Issues
The Nigerian Nation: How Truly United?
The Federal Republic of Nigeria is in deep crisis. The Nation and its people have become the innocent victims of the financial meltdown following the collapse of Global Capitalism arising from the financial crisis experienced by banks in the United States of America.
The story as told in different voices in different countries illustrates how integrated the World is today, and how intertwined our fates have become.
The situation in many countries is that poor and less educated members suffer the most and have the least ability to resist economic downturn.
The globally evident social cost of this crisis is unemployment and a reduction in economic productivity. The corporate existence of countries affected (of which Nigeria is one) will be difficult to sustain. There is need for political and economic leaders to learn from experiences and build a system of governance and financial management to settle the issues of productivity and unemployment.
The Nigerian economy is solely dependent on oil revenues. Much of the debate in respect of the use of these revenue centres on its classification as capital or recurrent revenues. Should non-recurrent revenues be spent on expenses such as travelling and salaries or on capital projects, which leads to long-term economic advantage?
Any analysis of a typical national budget would indicate that 82.6% of the recurrent expenditure in any budget year is spent on travelling and salaries. A significant part of this expenditure is from non-recurrent revenues.
NIGER-DELTA CRISIS: GENESIS, THE EXODUS AND THE SOLUTION
THE NATION:
Nigeria is a federation and should be run as such. Why for instance, do we claim to be practicing federalism when the federating units are mere administrative arms of a central government? Why is the exclusive federal jurisdiction over natural resources applied only to oil? Why should the debts of the states or even the federal debts find a place in the country’s constitution? Why should the federal government shed its own monopoly and substitute it with a monopoly managed by the states as illustrated so often in our pursuit of the issues of privatisation?
The Niger Delta has suffered gross neglect and deprivation over the years despite its enormous contribution to the economic prosperity of this Country. As a result of this utter neglect, there is widespread poverty, complete lack of social and economic infrastructures and also utilities. There is high rate of unemployment and crime. This state of affairs has in turn bred a frustrated population, ethnic polarization, communal suspicion, anti-establishment agitation and hostility, all of which create instability and further impede development.
An extensive deliberation on these issues took place at the Niger-Delta Conference in Abuja on November 8, 2007 in which I was the Chairman. The gathering consisted of members of MEND, the traditional rulers, ex-Generals of Nigerian Navy and Army and distinguished professors who have excelled in their various fields of endeavours.
The Conference therefore resolved as follows:
(i) Armed struggle has led to a further break down of law and order in the region and a continued armed struggle could lead to anarchy within the Niger Delta. This does not present an option in the pursuit of peace and justice in the Region. Indeed, military solution is not the answer to the problems of the region.
(ii) The Conference called for greater involvement of all stakeholders through the establishment of a Development Board to address the issues of the Niger Delta. This Board should consist of the following Agencies to ensure the development of Manpower, Infrastructure and Social Services.
· Manpower Evaluation Assessment and Training;
· Agricultural Development Board;
· Housing;
· Education;
· Health;
· Employment;
· Water supply;
· Power and Energy;
· Infrastructure (road, rail, sea and air);
· Security.
(iii) In particular, the Conference called on the Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, to put in place appropriate machinery for ensuring equity participation of host communities in oil and gas ventures located within their domain.
(iv) The Conference demanded that the issue of onshore/offshore dichotomy be resolved. In the place of the Isobaths of “200 metres”, the “Continental Shelf” should be substituted. This will extend the Derivation Principle in the Mining Act of 1999 throughout the 200 nautical mile breath of the continental shelf or to any greater width that may be approved by the UN for Nigeria.
(v) The Conference demanded that the rights and privileges, which the Mineral and Mining Act of 1999 confers on States, Local Government, Communities and Land owners, should now equally be extended to the case of Petroleum Resources. In particular, royalties derived from oil and gas production should properly accrue to the host communities.
(vi) The Conference demanded the amendment of the Land Use Act Cap 202 (LFN 1990) to ensure the rights of the owners to their lands.
(vii) The Conference called for the amendment of the Petroleum Act 1969 by the addition of provisions that will involve the State and Local Governments and Communities in whose territory the resources to be mined at the negotiation stage, before the grant of any licence.
(viii) The Conference demanded that Oil and Gas companies operating within the Niger Delta should be compelled to comply with international environmental best practice, to ensure the protection of the natural habitat.
(ix) The Conference called for the implementation of a policy on gas flaring within the Niger Delta.
(x) The Conference called for the establishment of the Niger Delta Reconstruction and Development Bank to act as the custodian of the funds accruing to the communities from royalties.
(xi) The Conference called for the enshrinement of good governance practice by the amendment of Section 308 of the 1999 Constitution to exclude immunity for public office holders from being prosecuted for fraud and embezzlement of public funds.
(xii) The Conference affirmed its commitment to the principles of justice, equity, fairness and the rule of law.
In view of the conclusions of the 2007 Conference, the current amendment styled the Petroleum Act 2010 vesting the rights in Oil and Gas in the Federal Government of Nigeria is unacceptable to the people of Niger Delta ab-initio for the following reasons:
(i) The proposed Petroleum Act 2010 is discriminatory against the people of Niger Delta;
(ii) Mutata Mutandi – the same applies to the Land Use Act
(iii) The Federal Republic of Nigeria is a creation of the States and not vice-versa;
(iv) There is no justice in the treatment of the people of Niger Delta as environmental abuse and degradation, oil spillage, corrosion and leakages from pipelines, flooding, erosion, salt water incursion, gas flaring etc, have taken their ugly tolls on the social and economic lives of the people;
(v) Equally, the exploration and exploitation methods adopted by the oil companies in the region have resulted in a pandemic loss of biodiversity, ecological destabilisation and substantial reduction in aquatic lives. In particular, the agricultural lands have been rendered unproductive while the fishing industry has been destroyed.
C. COMMUNAL CRISIS AND THE PROBLEM OF TRIBALISM IN NIGERIA
The Nigerian society is fast losing her national cohesion due to ethnic and tribal rivalries. Some ethnic groups lay claim to superiority over others. Ethnic values and norms are being eroded. Due to these developments, several societies now associate ethnicity and religion with negative characteristics such as parochialism, fanaticism, and backwardness. Nigerians lack any consensus on major national issues. We need to imbibe the philosophy that there is strength in diversity. We also want to see a country that works as a team to forge consensus and balanced sectional, religious and ethnic needs with the national interest in order to build a strong and virile nation, where everyone has equal rights and opportunities. Nigeria should be transformed to a country where individuals and groups maintain close relationships with other Nigerians, who may not share the same political and religious convictions or do not have the same ethnic background.
THE CRISIS IN JOS, PLATEAU STATE
The records in the archives in 1946 when I was in the Secretariat in Kaduna indicate that a conglomerate of people inhabits the Jos Plateau
(a) Tarok, Jukun, Berom, Ron, Mushere and Jarawa;
(b) The European Traders and Miners;
(c) The Nigerians who are clerks, drivers and workers in the mine fields;
(d) The Hausa-Fulanis who came from the Hausa States as a result of the 19th Century Jihad.
This was about 60 years ago and with exception of the Europeans, the composition of the population is still the same.
The first Administrative Officer of Plateau in the name of Mallam Abdul-Rahman Okene further confirmed this narration during the North-South dialogue between the people of Niger-Delta and the people of Middle-Belt between 1990 and 2000.
These people lived in peace and in love with one another without a distinction of where you were born or where you came from during the era of Sir Ahmadu Bello until his death in 1966.
THE CONFLICT
Historical evidence in 1994 indicates that there was a conflict in Jos when Jos Central Market was destroyed. Another conflict took place in 2004 between the Tarok from Langtang and the Hausa-Fulani in which 54,000 people were killed or missing.
Needless to say that the crisis which took place in 2009 between the Hausa-Fulani and Berom people resulted in 5,000 Hausa-Fulani losing their lives and in that of 2010, between the Hausa-Fulani and the Berom indigenes, 215 Hausa-Fulani died and over 22,000 heads of cattle were missing or destroyed.
David Dafinone
This is an open letter to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Chief Nyesom Wike.
Your Excellency,
Sir, ordinarily, I would not be writing an open letter to you, but like a wise man once said, “Silence would be Treason.” So I prefer to stay alive than face the consequences of silence in the face of crime. With each passing day, and as the socio-political tides continue to turn, it has become more pertinent that more people speak up in a concerted MANNER to prevent the death of our party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), as we appear to be, in the words of W. B. Yeats, “turning and turning in the widening gyre” heading for an end where the falcon will no longer hear the falconer
It is unfortunate that since losing control of the Federal Government, with the loss of President Goodluck Jonathan at the poll in 2015, our party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has continued on a downward spiral. It is much more painful, that where it is expected that leaders within the party should rise to the challenge and put an end to this decline of our great party, some have instead taken up roles as its undertaker.
It will be hypocritical to claim aloofness to what I believe is your grouse with the PDP and I am not a hypocrite. It will be uncharitable on my part to discountenance the role you have played in strengthening the PDP from 2015 up until the last Presidential primaries of the party. It is my belief that your grouse against certain members of the party who you perceived worked against the party and abandoned it in 2015 and then came around much later to take control of the party, is justified. Also know that your decision to remain in the Party and stifle its progress on the other hand, as a sort of payback, stands condemned. For a man of your pedigree and stature, it is a dishonorable act, highly dishonorable and stands as testimony against all you claim to stand for.
At least, it can be argued that those who you hold this grudge against, abandoned the party completely and did not sit back while actively working to destroy it from within. But what then can be the argument on your own part, seeing that those you are currently working with against your party are the same people who set in motion, and executed surgically, the plans that not only ended our Party’s leadership at the centre, but ended up dislodging the first Niger Deltan to occupy Aso Rock as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. Is this not akin to “cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face?” That will be worse than folly. Let us not throw away the baby with the bath water because we do not like the soap used in bathing the baby. It will be a grave mistake.
Honourable Minister, sir, it is rather unfortunate that of all people, you have also decided to play the role of an undertaker not only for our party, but for our dear Rivers State.
I will like to take you down memory lane a little. Let me remind you of your emergence as Guber candidate of the PDP in Rivers State, against all fairness and justice in 2014. You will remember that despite the reality being that you as an Ikwerre man was poised to replace a fellow Ikwerre man in Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi in our multiethnic state, Rivers people overwhelmingly stood by you and pushed for your emergence as Executive Governor of Rivers State in 2015. I dare say that your popularity in the entire Niger Delta region was at an all-time high at this point.
I want you to understand why you were loved across board leading to your eventual emergence as Governor of Rivers State in 2015; it was because when it looked like all were against the second term ambitions of the first Niger Delta man to emerge as President of Nigeria, you became not just a pillar but a beacon of resistance by standing for Goodluck Jonathan. Rivers people, as grateful and rewarding as they can be, paid you back by ensuring your electoral victory against the incumbent All Progressives Congress (APC) led by your predecessor. On your emergence, where there were second term Governors in the region, you, a first term Governor, was seen by the people as not just the leader of the PDP, but the leader of the entire Niger Delta region. You earned it, and no one could dispute it.
In 2019, when your re-election bid was being challenged ferociously, Rivers people once again stood solidly behind you. Many were killed in the process of defending your votes. Do you remember Dr. Ferry Gberegbe that was shot and killed while trying to protect your votes in Khana Local Government Area? There are many more unnamed and unrecognised sons and daughters of Rivers State who sacrificed their lives so that you could emerge as a second term Governor of Rivers State.
In 2022/23, Honourable Minister, you oversaw a party primary across board that saw some candidates imprisoned and internal party democracy jettisoned for your wishes, leading to the emergence of flag bearers of our party all singlehandedly picked by you. You have on more than one occasion publicly stated that you paid for all their forms. Even those shortchanged in this process licked their wounds and continued to play their roles as party members to ensure the success of the party at all levels. In what will go down as one of the most keenly contested elections in recent Rivers history, with formidable candidates like Senator Magnus Abe of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Mr Tonye Cole of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and the vibrant youth driven Labour Party (LP), PDP emerged victorious across board except for Phalga Constituency 1 that was lost to the Labour Party. (Not that you did not loose in some other LGA’s but let’s stick to the official figures declared by INEC).
It begs the question, why then do you want to burn down Rivers State, when everyone who now holds political office emerged through a process designed and endorsed by you? Is it that you do not care about Rivers people and you are all about yourself? If so, I am forced to believe that those around you are not telling you the truth. The truth being that in a state where your words were law; where houses and businesses could be demolished or closed down without any recourse to legalities, where Executive Orders could be deployed to stifle the opposition, that your popularity is now at an all-time low. Probably because they are afraid of you, or of losing the benefits they gain from you, they fail to tell you that what you might perceive as a battle against your successor, has slowly but gradually degenerating into a battle against Rivers State and Rivers people. You know, there is a popular saying that, a man can cook for the community and the community will finish the food, but when a community decides to cook for one man, the reverse is the case.
LEAVE FUBARA ALONE
You have gone on and on about being betrayed by Governor Siminalayi Fubara. You point fingers forgetting that some of those same fingers quick to spot betrayals point straight back at you. It is not Governor Fubara that has betrayed the PDP by working against it in the just concluded General Election, and working with the opposition at the State and Federal level to destabilise the party. It is you, Honourable Minister. It is not Governor Fubara that betrayed Rivers people by instigating a political crisis with propensity to escalate ethnic tensions in Rivers State. It is you Honourable Minister. It is not Governor Fubara that has declared himself God over all in Rivers State and has no qualms with burning the state to the ground to prove a point. It is you Honourable Minister. It is you Honourable Minister who told the world that the APC was a cancer and you can never support a cancerous party. It is you Honourable Minister who ended up facilitating the emergence of the same “cancerous” APC that has accelerated the economic decline of this country and further impoverished our people with no remorse. All so you can be a Minister of the Federal Capital Territory? The lack of self awareness is gobsmacking.
Some days back I came across a video where you talked about death and how you do not cry when you hear about the death of some people because you have no idea what might have caused it considering many a politician swear “over dead bodies” and still go back on their words. Those words made me think, and I could see the reason behind them. You see, in chosing to be God in the affairs of Rivers people, you have closed your eyes and ears to reason; you see nothing and hear nothing that can cause you to rethink on the path you have chosen. In your quest to “show Fubara” you have unwittingly united a vast majority of Rivers people behind him, so much that even those who despised him because of you, now like or love him, because of you too. In your scheming, I will advise you not to forget that “the voice of the people is the voice of God”.
Note that the war which you have or are waging against Governor Fubara, has gone beyond being merely political as you might see in your minds eye. It is now one that, fortunately for some and unfortunately for others, has evolved into a war against Rivers people. It is good to point out that no one has taken a stand against Rivers people and won. No one has gone against God and won. In your defiant characteristic manner, it will be unfortunate if you believe your own hubris and that of those around you on the possibility of you being the first to successfully go against Rivers people. It will be a needless gamble; one where if you win you create more enemies for yourself than you can withstand on your political journey, and if you lose, your legacy becomes an inglorious and irredeemable one in Rivers State, the Niger Delta, and Nigeria at large. For your sake as regards posterity, it is my greatest wish that you have a moment of sobriety and a deep reflection and introspection on this path you have chosen.
Honourable Minister, sir, what is left of your legacy is on the brink of being completely desecrated and relegated to the dustbin of our political history, and it will be a sad end to what I will say has been a wonderful political career that many can only dream of. The ball is in your court, and may God Almighty have mercy on us all and forgive us for our shortcomings.
Gabriel Baritulem Pidomson
Dr Pidomson is former Chief of Staff, Government House, Port Harcourt and former member, Rivers State House of Assembly.
In 2015, I made a conscious decision to invest my financial resources, my time, and energy into supporting Nyesom Wike’s gubernatorial campaign. I poured my heart and soul into ensuring Nyesom Wike emerged victorious even at the risk of my personal safety.
Again in 2019, I doubled down on my commitment. I invested a significant amount of money to procure campaign outfits for all twenty-three Local Governments Areas of Rivers State. I spared no expense in supplementing Wike’s election efforts in my own local government, and once again putting myself at great risk to safeguard the fairness and transparency of the electoral process.
However, despite my unwavering loyalty and sacrifices, I found myself abandoned and forgotten by Wike. Throughout his eight-year tenure, he failed to acknowledge my contributions or fulfill his promises and agreements. Even as a former Deputy Governor, Wike denied me my severance benefit.
My investment in Wike’s governorship was not just financial – it was a commitment of passion, dedication, and belief in a better future for Rivers State. Yet, his leadership style of dishonesty, greed, drunkenness and rash abuse of senior citizens brought me nothing but disappointment, misery and losses.
By the grace of God, today I speak not as a victim, but as a hero. I have accepted my losses, and I have moved on. And as I reflect on my experience, I cannot help but urge Wike to do the same and allow peace and development to reign in Rivers State.
Nyesom Wike, when you speak of investing in Governor Sim Fubara’s election, remember those like me who also invested in you. Remember the sacrifices I made, the risks I took, and the promises and agreements you left unfulfilled.
It is time for you, Wike, to let go of the past and allow Governor Sim Fubara the breathing space he needs to lead Rivers State forward. Allow him to focus on the challenges of good governance and the aspirations of the people. Spare him these unwarranted and ill-conceived political manoeuvrings founded on personal agenda and not for general good of Rivers State and her people.
I may have lost my investment on Wike, but I have not lost hope in the future of Rivers State. And together, we will continue to strive for a brighter tomorrow.
Long Live the Governor to Rivers State, Sir Siminialayi Fubara!
Long Live the Good People of Rivers State!!
Long Live the Federal Republic of Nigeria!!!
Engr Ikuru is former Deputy Governor of Rivers State.
Tele Ikuru
