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That Nigeria's future is
inextricably linked to what the governing authorities do
or omit to do about the Niger Delta crisis, is not in
doubt. But three recent developments underscore just how
delicate and urgent the problem is, and how on a daily
basis, the Nigerian government, the politicians, and the
theorists of economic delusion continue to be confronted
with the cost of their inaction. Leaders of the South
South geopolitical zone and representatives of the North
met on January 8, in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa state capital,
and at the meeting, Niger Delta leaders were said to
have requested for the "North's support on development."
It is interesting to hear that Niger Delta leaders are
pleading with Northern leaders to support the Niger
Delta cause. Who should be begging the other for
support?
At whose instance was the meeting
summoned? There is a suspicious power game here that can
be immediately exposed. Whenever the political North
gets into trouble, or needs to do a dirty job, or needs
help, its strategy has always been to look for allies in
the South, and contrive a situation in which its myth of
superior importance is upheld. On the Niger Delta
Question, it makes sense to create the impression that
it is the Niger Delta that is crying out for help, and
asking the North to support it. That January 8 meeting
in Yenagoa between the conqueror and the conquered does
not quite reflect the present balance of power politics
between the South South and the North or even, the
Nigerian state. Nigeria needs to respond to the Niger
Delta crisis in order to help itself. At the National
Political Reform Conference convened by the Obasanjo
government, the Northern delegation refused to support
the demands of the South South. Why the sudden
willingness to talk?
The Niger Delta was
represented at what was called the inaugural summit of
the South-South/Northern Union, by Chief Edwin Clark as
leader of the South-South delegation, former Governor of
Edo state, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, former Transport
Minister, Alabo Tonye Graham-Douglas, former Deputy
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Chibudom
Nwuche, and former Secretary to the Bayelsa State
Government, Dr Bolare Ketebu-Nwakeafor. The South South
leaders were said to have drawn attention to the fact
that a similar meeting in 2007, led to the emergence of
a North/South-South Presidential ticket in the 2007
election.
Chief Edwin Clark then told the
Northerners that it is pay-back time. He laid before
them a ten-point demand which includes the urgent
redress of the plight of youths of the region, strict
adherence to the rule of law and accountability,
meaningful review of the Constitution to create room for
more states in the Niger Delta, establishment of a more
efficient machinery for mutual consultation and
collaboration among regions, implementation of the Ledum
Mitee-led Presidential Technical Committee on oil-rich
areas, and a quick resolution of the contentious issues
of development in the Niger Delta. Chief Edwin Clark
added: "The promise is that the Niger Delta matter will
be fixed during the life of this administration. There
will be genuine and sustainable development. Adequate
compensation will be paid to those who are suffering the
worst collateral damage from oil exploration activities;
spills, pollution, environmental degradation, gas
flaring and others. The agitated and angry youths would
be rehabilitated, educated and gainfully employed. The
other issues are equally important to the region as they
affect mostly the poor, who paradoxically are formed
largely by us from the South-South.
The gangs of
poverty are severest in this zone of the country where
the black gold is located...Yes, a Niger Delta Ministry
has been created. But who has been brought to head it?
Will the new leadership empathise sufficiently enough
with the sufferings of the Niger Delta man to know what
to do? Even the Ministry itself what budget has been
given to it to operate with? What of the huge sums of
money that are still being owed the NDDC? ... Commenting
on the Ministry of Petroleum, the South South elders
noted that "Our son who has been reporting directly to
the President has now been down-graded to the rank of a
junior minister who will now be reporting to another
minister. In the current scheme of things, it is
lamentable that the South-South zone is marginalised in
the affairs and management of the NNPC, NLNG, PTDF,
PPMC".
The North was represented by former
Senate leader, Dr Abubakar Sola Saraki as leader of
delegation, and others including Alhaji Shaaba Lafiaji,
Alhaji Tanko Yakassi, Sir Patrick Adaba, Alhaji Idris
Koko, and Kabiru Taminu Turaki. Dr Saraki told the
South-Southerners: "We are here to join you in your
effort to find lasting solution to the recurring crisis
of youth restiveness, environmental degradation and lack
of development which has engulfed the entire South-South
and is threatening the socio-economic security and
tourism activities of our great nation. As respected
leaders of the region and Nigeria, we have come to plead
with you to talk to your restive youths so that
government can be given the enabling environment to
address effectively the problems of the all important
region. You will agree with us that if both the North
and the South-South people should allow the situation in
the region to spill out of control, and the government
at the centre fails, we cannot absolve ourselves of
blame. That means North and South have made sacrifices
to keep the country together as one nation".
Saraki and co attended that summit under the
banner of the Northern Union. Who do they speak for? Do
they represent the interest of the Arewa Consultative
Forum, and the Sultanate? Do they speak for the authors
of the Nomadic Theory of Crude Oil Formation? Do they
speak for those who have advised the President to
appoint a Northerner as Minister of Petroleum, another
Northerner as Acting Group Managing Director of the
NNPC, and a moderate Niger Deltan as Minister of the
Niger Delta? Who sponsored that meeting and whose
interest was being served? Where was the Northern Union
when a large crowd of agitators representing the
Northern interest opposed the South South delegation at
the National Political Reforms Conference? When Dr
Saraki says the Niger Delta is all-important, who does
he speak for?
Dialogue is important. I agree.
South South leaders have been talking with Northern
leaders since 1951. In the pursuit of his seven-point
agenda, one of the first attempts by President UMYA was
to introduce a summit, but that was immediately rejected
by the same South-South leaders who are now talking to
the Northern Union. Perhaps the strategy of dialogue
ought to be re-evaluated. It is like this: who should be
talking to who? The Northern Union is asking the South
South leaders to talk to "their restive youths". I am
not sure many South South leaders can talk to those
youths. The restive youths of the Niger Delta, those
hooded militants and the kidnappers have evolved a new
language of the revolution that requires a different
kind of engagement. If Northern leaders now want to
talk, it is these restive youths that they may have to
negotiate with directly. This is unfortunate but it is
the price that the Nigerian state has to pay for
failing, over time, to have a decent and respectable
conversation on the Niger Delta.
Second, just
how central those we have described as the "bastards of
the revolution" have become to the Niger Delta Question
was borne out in the course of the week by the bold
declaration by the Movement for the Emancipation of the
Niger Delta (MEND) that its promised ceasefire has now
ended, and that it will launch a fresh offensive against
all oil installations in the Niger Delta. This is in
response to the continued application of the military
solution in the region. One of the militants, Angolia
(a.k.a. Boy Chiki) was reportedly killed by the Joint
Task Force. JTF insists that Angolia was trying to
escape from custody and he got shot in the process. MEND
is braying for blood. South South leaders, the ones who
sit in air-conditioned halls to hold meetings with
Northern and UMYA representatives have no control over
those boys. We have to get this straight.
If
UMYA and the state do not know this, they are at least
being forced to address the effects. Budget 2009 has
practically failed for example even before it is passed
into law, and there is a Niger Delta dimension to its
dying-aborning. The Budget predictably is dependent on
oil revenue, and it is pegged at $45 dollars per barrel,
and a production rate of over two million barrels per
day. Spot price of crude oil is down to $35, throwing
the budget overboard. The violence in the Niger Delta
makes it impossible to attain the 2 million barrels plus
production target. The global credit crunch has resulted
in a local cash-squeeze that has forced the Central Bank
to devalue the Naira, but in an import-dependent
economy, this has only led to worse inflationary push
and pull. In desperation, the Central Bank has moved the
foreign exchange market from a Wholesale Dutch Auction
System to a Retail Dutch Auction system, but the
speculators in the system have always proven to be
smarter than the Nigerian government because the biggest
speculators are Nigeria's policy makers, sabotaging all
of us from within. Many Western countries have
officially declared that their economies are in
recession. When the global financial meltdown began,
Nigerian authorities boasted that Nigeria was not
affected; they told us that the reforms in the banking
and insurance sectors and the privatisation programme
had anticipated the global crisis and so, Nigerians
should rejoice. But by January 14, 2009, the Nigerian
government was already eating its words. The Nigerian
economy is not just in recession, it faces in 2009, the
prospect of complete collapse. If the crisis bites
harder and the country's foreign reserves are eroded,
the country will lose credit ratings and Nigeria will be
in a colossal mess.
UMYA and his advisers know.
So they have quickly put together a new national
Economic Management Team. But there is no note of
urgency in the team's assignment. It sounds like an
inner cabinet, with the President as Chairman, which can
also take its time to address the broad-ranging issues
that have been outlined. We simply don't have the luxury
of time. Besides, the new economic team looks too much
like an establishment conclave. The composition is an
issue. Apart from Bismarck Rewane and Babatunde Fashola,
who are capable of original ideas and revolutionary
thinking, all the others may find it difficult to think
out of the box for one reason or the other. To fix the
Nigerian economy in the short and long terms, UMYA needs
to embark on a revolution. And this certainly is not the
time to go on leave as has been reported.
The
big challenge is to make this country a productive
economy. An import-dependent economy that is devaluing
its currency, where is the demand for the Naira? Even
our crude oil is dollar-denominated. There is a greater
demand for the dollar than the Naira. And yet in the
face of the impossible character of the Nigerian
economy, some groups within the polity, including the
South-South leaders are asking for the creation of more
states. Most of the existing states are unviable because
they are centres of consumption of federal revenue, 90
per cent of which comes from the sale of crude oil. With
the continuing crisis in the Delta and the scenario
painted earlier, existing states will have a difficult
time surviving. Creating new states cannot be a priority
at this time. Making existing ones productive is. And
the best way to start is to return to that old message
about the need to diversify the Nigerian economy and its
revenue base. Sadly, the only form of diversification
that appeals to governments at all levels is to impose
more taxes on the people. That can only lead to trouble.
Already, the NLC is demanding a minimum wage of N52,
000, and the federal lawmakers are quarrelling over a
N30, 000 proposal. At the moment, the national minimum
wage is N7, 500. There is trouble ahead. And UMYA is
unprepared.
The Niger Delta Question must be
addressed but ultimately, this must be in the context of
the Nigerian question. In the short and long term,
states and local councils must be weaned off their
dependence on oil revenue. There is an on-going legal
tussle over excess crude revenue, fortunately in 1999
and with the global credit crunch, there will be no
excess oil revenue to fight over. The main lesson of the
global credit crunch and the fluctuations in oil prices
is the fact of Nigeria's vulnerability, stoutly denied a
few months ago, but now openly admitted. The sad news is
that rather than plan ahead, governments in the South
West are busy fighting over who is an Afenifere and who
is not and who should be a Yoruba leader? In the East,
there is a big tussle over leadership as well, and in
the North, let Allah's will be done. Where will Nigeria
be at the end of 2009? There is no hope that the Niger
Delta matter will be fixed during the life of this
administration. |
