In a way, the Niger Delta Question has become a bad dream; in fact, an incubus of sorts, in Nigeria’s socio-political interaction. Hard as successive administrations in the country had tried to sweep the issues in the region under the carpet, they have refused to die.
The factors that had held the region down over the years came up again during a meeting between President Muhammadu Buhari and leaders and representatives of the area, on Tuesday, November 1.
They essentially border on neglect and underdevelopment of the area. And they form the basis for the restiveness among the youths in the zone. Or so they appear.
Moving forward, the elders, who participated in the meeting, made demands on the government to ensure lasting peace in the area. Among the demands was inclusion of the people in the allocation and ownership of oil blocks in the country.
Other demands included review of the presidential amnesty programme, relocation of the administrative and operational headquarters of international oil companies (IOCs) to the areas of operation, approval of the maritime university, strengthening the Niger Delta Ministry, resuscitation of key regional infrastructure, resettlement of Bakassi indigenes and adequate funding of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). There were others.
Buhari did not enter into any commitment on meeting the demands. According to the Minister of State (Petroleum), IbeKachikwu, the President would need to study the presentation by the Niger Delta representatives before stating the government’s position on them.
If Buhari eventually gets back to the people and attends to their demands holistically, that would be a huge surprise. But if he does not, or chooses to paper over them, that would not be surprising. In fact, by adopting the latter option, he would not be departing from the path that his predecessors had travelled all the while.
One thing that, however, remains clear is that the Niger Delta is not an accident in the country’s political and economic history. It has rather been a reality that the leaders had regularly tried to wish away, without success.
The British colonial administrators had, even before handing over the flag of political independence to the emerging Nigerian nation, seen and warned on the peculiarity of the Niger Delta situation.
They had, back in 1957, set up the Henry Willink Commission to inquire into the fears of the country’s minorities and recommend ways of allaying them.The Commission described the situation in Niger Delta as peculiar and recommended special attention for the area. It specifically made case for appointment of a special board by the federal government to handle the affairs of the region.
By a stroke of fate, the first discovery of oil in Nigeria in commercial quantity(OML 29) onshore at Oloibiri in Ogbia Local Government of the present BayelsaState was made on January 15, 1956, but production did not start until 1958.
It is not certain if the Willink Commission made its informed recommendation on account of discovery of oil in the region. But the 1963 Constitution saw wisdom in the recommendations of the Commission in making room for the establishment of Niger Delta Development Board (NDDB), charged with the responsibility of advising the government on the physical development of the area.
Since the Willink report and consequent NDDB, there have been other interventionist agencies like the Oil Minerals Producing Commission (OMPADEC) of 1992, Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), and, to some extent, the Amnesty programme initiated by the late President UmaruYar’Adua/Goodluck Jonathan administration.
But even with all these contraptions and balkanisation of the region into various states, no serious progress has been made in developing the area. Communities in the region still post gory pictures of poverty, misery, neglect and environmental degradation.
Added to these is the incidence of militancy that has, more than any other factor, discouraged investment in the region. Essentially occasioned by years of deprivation, abject poverty often brought about by official negligence and criminal collaboration by even the elite of the region, the restiveness in the Niger Delta has taken many phases and impacted gravely on the region and even the national economy, with the attendant drop in crude oil production.
Faced with these uncertainties, nationals of leading western nations have often been cautioned by their home countries to be on red alert. America and Britain have been on the forefront in issuing these travel advisories. In the process, investment in-flow into the area has plummeted, especially in the face of petty criminals that have been on the prowl.
Yar’Adua’sadministration had approached the crisis in the area with a carrot-and-stick strategy, hence the launch of the amnesty programme that the succeeding Jonathan presidency expanded.
The expectation was that the Buhari government would build on that or fine-tune the programme in line with the realities of the day. But the President did not seem to be favourably disposed to this, at least, initially, hence the escalation of the crisis in the region.
But with the meeting last week, he seems ready to climb down from his high horse, at last. What may not be easily ascertained is how far he would go in the new-found love with the people. This is not something that can be casually gleaned from pledges and declarations. It is about putting words into action; it is about physical development of the area.
It is not about further enrichment of some callous members of the political elite that had over time cashed in on the vulnerability of the people to feather their individual nests. Some, if not most, of the participants at the meeting with Buhari had, at some point, occupied positions of authority and influence that they could have brought to bear in lifting their people out of the valleys of deprivation and want. But they did not. They are not the ones that should, again, be entrusted with the fate of the people.
Buhari should, therefore, expend more efforts and reach to the people that matter most in terms of development and empowerment of the region. This should form the real basis for discussing and addressing the Niger Delta Question.
