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aoabada@yahoo.com Cape Town, South Africa

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NIGERIA'S BLEEDING MINORITIES:
A PEOPLE WAITING TO DIE

erhaps the most fitting sobriquet on the political and economic miasma that Africa's most populous country has falsely quarantined itself as it marks the 44th year of flag independence from Great Britain, is aptly captured by the response of Bukar Dipcharima to a question posed to him in the early 1960s.

As the mighty imperial forces of Great Britain were retreating on their final leg in 1963, after a near century of colonial administration, Dipcharima, an influential member of Islam dominated Northern People's Congress was asked what his thoughts were on Nigeria becoming a Republic. He answered thus: 'My dream is to deep the Koran in the Atlantic Ocean'.

Indeed, not only have they deepen the Koran in the Atlantic ocean, it is buried there by reactionary forces whose interest it is to keep Nigeria perpetually at war with itself, as the British colonisers have planned. Northern Nigeria from whence Dipcharima emanates is landlocked, arid, and like most desert, it is sparsely populated.

Unlike most things that defile human and even idiotic logic, those who inhabit this arid part of Nigeria, with a nomadic way of life are numerically more than those who live in densely populated south. Thanks largely to British disingenuous creation, which ensured that census figures were rigged at every point in order to exploit Nigeria through a compliant elite. Successive administrations have held on to this treachery and fraud to keep progressive minded Nigerians at bay.

However, bearing the brunt mostly of this manipulation are the minorities of the south found in the Delta. Government at the national level aided by their lackeys and sidekicks at the state and local level continue to disregard the genuine wish and aspirations of the Delta people. Aspirations that legitimately and constitutionally seek to appropriate to the people of Delta resources found in their areas for the betterment of its people, and ultimately Nigeria.

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Instead, the local imperialists fathom the adoption the carrot and stick approach of bribery, and when necessary brute force, as recorded in the flattening of Odi village and a host of others by the democratically born again ruler, General Obasanjo. This is a senseless majoritarian dictatorship that must never be tolerated. How did we arrive at this conundrum? Seemingly, gluttonous and wayward elites, infected with every known corrupt virus have managed to position themselves in manners that even their conscience fret at the manipulation of resources of Delta people for their personal aggrandisement.

The multinational oil companies of Shell, ChevronTexaco to name but a few operating in the Delta have dirtied their hands with the blood of innocent Deltans all in the pursuit of astronomical profits for their shareholders sitting comfortably in secured western democracies. We watch as our people starve to death, suffer from malnutrition, get harassed and are murdered by security forces sponsored by multinational oil companies, and responsible to the national government. Deltans can no longer till their soil, since the land that gave them life and hope has been made infertile and useless as a consequence of widespread pollution.

The demonic murder of minority rights activists Ken Saro-Wiwa and others by a primitive dictator was followed by the strengthened emasculation of minority rights organisations. This further aggravated the catalyst for the uncoordinated and reckless agitation for resource control by Delta elites enjoying the wealth meant for the people, whilst employing guerrilla tactics through their sponsorship and patronage of criminal gangs and murderous militias.

Alhaji Mujahid Asari Dokubo, self-styled leader of the Niger Delta Volunteer Force is a Christian who converted to Islam. He is reported to have trained in Libya, as part of a destabilisation force employed by politicians in the Delta for their personal gains. Now things have gone sour between him and his erstwhile masters. His was simply a distractive voyage meant to engage the gazing attention of the masses. That these gangs have gotten out of control is no surprise to most Nigerians. During the 2003 national elections, the battle to control the oil rich states of Rivers and Delta was fierce. Criminal militia gangs loyal to elected officials fought for the control of a slice of the areas from where the syrupy black gold is sipped.

Imperial president Obasanjo looked on as ordinary folks were used as cannon fodders. As long as the crisis did not threaten the flow of petrol dollars into national coffers, he could engage in fetish political narcolepsy. Asari-Dokubo, reckons that by lending an Islamic name to his deeds makes him a formidable foe. He is grossly mistaken. As a creation of the ruling elites, and like others before him who lacked identifiable and resilient political ideology, his fortunes will dissipate once the carrots are dangled, and predictably, swallowed.

The criminal neglect and embedded poverty of the people of Delta can be found in this inexplicable panoply and paradox of some sort that bothers on pantheist practices. How does one explain that between 1999 and 2004, when Obasanjo administration was bankrolled into power by who's who on the corruption list, more than USD100b (one hundred billion US dollars) in oil takings have been receipted. Nigeria is 6th largest producer of crude in the world. The people of the Delta like majority of Nigerians have been driven aground by poverty, disease and other preventable ailments associated with under-development fuelled largely by corruption that have come to characterise post colonial Africa.

Oil has suddenly become the albatross, and like the sword of Damocles hangs on the necks of Delta people. No meaningful development is taking place. The people live on less than 50 US cents a day, though they continue to witness the endless transfer of suitcases stuffed with hard currencies destined for Europe and North America. South Africa has since joined that dubious list where Nigeria elected public officials launder public money for their personal gains.

Only recently the suspended governor of Plateau state was arrested in London for failing to explain how he came to have 2 million pounds sterling in his one private account, as well as 80,000 pounds cash in his London home. This is a man who has no other means of livelihood apart from being one of those discredited politicians. When the people of Delta ask to have legitimate access to their resources, they are brutally shot down. For how long must they continue to bleed before the international community take note of the state sponsored violence targeted at a defenceless people?

The African Union, United Nations and other multilateral bodies must ask the hard and honest question. Are the people of the Delta less human to be accorded the basic necessities of life when they account for more than 90% of foreign earnings by national government? The rights of the people of the Delta are also human rights. There is no doubt of the divide and rule tactics favoured by the British set the stage for the battles currently being waged in Nigeria by southern minorities for freedom, true federalism and the rule of law and equality.

The failed project of the Nigeria nation state leaves an indelible mark on the morality of the British expedition and experiment in Africa's most corrupt, monetised and fragile democracy. The international community must support the call by majority of Nigerians, lovers of socio-economic development and peace, for the urgent convocation of a truly representative Sovereign National Conference to amongst others discuss the current arrangement between the federating units and the national government, in order to chat a way forward.

Nigeria as presently constituted remains an embarrassment and sore point for a rejuvenating continent, and its people in the Diaspora. The strategic objectives and vision of the AU and NEPAD will remain blurred as long as Nigeria is in disarray.