In the past couple of months, the relative peace secured in the oil producing communities in the Niger Delta have come under threat by increasing worries and palatable tension.
This is arising from what is widely believed to be the failure of President Muhammadu Buhari to do the needful by appointing a substantive board for the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), an intervention agency created by former President Olusegun Obasanjo to tackle the peculiar development challenges of oil producing communities.
In spite of the laudable intention of Obasanjo’s administration in this regard, Nigeria suffered unquantifiable setbacks and losses between 2007 and 2009 when a new phase of struggle for a fair deal in the region was launched by fierce militants, leading to drastic drop in oil production.
This did not only bring the Nigeria economy to its knees, by paralysing all facets of the nation’s socio-economic life, but also unleashed a regime of insecurity, ranging from kidnapping, pipeline vandalisation to shutting down of oil facilities in pressing home their demand for justice, occasioned by grotesque neglect and marginalisation of the proverbial goose that lays the golden egg.
Thousands of lives were lost in the cause of the struggle. The people resorted to arms struggle because they felt the only language the insensitive Federal Government would understand was force and violence.
The NDDC was converted to the proverbial cash cow for politicians in funding political activities, rather than using it for the purpose of human capital and infrastructure development. Several phantom projects were created to line their pockets and for election funding, at the expense of the development of oil producing communities who continue to suffer unimaginable deprivation and environmental degradation.
Gladly, the Musa Yar’adua administration initiated the Amnesty Programme to contain the activities of militants, culminating in the relative peace in the region.
One had thought, the Federal Government had learnt some lessons and would put in place concrete measures to address the infrastructure deficit in the oil producing areas. In spite of several appeals to do so by the leaders of the area, it is quite unfortunate, this has fallen on deaf ears particularly under President Buhari’s administration, which has continued to sweep under the carpet the genuine demands of oil producing communities.
In the past five years, under the watch of Buhari, pipeline vandalisation, illegal refining has increased, while loss of crude oil in billions of dollars is being recorded at a very frightening dimension. According to Mele Kyari, Group Managing Director of NNPC, Nigeria loses $1.9 billion every month to crude oil theft.
Kyari made this known during his sensitisation tour to governors of oil producing states, along with the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Marlin Sylva.
The tour which was essentially to collaborate with the governors and critical stakeholders to carry out sensitisation, with the hope of curbing the devastating effects of the activities of pipeline vandals, has brought to fore the need to wield political power to address the Niger Delta’s challenges as the only solution to the problem.
Without being economical with the truth, since the birth of democracy in 1999, there is no administration that has been as insensitive as that of Buhari over its lackadaisical and insincere response to the genuine concerns of the people of Niger Delta.
It is evident in all ramifications that the administration has as a matter of policy introduced divide-and-rule strategy to undermine the collective dreams of sustainable development in the Niger Delta.
The refusal and unnecessary foot dragging in the exercise of his constitutional power to appoint and inaugurate a substantive board at the NDDC in the past five years points to the deliberate strategy to sow a seed of mutual discord among the oil producing communities.
Several appeals and visits made to make submissions on the need to avoid what is described as the unconstitutional appointment of interim administration or management to handle the affairs of the commission by the leaders of the region have been treated with levity. This is an aberration; such appointments are not known to the law establishing the commission.
Also, the continued appointment of Acting Managing Director of the Commission in for consecutive times from a section of the region, Akwa Ibom State where the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs comes from negates the principle of fairness and is the height of insensitivity to the socio-political configuration of oil producing states in the Niger Delta.
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The Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), in a statement signed by its leader and former Federal Commissioner for Information, Chief Edwin Clark, stated: “It is clear to the Niger Delta people that there is a deliberate plot by the President Buhari-led Federal Government to decimate the region by sowing seeds of discord and mutual suspicion among the different ethnic nationalities”.
Also, the first report of the outcome of Vice President Yemi Osibanjo’s visit to oil producing states was the report that the Itsekiris were poised to dispute the ownership of Okerenkoko which was never disputed by the Ijaws and Itsekiris before now, which is a classic case of the strategy of divide-and-rule in the region.
Besides that, the divide-and-rule strategy which has become the trademark of the Buhari administration in dealing with the issue of development in the oil producing communities is about to take another sad and dangerous dimension over where the Managing Director and other Executive Directors should come from.
The fact remains that the law establishing the NDDC rotates the chairman of the governing board of the NDDC alphabetically from A-R among the oil producing states, while the managing director rotates among the four states with the highest oil production quota.
Interestingly, since its establishment in 2000, only four substantive governing boards have been inaugurated, out of which Akwa Ibom has produced two substantive managing directors, Delta has too produced two MDs, Rivers State has also got two MDs, leaving Bayelsa as the only state that has got only one MD among the four states among whom the position of managing director rotates in the alphabetical order.
So the issue of Bayelsa in the line to produce the next substantive managing director is a matter that is evident and should not incur any contention. The appointment of Executive Directors is at the prerogative of the president to assign portfolios as he deems necessary.
Therefore, there is no iota of doubt that it is the turn of Bayelsa to have the Managing Director of the NDDC. So, the recent agitation by Ondo and Edo States to have the slot is borne out of mischief believed to be instigated by the Federal Government to sow seed of mutual distrust among the ethnic nationalities in the Niger Delta in tandem with the hidden agenda by government to continue to balkanize the people of Niger Delta. The consequences of this divide-and-rule can better be imagined as it is capable of triggering ethnic crisis with negative concomitant impact on the oil producing companies.
The Federal Government should simply do the obvious. The unnecessary foot-dragging in inaugurating the NDDC board and the new twist to deny Bayelsa State of the right to produce the MD, is just an outright display of naked power, arrogance, lack of honesty and will-power to address the contending issues of development in the Niger Delta.
It is pertinent to remind Mr. President that any further crisis that erupts in Niger Delta, he should blame himself for his failure of leadership to do what is just and fair. Bayelsa has been the epicentre of the agitation for a fair deal in the Niger Delta right from the days of Isaac Adaka Boro in the 60s. The Ijaw man is known for his resistance against injustice and the denial of the MD position will not be different.
It is in the light of this, one is constrained to appeal to Mr. President to avert this glaring injustice that is about to be meted out to the people of Bayelsa State, who are known for their peaceful and lawful conduct over the years.
*Okah, a social commentator, writes from Yenagoa.ax