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The Port Harcourt Telegraph
Thursday July 14, 2005 7:02 PM . |
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NEWS: |
Resource control: Outrage
...Anger mounts in South-South
The controversial national conference on political reform which has been taking place in Abuja has ended, rejecting demands from oil-producing states for a 25% share of oil revenues.
Rather, the Nikki Tobi led conference decided South-southern Nigerians whose territories produce the bulk of the oil that sustains the country should only receive 17% of the income.
For years oil revenues, which make up more than 90% of export earnings, have gone to the central government dominated by northern oligarchies who controlled the military.
The records show that there have been a deliberate repression of the rights of the minority people, with General Obasanjo being the one under whose tenure the ownership of land and all that are in it was taken.
For speaking out too loud, late Isaac Adaka Boro who joined the Nigerian war effort was mysteriously murdered as the Biafra-Nigeria war drew to a close while Ken Saro Wiwa, the Ogoni sage and environmentalist who internationalized the quest of the Niger Delta people was judiciously murdered by the Nigerian state under General Sani Abacha's watch.
Yet, it is the Niger Delta people and their compatriots in the South-South that suffer the most from environmental degradation and pollution
Said Ken Saro Wiwa in his book the 'Darkling Plain', "This dwindling allocation of revenue was indeed a less heinous crime than a total devastation of the Niger Delta environment to which all federal administrations have turned a blind eye and a deaf ear"He further stated, "The harm done to the environment by the forty one years of oil exploitation and exploration, the flaring of gas, oil spillages and the pollution of rivers and seas is incalculable and mind bogging'
"Indeed, it is my view" he declared, "that what money Nigeria is getting today from oil is nothing in comparison with the plight, which future generations of Niger Delta peoples will have to contend with".
Saro Wiwa further noted, "Today the health hazards generated by an atmosphere charged with hydrocarbon vapour and carbon monoxide and dioxide are innumerable."
He may not have chosen armed struggle as Boro before him but Ken succeeded in getting a world that had no idea of what was going on in the Niger Delta to listen to the voices of the oppressed people of Ogoni and the Niger Delta.
Boro had brought the stack reality of the fate of the Niger Delta people early enough.
Like Asari who would come many years after, Boro believed in armed struggle.
Oil-producing states at first wanted their share to rise to 50% over five years.
In the South-South and the Niger Delta region in particular anger is mounting.
The South-South had gone to the conference with a request that 50% share of oil revenues should be left aside for their development under the principle of derivation.
What they were asking for was nothing new as the records show.
The regions under the First Republic had enjoyed similar revenue sharing arrangements.
Delta delegates walked out of the conference when it became clear that their demands would not be met, not by a dependent North that had come to earn fat allocations for producing nothing.
It is perhaps, ar irony some reason, that despite the fact that the Southeast, Southwest and Middle Belt stood by the position of the South-South, the conference could do nothing to enforce the will of a generality of Nigerians.
Justice Nikki Tobi could not summon the will even to reconvene the conference and ask for a vote on the matter.
An attempt by the President of the NUJ, Smart Adeyemi who proved NUJ's sympathy and understanding of the issues raised by the South-South was stopped by a man who should claim to be from the South-South from moving a counter motion that could probably had sailed through.
In the South-South where Justice Nikki Tobi hails from, anger is mounting and for good reason too.
How can some one who does not produce a thing, who does not own a thing determine how it would be shared?
That is the question and the source of flaring tempers.
Said Chief Godkows Sara-Igbe a.k.a Mafia Messenger, "If you think that the Niger Delta is part of Nigeria, then Nigeria should think about developing part of itself."
Sara-Igbe continued, "And if asking for that somebody now thinks that he has used our resources to acquire armament to destroy us, God in heaven who put us in the Niger Delta will protect us, and we shall fight like wounded lions and Nigeria will be surprised."
"We will make sure", he warned that there would no oil supply "until we have self determination because we must fight hard to determine our stay in Nigeria. And if it means sacrificing our lives to get independence from Nigeria, we will get to that level."
Oronto Douglas, a participant in the conference told reporters, "What are our people saying? They are saying that Nigeria has not protected them. They are saying that being producers of our nation's wealth, they ought to be participants (beneficiaries) of these resources, but they have been denied."
"And if you deny a peoples the right to enjoy what God has given to them, you create a big gulf between the taker and they who have been denied. And they create a window of hate."
Scuffing the notion of the majority that has given vent to the unreasonable position of the North, Oronto asked, "What majority? If majority is based on the perpetuation of injustice, that majority will collapse. That majority will not be the majority ofjustice."
"We said", he added that "because of the character of the conference and the character of Nigeria that we must try as much as possible to weave a consensus. That did not happen, so if the principle of consensus is missing, what hammer of majority are you wielding to knock us out of existence, because we have a minority voice?"
The other day Alhaji Umaru Dikko insisted that the South-South does not own the oil.
His comments have led to more angry reactions, with many in the Niger Delta spoiling for a show down even at the risk of death.
The failure of the moderates might fuel militancy in the Niger Delta region.
Oronto captures the mood graphically, "If you say no, you are telling those who have been moblized now to go back to the trenches".
Boro had favoured armed struggle and his influence can be felt more among youthful activists who want resource take over, not resource sharing.
In the sixties, Boro had declared, "I Isaac Adaka Boro, a Niger Delta citizen from the town of Kaiama today herein sworn in at the revolutionary camp of the Niger Delta Volunteer Service as General Officer Commanding the NDVS, do solemnly declare to uphold the natural rights and integrity of the Niger Delta people and fight with my life for the restoration of same. So help me God."
For 12 days, Boro fought the Nigerian state. His rebellion was crushed but he sent a message, a message which re-echoes to this day.
In later days, Alhaji Asari Dokubo, one of his disciples vows to die fighting for resource take over.
Asari insists the people have a right to take over what belongs to them, stressing that armed struggle against the Nigerian state remains the only honourable path.
"We would take our resource by whatever means is necessary", Asari told the Telegraph a few days ago, "If they can kill, we can kill too, if they have weapons, we have too. They have the same flesh and blood as we have."
For months, Asari held the Nigerian state to an unending bush war, forcing the world again to turn its lazy gaze on the Niger Delta.
Not even the might of the Nigerian army and its air power could stop the Niger Deltan whose threat to blow up oil installations sent oil prices reeling. Last week, Ateke Tom, leader of the Vigilante said things were getting worse for the Ijaw man and swore in a chat with this publication thathe would fight alongside those who want total autonomy of the Niger Delta. |
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