region. Unfortunately however, something always goes wrong. There is always a reason to disagree with one point or the other. The consequence is a sudden flare-up of violence, thank God, no longer with hostage taking. Indeed, there are simply two possible solutions. An all-out war or the prevalence of the voice of reason! Since Nigerians are characteristically known for overdoing every venture embarked upon without the subtle feeling of identifying the crucial threshold of apocalypses, every move at appeasement and pacifying the Niger Delta always seems to be identified as weakness or is it truly weakness? If anything, the Niger Delta militants are revealing general military weaknesses in the armed establishment of Nigeria – in the navy and ground forces. In the aftermath of Odi and Zaki-Biam, Obasanjo was careful to avoid a blanket onslaught. In the exaggerated self-estimation of the militants and their backers, they seem to forget that an all-out war with the navy, air force and ground forces set out against them to resolve this issue once and for all will only end up in a carnage of sort and the destruction of innocent civilians in whose names the militants claim to operate. It is certain that Nigeria has passed the stage of separatism and disintegration. If these daydreaming agitators of separatism knew what they were up against, no doubt they would better be advised to revisit Biafra of the 1970s to comprehend the enormity of public hardship and wastage in lives and resources that will accompany a senseless civil war. They should have known by now that the notion of a sovereign Niger Delta nation will never be an issue for any roundtable or squared-table discussion by any political instance as long as Nigeria lives. Unfortunately however, the longer an all-out war is ruled out, the stronger the militants may get with time and thus become even more audacious. It may be apocalyptic if one day, an airport or a place of public gathering becomes the target of this mob-gone-wild. In other words, while every further audacious strike by the militants on oil installations may heighten the pressure on government to narrow down the day of reckoning for an all-out war, this reality alone should be pressure enough on the militants and their sponsors to understand that they will not forever enjoy this obnoxious jester’s license ad infinitum. The secret fear of becoming politically irrelevant shall not forever hold the nation completely hostage. European countries will readily come to the aid of any country at their backyard in Europe faced with the threat of civil war and destruction to arrest a deteriorating situation. History has however taught the lesson that they will readily provide food aid and medical assistants to victims of war in any African country. But contrary to what they would in their own backyard, they would seek to improve their own economic growth by also selling arms to warring parties in Africa and ensure that wars drag on for as long as possible. Sometimes they add diplomatic recognitions to their arsenal of war-promoting weapons. If the Niger Delta militants are dreaming of any rosy future in separatism, they will definitely have a sorry story coming their way and only the poor folks will pay the bills with their precious lives. Enough is enough!   Enter your search terms Submit search form   Web www.nigeriannews.com Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

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