Buhari’s election petition:Why Ijaws are angry..Jonathan should  keep his promise and go  after four years -Sgt Digifa

Newsdiaryonline Wed May 18,2011

SGT. Werinipre Noel Digifa, leader, Supreme Egbesu Assembly (SEA) which is the spiritual headship of the Ijaw, speaks on the last general elections and warns that the Ijaw will resist any attempt to undermine the victory of President Goodluck Jonathan.  

Q: General Muhammadu  Buhari, candidate of Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, is  challenging the victory of President Goodluck Jonathan in the last presidential election, what do you make of this development?

Ans: I really don’t want dignify Muhammadu Buhari with a response. However, let me tell you without any fear of contradiction, that Buhari, is a person most of us had a lot of respect for in this country. I used to respect him so much. But from the recent things we see manifesting around him, we now know that Buhari does not even merit my respect. He is not fit to be a councilor, much less a local government chairman. Some of us recently learnt that when he was even the head of state, he gave a lot of free hand to the then second in command, Late Tunde Idiagbon. That showed that he was actually not in control of that government.  If you take a close look at the debate among Buhari, Nuhu Ribadu and Ibrahim Shekarau, you will see that if you combine the knowledge of Buhari and Ribadu, it is not equal to one-third of Shekarau’s intelligence. So you see that these people cannot even run a primary school. And if you look at Ribadu who just left the police, who was the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) thug( sic), are these the people that want to run the country as president? The debate really exposed them, we all saw that they are not competent to run the country. If you watch the debate, you will see that these people are not composed; Buhari could not even express himself, what a pity! That was why Idiagbon was holding brief for him.

So, talking about Buhari going to court, we are not in any way surprised by his action. When Buhari was in charge of the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), he was not also in control. The place as at then was being run by consultants he hired from the Southern part of the country. These were the people holding brief for him. These are pointers to the fact that Buhari does not have what it takes to rule Nigeria. He, does not even have the temperament, how can a leader ask his followers to go to the street and cause mayhem? A man who terminated democracy during the Second Republic? He is too emotional to be a leader and by his recent action, we have come to realize that Buhari is taking the rulership of the country as a do -or -die affair. From the angle of Buhari’s protest, a lot of innocent children, corpers were killed. And a man who spoke so eloquently that he was going to accept election results in good faith and that the last elections would be his last outing for the race is now in court. So, we don’t understand what is really happening. We are all waiting to (see) what will eventually become of his frivolous petition. But the bottom line is that we are strongly on ground to take a position that the presidency is not only about Goodluck Jonathan. It is about this gratuitous insult on Ijaw people as an ethnic nation. That is why some of us are angry, and that is also why I have decided to break the silence.

Q: On a more progressive note, what kind of president do you think Goodluck will make?

Ans: You see, if you look at the history of the presidents that have been featured under the present party  that he emerged, you will agree with me that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is one party with a lot of questionable characters. People that are attached to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, I mean people like Tony Anenih who was awarded road contract that he never did and the rest of them. These same people are the ones deciding what happens in the party. So it is a camp of funny people. But today we are seeing a president who said he wanted a free and fair election. And we can now see people in opposition who never thought they could win elections becoming victorious. So if he can reorganize and bring about a lot of sanity in the PDP, then we can be sure of a greater tomorrow. But if Goodluck is still carrying on with these people working with him, who are supposed to be in their graves, definitely he will have a lot of problems to contend with.

Q: Are you saying you are still not very sure that we are going to experience good times once again in Nigeria?

Ans: I cannot comment on that now. I, as an Ijaw man, I am a very honest person and I have to stand as an Ijaw man in taking positions.  And most of us those you are seeing at the fore-front of the struggle are followers of Isaac Boro. We are taking some few steps to make sure we liberate our people. We have never been defeated, even by the colonial masters. The colonial masters succeeded in colonizing Nigeria through other nationalities, not from our people. They never succeeded in our area. That is why they struck accord with these cattle rearers, donkey rearers, illegal immigrants, that are from Malian empire, to come and turn this country to a place of jamboree. So those are the issues. So Goodluck, as an Ijaw man, may not be perfect because he is surrounded by PDP members but by the grace of God, if he walks in the spirit of  Ijaw, he will go far. We must however realize that, as a human being, nobody is perfect, you must have some lapses. But I am very sure he is going to make a big difference. I have come to realize for the first time that election can be free and fair in this country. If you look at the election between Tofa and MKO Abiola, from the screen, you will already know who was going to win. Abiola was very popular. You see, on the day of the presidential election, my eight year old daughter told me if she was eighteen, she would have voted for Goodluck and she begged me to go and vote Goodluck for her. That was what my daughter told me. So, Goodluck is like the voice of the time. You see children singing with his name. Goodluck is popular. He was really accepted in the North, West, East and South. I am not saying this because I am an Ijaw man, God forbid. But Goodluck is popular and he deserved winning the election from his campaign and the amount of energy he expended. If they keep repeating the election, time and again, Buhari can never match Goodluck. It is pathetic that people like Ibrahim Babangida who could not rule the country successfully are now the ones calling for peace in the day time and throwing stones at night. It is unfortunate.

Q: We all saw how innocent people were killed in the course of the election. What do you think could be done to forestall such in the future?

Ans: Nigeria is a huge country. There is no amount of  Compensation that can assuage the pains of  the relatives of those who died. It pathetic that as we speak, we are yet to be able to hold anybody responsible for the killings. But the whole world knows that Goodluck was not responsible for the carnage. It was those that want to get power at all cost that incited their people, armed them to kill innocent people in a form of demonstration. They wanted to make the country ungovernable for Goodluck Jonathan. These people must be fished out. They are not remain the untouchable that they are. Those they killed are human beings like us. They are not more intelligent than us. They are not better than you and I. So they have to account for what they did.

Q: What do you think government should do for the parents?

Ans: There is no amount of money can stop the pain of losing a child that you love so much. We can only accept the situation as the will of God. It is only God that can heal the pain. Certainly, no government can do that. Even if the presidency says the treasury should be emptied for them, it will not stop the pains. It is hard. I don’t want to talk about it.

Q: So, how can we forestall future occurrence?

Ans: Well, somebody just has to dictate the pace in this country. Somebody has to take up the role of the leader. You must be so law abiding to the point of having the confidence to take the bull by the horn and assert yourself as the president. Go all out and tame all these old criminals who are parading themselves as ex-heads of state. They came from the backdoor with the guns to forcefully rule without the consent of Nigerians. We have some of them that are respectable and very collected. We have somebody like Yakubu Gowon, we have Abdulsalami Abubakar. You see that these people don’t mingle themselves in petty politics. These are men that are respected all over the world. We were living peacefully in Nigeria till Babangida came with the office of the first lady, and gave us Better Life for Rural Women, where our wives now come out to wrestle leadership with their husbands. Somebody who cannot even manage his wife, who turned the country into a woman affair, such a man is now one of those calling the shot for Nigeria.

Q: The Egbesu Assembly is a very strong group in Nigeria. What relationship do

you have with other such groups in the south?

Ans: Not only in the South. We have strong relationships with other groups up to the people of Arewa who are from the north. But during the Kaiama declaration, the Yoruba was a very big helping hand. They were all along with us, mobilizing journalists to assist in giving publicity to the course. We have a long time personal relationship with the Yoruba. But for the north, the Ijaws have personal relationship with Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa because he was the main sponsor of Isaac Boro to gain his own republic. We have other extended hands in the north and we have also been supportive of them any time there is election. We are only averse to those illegal immigrants, who are from the Malian empire, that came to hang on in Katsina and Minna, trying to change the trend of things. Some of them even don’t have parents. If you look at the history of some of these people disturbing us, you will see that nobody knows their parents, some of them are orphans, picked by the road sides. They were picked up and given to people to feed. So, how do you expect somebody who does not enjoy parental care to love? They don’t love. So, those are some of the issues. So we have a strong relationship with the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC). We mobilize and work with the OPC and the Yoruba elders, particularly when Pa Abraham Adesanya was alive and people like Late Beko Ransome Kuti. The Yoruba have always been in support of all our activities when it comes to humanity. We had relationship with the MASSOB also. But when the MASSOB leadership went to build the MASSOB headquarters in his own father’s compound, we decided to take some steps backwards because, to us, the idea is selfish. At that point we felt there was need for us to dissociate ourselves from them. So, those are the issues. We also have very strong relationship with people of the Middle Belt. We are very close to the Arewa Youth Consultative Forum led by Yerima Shettima. So, we are working together. It is only those hawks that want to make leadership a do or die affair that we cannot stand. We have outgrown them and will not come down to their level where we will say we want to go violent for violent. We will not do that.

Q; In the past,  groups like yours stood solidly behind re-structuring and other issues. Part of those issues included sovereign national conference and self determination. Are these options still relevant today?

Ans: Yes. The sovereign national conference is a thing that will take Nigeria far on the path of success if adopted. The self determination option was enshrined in the Kaiama declaration and it is centered on resource control. It translated to the operation climate change, where we have to go and close all the oil wells in our territory. The second one was the Ogelle which is procession of every community in our environment and say bye bye to the Federal Government to leave our environment for the environmental degradation they had caused us. So, that was it. It was phase by phase. The last one was that if they don’t give us listening ears, then we will take laws into our hands and force the white men and the oil companies to leave our environment. So that was the plan. Then, the late President Yar’Adua said he wanted to discuss with us and that everybody should disarm, then we asked the young men to do so. That formed the beginning of the amnesty programme we are seeing now. We are still waiting to hear from the government but we have not heard anything. If we don’t hear from government, we may have to go to our Plan B, which is the operation climate change in line with the Kaiama declaration programme. We are still on it but some of us are getting old and we are leaving it for the younger ones who can make it better for us. We are still in control.

Q: We talk about environmental degradation in the Niger-Delta and now we have a president from the zone. Are you in any negotiation with him to find a way around the current situation?

Ans: I don’t think that is possible. You have to realize that this issue is such that only the National Assembly can handle. And come to think of it, how many Ijaws are in the National Assembly? Everything has to go to the National Assembly for debate. The president doesn’t have sole administrative power to impose on Nigerians that this is what he wants to do in Niger-Delta. Everything comes in form of presentation of bill. And the politics in the National Assembly is so strong. And the majority carries the day. So, Goodluck’s hands are tied when it comes to issues like this. He can make a good change in Nigeria as a nation but not in Niger-Delta as an entity.

Q: The agitation to have a leader from the Niger-Delta was conceived many years ago,and now the president is subscribing to a term of four years. What is your take on this?

Ans: You see, that is a demonstration that he is a principled man. He should stand on his promise, spend the four years and go away. Nelson Mandela was in prison for 27 years, he was also from a minority tribe in his country, but he spent a term of four years and quit. Today, he is the most respected man in Africa. And Goodluck is also a man of principle. He is from my ethnic group. The meaning of Ijaw is honesty. That is the meaning. So, I will not even support Goodluck if he comes back to says he’ll want to spend eight years. Let him show a good example to the world that four years I have promised and four years I have spent. Even if Goodluck is not a president today, I don’t think that he can be so poor to the extent that he will not be able to run his family. So, what we are saying here is not about Goodluck, it is about how our people have been oppressed. That’s what we are complaining about. Today, our hands are tied because the leader is from our area. Any little thing we do, people will read several meanings to it. So, on the four year single term, I think I totally agree with that. It is only those who see the president as their source of income that can be pushing him to violate his promise in this regard and we will not encourage that.

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