FOREIGN MEDIATORS IN NIGER DELTA CRISIS: AN ANATOMY OF THE DECIET

 It is very pathetic that after 11 months in office, President Umaru Yar’Adua’s administration still appears to lack innovations on how it would tackle the issue of Niger Delta. The federal government’s do – nothing or maybe go slow stance is an obvious indication of outright nonchalance and poverty of ideas on the way forward. The federal government’s handling of the Niger Delta question since he came into office could best be described as very unfortunate.

 President Yar’Adua and his government have been very insincere in his camouflaged concern for the root causes of the agitation in the region. And the impression that peace and security have been restored in the troubled region in order to gain the confidence of investors in the oil and gas sector could best be described as the height of national deceit. Nigerians should ask: If Yar’Adua was actually serious with his earlier declaration 11 months ago that the Niger Delta was one of his priorities, why has he not visited the region up till today. As a president, the whole country is his constituency. Needless to emphasize that the people will not kill him rather such visit would have built some level of confidence and mutual trust on both sides. In fact, the people will be very happy that their president had come to see things for himself.

 Truth be told, the Niger Delta resource rights activists, popularly referred to as militants by government, have nothing to loose because according to one of the protesting groups: “He that is down need fear no fall and when you deal with an insincere government, the problem cannot get worse.”

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 It amounts to a grave irresponsibility by the government to continue to give the activists windows to pursue their commitment to “cripple the entire oil and gas export capability of Nigeria.”  Is it not the height of deceit for the Presidency to still be at the level of thinking about a Niger Delta talk show and even be talking of approaching the former Secretary General of the United Nations (UN), Kofi Annan to chair the proposed summit?

 Somebody should please tell President Yar’Adua and his Goodluck that the Niger Delta problem cannot be solved by conferences. As was rightly put by an Ijaw elder statesman, “Anyone who thinks that Niger Delta problem can be solved by conferences, both national and international, needs to have his head examined. What will the conference tell us that we don’t know already? What does Kofi Annan know about the problems of the Niger Delta?

 Even MEND’s indication that it wants former United States President Jimmy Carter to help mediate the crisis in the restive Niger Delta region could best be described as outright rubbish. Who needs external mediators?

 The solution lies with the federal government and the people of the region- elders, youths, men and women. Government’s will power to be honest will be the first step toward frontally confronting issues in the protest. And if the government takes an honest stance, then the people can be challenged to reciprocate.

 What has prevented President Yar’Adua from releasing the withheld funds of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC)? It is still not clear what the government meant by saying the withheld NDDC N372 billion funds has expired.

 When the region is bitterly complaining that allocation for the correction of its development imbalance is too small, the federal government is insisting that the money already allotted for the region’s development has expired. How can money belonging to a people and already set aside for a purpose be said to expire? Who withheld it to the point of expiration, was it not the same federal government? The federal government is not yet sincere in the Niger Delta issue and at the rate it is going, it may never be unless by force.

 It is an outright insult for people from outside the region to berate the militants for not attacking their state governors, local government chairmen and other public officials for their failure. Such tricks would no longer work. The people of the region know how best to deal with their leaders and does not require advise from anybody on the matter. What prevented the federal government from adequately funding the NDDC and committing the commission to peace building, peace enforcement and peace sustenance in addition to its primary responsibility of infrastructural development? The answer is: lack of will power to be honest and sincere.

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 Members of the protesting resource rights groups will be checked by their people when it is fully convincing that there is sincerity on the side of government to address major socio-economic issues that are glaringly neglected in the region. This is an assurance to the federal government.

 What is going on in the Niger Delta is a moral war. The people of the region are grieved to their marrows and the civilized way to address their grievances is to be emotionally connected to their plight and implement tangible measures that physically touch the people. Anything short of that is cosmetic and would not produce any tangible result rather it would worsen the determination of the oppressed to seek alternative justice.

 If Government does what it had been promising to do since I was born, the people- elders, men, women and youths can then be ordered on what is expected from them as their own part of the deal.

 But until people see tangible infrastructures on ground to show government’s genuine and proactive commitment in the region, the ongoing violent protest will only head in one direction- get worse. It would surprise the federal government to know, if it’s yet to, that everybody in the Niger Delta is a militant- active or dormant. The more the government continues to pay lip service to correction of the injustice, the more the sympathy waves sweep across the region and even into other regions to bring armies of protesters or rebels.

By Ifeanyi Izeze

IFEANYI IZEZE IS AN ABUJA-BASED CONSULTANT: 08033043009 (iizeze@yahoo.com)