FEATURE ARTICLE
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FEATURE ARTICLE |
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Clement Ikpatt
cikpatt@hotmail.com
AKWA IBOM STATE: The Nigeria Scapegoat (1)
kwa Ibom State of Nigeria was created on September 23, 1987 and until infamous Supreme Court judgment, remained the third largest producer of petroleum products in Nigeria. Her land area is about 8400 square kilometers and with a population density of about 350 inhabitants per square kilometer. About 1 million inhabitants are of voting age and more than 85% of citizens constitute the rural population. In 1999, the PDP swept most political office positions in the state and Akwa Ibom voters thumbed hundreds of thousands of votes for Mr. Olusegun Aremu Obasanjo – the PDP Presidential flag bearer and incumbent President.
Located within the Niger Delta sedimentary basin, Akwa Ibom state is one of the most prolific hydrocarbon regions in the world. Not only is she rich in hydrocarbon, there are vast deposits of other metallic and non-metallic minerals yet fully exploited. Yet, more than 90% of the State’s population live below the poverty line and in squalor. Thanks to regimen of bad governance, subjugation and systemic deprivations meted by all Nigeria governments till date.
Summarily, Akwa Ibom State is one in which anything controlled by the government – both state and federal governments – hardly works. From a jinxed State House – wherein every known governor turns out helplessly lethargic – to Senators without clout and lack oversight, to the State Radio and Television Broadcast agencies, mismanagement and bureaucratic rut have been hallmarks. The bloated bureaucracy sucks up Federal funding upon which the state depends and no state controlled industrial project is optimally working – so lets forget about their being profitable. Educational infrastructure is mediocre and crashing; health care infrastructure is almost non-existent; agriculture is nothing to write about as the ecological system ruts from nasty environmental abuses and increasing urban migration; crime is surging uncontrollably; poverty and hopelessness have both witness quantum leaps in recent years. Yet, the oil rich state is being mercilessly exploited, to! g ether with most areas of the Niger Delta region, for economic and political gains of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. It should not be that way, should it?
Above is no new thing: we all know and acknowledge reports of that bastardized region. The world knows that. The Niger Delta has become a poster-boy for world’s worst cases of human rights and ecological abuses. President Obasanjo knows and promised to reverse histories – not toward reparations, but toward equity and justice. We believed and trusted the President. Then what happened? He appears to have forgotten the promise and went further, in yet another theatrical Supreme Court ruling, to cement devious erstwhile arrangement that has wrecked the region.
What devious arrangement? The smartly engineered blueprint for perpetual bondage and exploitation of the Akwa Ibom people and, in general the Niger Delta people, was advocated, spun and established by Obafemi Awolowo in his days as the Federal Commission for Finance in Yakubu Gowon’s military government. His was a case of using the legal system (then a Military Governments Decree) to seal the fate of the people while depriving them of legitimate and common sense earnings that should accrue from exploration of resources in their land. Clever move it was by a smart lawyer and politician in forcing a military decree of law that made proceeds from offshore oil exploration belong exclusively to the Federal government, yet leaving that controversy open for furious but irrelevant political discussions over three decades following. It is same method that the Presidency is engaging today – using the Supreme Court to forc! e a similar result of etching exploitation in the law books, yet starting a dead end quest for political solution to soothe erupting anger. I call the Presidency move vaudeville of the Awolowo iniquity – so named after its creator. That is one thing the Ibibio people cannot forget or easily forgive. That is one iniquity too deep to cleanse. It cost Awolowo a large chunk of votes – he never became Nigeria’s President in two bids during 1979 and 1983 general election. I recall those days of activity in students’ wing of a national party – the name Awolowo was leprous in the hood. God is not particularly patient with those who play dirty with the poor.
So, what has recent Supreme Court ruling on On-Shore-Off-Shore dichotomy reined in on Akwa Ibom State? Misery! Summarily, there is a budgetary shortfall almost equal to amount received from derivation formula. Not only is the State is now slapped with billions of Naira in shortfall, the Supreme Court says she should pay back what revenue she has so received from the derivation formula since January 2000. In that effect, the Federal Government is now withholding revenue allocation to the State and will continue to withhold in the foreseeable future because the State has nothing to return. Ruthlessness is a kinder word – annihilation is appropriate. In wartime, starvation is forced by cutting off food supply. In peacetime, the Federal government through its Supreme Court engenders starvation and death by cutting funds to the already starving. That is what it means even in the short term. There is no long-term prognostication – there will be no long term. Obt! u se, isn’t it? That is what Nigeria’s Supreme Court has found to be justice for the Akwa Ibom people – the oil from whose backyard feeds her corruption. It is so disturbing that it is necessary to investigate the backgrounds of those Shylock judges the Presidency is using. As much as I do not have any regard for the Nigeria legal system, I am convinced that those wigged crew at the highest Court have no business in the legal system – for they are hauling boulders from a glass house and mistaking that we shall not fight back.
Lets go back to how the Akwa Ibom people have been exploited. Politically laid back and seemingly an indifferent people, Akwa Ibom citizens have always been a loyal, consistent indicator and inevitable vector in democratic leadership of Nigeria. These characteristics, perhaps, coupled with her sheer demographic minority, have unsurprisingly turned out to render an invulnerability always exploited by parties, leaders and majorities for myopic gains. These exploitations range in form from subtle to brazen:
1. Subtle
By persons in high places (few of whom have privately indicated to yours truly at various times in mutual exchanges) who manipulate Federal Regulations and create red tapes to frustrate both economic and social justice for Akwa Ibom people.
2. Brazen
It is this exploitation that I am writing about – especially of one currently played out by the executive government of President Obasanjo. President Obasanjo conveniently plays out both exploitation modes in the range. In general policy outlook, he conjures an uncanny sense of conviviality that has translated in few gains for the people. During his Presidency, Akwa Ibom State has actually drawn more funds from Federal coffers than from past governments and has attracted or benefited from few other national perks such as the NDDC. On another hand, the most treacherous and destabilizing blueprints with long-term destructive agenda are being hatched and implemented under his watch and, I would say, vicariously endorsed by his office. Let’s not forget the architect of recent Supreme Court rulings against the Akwa Ibom people: Attorney General Bola Ige – an avid apostle, disciple and ideologue of the Awolowo political doctrine who was roundly endorsed by the P! r esidency. Again, Chief Ige is one I respect and recently have come to admire some of his contributions to Nigeria in various ways. Those, however, does not mean he was all that.
Politically speaking, even some military governments were humane enough to distance from the Awolowo Iniquity. Having seen and understood the plight of the hapless people, those governments saw wisdom in the common sense approach to justice for the people and tried in various ways (albeit not completely) to override Awolowo’s Onshore vs. Offshore controversy. But the Obasanjo Presidency, despite earlier campaign promises to secure justice and compensate Akwa Ibom for years of exploitation, have cleverly but firmly institutionalized Awolowo’s iniquity through what appears a trumped up Supreme Court judgment. The gambit, as I see it played by the executive arm of Nigeria government, was to feign legitimacy of purpose and action through an untrustworthy and whitewashed judiciary while ferociously pursuing to seal Awolowo’s formula and, thereby, secure Nigeria’s treasure chest as the continuous lifeline for corrupt, lazy, war-mongering and ethnocentric majorit! i es. Only in countries like Nigeria can corrupt politicians do those things with a straight face and get away with them, after all:
Lets talk about double-faced dealing. In 1999, we believed and trusted Chief Obasanjo more than we trusted the PDP. Why? At that point of our statehood, we saw a promising nationalist with keen political, leadership and godly sensitivities estimated to secure justice for our people. And he did promise during one of his winding down campaigns at Uyo that he would secure justice for the people. Why then have things gone awry?
Neither the President nor those Supreme Court Judges nor the PDP can look any sound-minded Akwa Ibom person in the face and justify ongoing rubbish. We are angry and disappointed, very angry with you – Mr. President. That he has set up a Committee to figure out political solutions and has anointed aides to apologize over the Supreme Court ruling do justify our righteous indignation and their having wronged the poor in an ungodly miscarriage of justice. But can those help? No! Those are election-time Greek gifts and very disingenuous perpetration of a known game – that is, taking the Akwa Ibom people for granted. This is where I take personal offence because latest gestures and moves by the government are not only insulting but out rightly suggest the disingenuous. Compounding both insult and the disingenuous is the aspect of betrayal by the President – a man whose overall leadership outlook I grade above average and whom I have naively thought to be above presiding over such injustice.
Now, the President is playing grandfather and savior in suggestions for a political solution to anticipated hardships the Nigeria Supreme Court has sentenced our peoples to. Impressions created are that the President is personally in support of those scathing and hard line Supreme Court decisions but compassionate about what hardship – a secondary and subjective condition – those decisions may bring on poor citizens of Akwa Ibom State. What hardship can be more vicious than what is obtained today from Ikot Ekpene to Ekpene Ukpa? The Supreme Court did not arbitrarily decide on issues not brought before her. Indeed, it was the Federal Government that opted to (ab)use the Supreme Court in ways that have manifested in recent ruling. If the Presidency were clean and with good intentions from the onset, the Supreme Court would have been engaged in other ways toward equity and justice for all Nigerians. But the Presidency bluntly refused good counsel and opted fo! r the hardball. It remains to be seen how the Presidency has played same rules with other majority groups spinning more vexing issues that flag our society such as the Sharia or ethnic militia. Who would dare touch ethnic criminals and zealots tearing up the country? – not even the Presidency or the Supreme Court. Therefore, I conclude that the Akwa Ibom people and in general the people of the Niger Delta are victims of ethnic scapegoating. No matter how any looks at it, that remains the truth.
Therefore, on what grounds of compassion is he trying to figure out ways of helping a perceived second rate, crumb seeking citizenry whose destinies depend on a certain Presidential goodwill? None! How can political solutions, whatever those mean and may be – as advocated by the President – reverse a Supreme Court ruling? Impossible! Let the President tell us what political solutions he is considering or bringing to the table that can withstand the legal force and constitutionality in recent Supreme Court decisions. Truth is that it is impossible to come up with any. Therefore, the Anenih Committee has nothing to achieve than clean up after the Presidency for electoral gains. So, Mr. President, sell that political solution pitch to the Press and stiff-necked representatives in the PDP – the million mandates strong Akwa Ibom people are not interested and feel insulted by it. Quit taking us for granted as we are not very keen on wasting mandates again.
The only way to clean up act is go back to the Supreme Court and let it reverse some of those decisions, especially the derisive On-Shore/Off-Shore dichotomy ruling. Laws are made for man and not otherwise. We don’t want any ephemeral political solution or understanding that cannot stand any test in a court of law or is subject to manipulations and political mood swings of rascally politicians or bureaucrats. We want justice - not from a Presidential pity party or from any other political manipulator – but real, common sense justice as constitutionally promised bona-fide citizens of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. I call on Afe Anang, Esop Nkparawa Ibiobio, Citiz! ens’ groups, all youthful minded and truth seeking indigenes of Akwa Ibom to employ all legal and self defensive methods toward the declared war of annihilation declare against innocent and poor peoples of Akwa Ibom State. It is time we ended being scapegoats of Nigeria’s craziness.
