Tag: Clark

Saro Wiwa the leader of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) who in a satirical piece “Africa kills her sun” (1989) predicted his eventual murder by Abacha, loved his native Ogoni land. But he loved Nigeria no less. He was a patriot who believed in one indivisible Nigeria. Saro Wiwa who with his broad humour, often forced his compatriots to applaud his celebration of the absurdities of our endowed nation when what he wanted was to make us dissolve into tears, had in a piece in The Guardian attributed the tragedy of Niger Delta to the conspiracy of the Yoruba and Igbo because of ‘the unbridled acquisitiveness of the latter and tribalism of the former. I had in a reaction titled “Saro Wiwa’s Misplaced Aggression’ published on August 28, 1990 argued that the problem of Niger Delta was as much that of the elite of the area including those who became administrator of Bonny and later federal commissioner in their twenties. The innuendo was not lost on him.

A few days later, coming out of the office of Dr Olatunji Dare, the then chairman of The Guardian Editorial Board who also doubled as the company’s Corporate Affairs Director, he had stopped briefly by my office. With his characteristic biting humour, Wiwa, a man without malice against any tribe or any Nigerian including Abacha who murdered him, mournfully lamented ‘Jide you trivialise the Niger Delta problem because you have never been there’.

Wiwa was right. The truth is that many of the northern governors who denounce the Niger Delta governors’ battle for 50% derivation and attribute their impoverisation of their own people through inept leadership, to the paltry Niger Delta’s 13% of the federation account have never been to the Niger Delta. They cannot appreciate the ‘denigrating poverty arising from economic strangulation and devastation of a richly endowed land’. All they read about is the blame- game between successive irresponsible federal governments that tried to exonerate Shell and other oil firms from criminal devastation of economic trees and drinking streams by blaming pollution on illegal bunkering, (oil theft done by hacking holes in pipelines and siphoning off crude, which is transferred to barges in the delta and later to ships off shore) as if such activities were carried out by ghosts.

It is only by visiting that one will come to appreciate the scotched land left behind after oil spillage and pollution; appreciate the travails of those who spend four hours between Yenagoa and Oporoma in rickety boats even when proceeds from oil are being used to build bridges over land in Abuja. I saw children whose hair had turned brownish, a development doctors attribute to malnutrition. I saw a yam seller in Ugheli market cut a tuber of yam into five parts. Many cannot afford more than a portion. In the remote villages of the Niger Delta, poverty hits one on the face in the midst of plenty.

But outside the devastated Ogoni land, I have equally seen the level of greed among local and national leaders who fraudulently claim to be fighting on behalf of the poor. I saw James Ibori promoting the candidacy of Yar’Adua with the federal allocations earmarked for development his state. We have been told by a British court the quantum of money taken from Delta State. I saw Alamieyeiseigha’s mansion near German town in Maryland, USA (recently confiscated by US government); we all witnessed the roles played by Dan Etete as Abacha oil minister. We have just been told how Diezani Alison-Madueke as oil minister, presided over theft of over N2trillion by vultures from all parts of the nation. We have in the last five years seen Jonathan as Vice president and President operating not differently from his immediate or distant predecessors who in the name of economic growth become captives of those Jonathan himself referred to as ‘oil cabals’

And 22 years after the privileged encounter with Wiwa, one of the brightest ‘African sons’, I have never been more convinced that the Niger Delta problem is that of its political, economic, and intellectual elite. If we ignore their conspiracy in the first republic, we cannot ignore the rape of the people by indigenes Wiwa himself described as ‘vultures’ under the military, who has now integrated into their fold the erstwhile leaders of the armed insurgency. Neither can we ignore the mindless looting that has gone on for 13 years of PDP administration in the Niger Delta and at the federal level.

The Niger Delta Development Commission was set up as a Federal Government agency by Olusegun Obasanjo in 2000 with the sole mandate of developing the Niger Delta and ameliorating the sufferingof the poor. In September 2008, President Umaru Yar’Adua created the Ministry of Niger Delta and retained NNDC as a parastatal. Both initiatives are managed by the elite of the area. Sadly, 12 years down the line, the fate of the poor of Niger Delta are not different from – to use Saro Wiwa’s phrase ‘those poor living in filthy tuberculosis infected environment in Ibadan or Kano’.

There is no doubt Edwin Clark is eminently qualified to speak for his people. As Headmaster, Ofoni Southern Ijaw, 1954, Bomadi, 1955-57, Assistant Community Development officer, 1957-61, Director, Asaba Textile Mill 1967; Commissioner for Education, Mid-Western State, 1968-71; Commissioner for Finance and Establishment, Bendel State, 1972-75, Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1979-83. He has paid his dues. His whole world, besides the brief period he served as a federal commissioner in 1975 and Pro-Chancellor, University of Technology, Minna, 1983, revolves around his people.

But the problem is that tribal irredentists, because of their egoistical tendencies, are dangerous in a multi ethnic society. There is no doubt Chief Clark, because of his blind fury against perceived enemies of Jonathan including the harmless noisy Pastor Tunde Bakare who led civil society groups that rescued Jonathan from Yar’Adua Mafia, led by a vicious Niger Delta ‘vulture’, has become a danger to everyone. ‘Who are they to tell us how we spend our money’? He recently angrily queried, in response to critics of official looting by custodians of Niger Delta commonwealth.

Two weeks back, he successfully convened the South- South Peoples Assembly (SSPA) meeting attended by former governors, ministers, senators and other leaders of the geo-political zone. Tragically, instead of addressing those problems, the highlights of the outcome include the unanimous endorsement of President Goodluck Jonathan to run for a second term in 2015 and the resolve to sensitise his people for war with the North over ‘the ‘cash and carry’ offshore Act enacted by the National Assembly in spite of Supreme Court ruling and assented to by Obasanjo who needed the support of South-south governors in the 2003 election.

Besides the half-hearted call for the convening of a national conference of all ethnic nationalities, a more divisive issue even within the zone, little effort was made to reach a consensus on regional agenda, without which the zone remains the weakest link in the quest for regionalism. Beyond the claim to ownership rights of onshore/offshore oil wells, the multi-ethnic and multi-lingual South-south has nothing in common.

All this is overshadowed by unwarranted attack on the North by Clark, who Keita clamed was until recently their close ally, and his unfounded allegation of attempt to pull down the administration of ‘a minority God has chosen to rule’ by those who according to ACF spokesman, A.Z Sanni, control number 2, 3,4 and 5 positions in the same administration.