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ODOGWO@aol.com USA

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THAT NEW DEVELOPMENT PLAN FOR NIGER DELTA

t was yesterday's news. The so-called "New Development Plan for Niger Delta" highlighted youth recruitment into the military, commencement of East-West Highway construction, and teacher-employment. The intervention and interest area includes transportation, agriculture, education, health, telecommunications and environment, agriculture, power and water resources. What country's state-of-the-union are we talking about? The People's Republic of Niger Delta must be delighted the colonial master Nigeria and its "Omni potentate" leader have emerged from slumber land of the "grateful dead". They have yet to clear the dull slot, the cobwebs to finally come to grips with reality at dawn.

Unfortunately in the year 2006, the rulers and owners of the place that used to be Nigeria continue to live in deceit and confusion attempting to fool the people while making a fool of themselves. The same people in-charge hate Nigerian history, never learn from it and therefore are prone to repeat performance. However, recycling the past, pretending to be "moving forward" is like the story of a blind man describing the elephant to the zoo-keeper. It is all about sizing up enormity through feeling thereby feeding the curious imagination of the rest who cannot see but must believe. With this elephant running wild and crazy unmindful of soft touch and care, sucking up all the oxygen in the chamber, it is hard to know which zoo, which Nigeria we are talking about these days.

Before the important parts of what used to be Umuahia became the capital of Abia, there was a very flamboyant and popular politician. In the 1960s J. O. J Okezie served Eastern Region and later as a federal minister. If memory serves right, his portfolio had to do with water resources and agriculture. On the eve of one of the more contentious election campaigns of his career, JOJ procured several roles of asbestos pipes and had his contractor heave them off along the road-side covering most nooks and corners of his constituency. He then besieged the airwaves, announcing to the people the ruling party had approved and allocated fund for borehole installation and pipe-borne water supply for the area. The empty pipes along the roadside were the show-and-tell, an evidence of JOJ's immediate delivery of make-belief, the phantom promise of an action-minister. The slogan was "JOJ Power". The election was won and lost and in the end the man was re-elected by the usual "landslide". In the days and weeks following, the contractor gathered his pipes in the wee hours and that was the end of JOJ's pipe-dream, the "water for life" scheme.

We can now fast forward to the year 2003. On the eve of his re-election campaign, the red-carpet trip to the Southeast, Obasanjo stood at the Onitsha Bridge-Head and flagged off his personal commitment and his government's determination to fix the bridge. He announced the award of multi-million Naira contract to reconstruct and build a dual-carriage express Onitsha-Owerri-Aba Road. At about that moment in time, the president needed to complete what had been started; therefore he must be returned to power, supposedly another auspicious "second" chance to end "marginalization of Ndi-Igbo".

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Tony Anenih had handed over the Work's Ministry to Ogunlewe to become campaign manager, and after 300 Billion Naira and counting; the people have yet to see a new concrete pillar, not even a completed culvert. The bridge hangs on a balance, a death-trap, the next accident waiting to happen. The contract has been awarded and re-awarded with each ministerial change of guard. The new guy, Ogunlewe's replacement, Anibaba is sure to re-authorize the plan in time to fit the current policy agenda. In the end it will be eight years of empty promise, no new bridge, and no new road but another election time and the coming of the "Third Reich".

The Niger Delta is not JOJ's immediate backyard, certainly not the Onitsha Bridge. But promise remains what it is, a promise. In fact people answer "Promise" for first name; it could not be Obasanjo's first name unless of course "Aremu" becomes its ethnic equivalent in translation. What makes this "418 Announcement" very weird is that so many people have had to die for avoidable circumstances so this government can stop deceiving itself; Odi village had to be sacked; oil-field workers, expatriates had to be kidnapped and humiliated for the government to come to this ugly point of realization. It is all about talking, setting up commissions and task forces; doing those would be the easy part. But what would it really take to execute a Niger Delta Development Plan? Is it just an Obasanjo proclamation? Are Nigeria's footprints and foundation ready for this pile-on skyscraper on the marshes of Abonema?

A few years ago, early in the beginning of this administration, well-meaning Nigerians called on the president to commence the process of restructuring Nigeria. Some suggested "Sovereign National Conference"; others advocated "Conference of Elders". The debate started but quickly fizzled out with the denial of reality. The President was hell-bent on frustrating all and every effort that would enable Nigerians come together to discuss their problems. He was not ready to entertain the difficult exchange of divergent views and opinions but preferred to dismiss them as trash talk. When the opportunity came, the government did a flip-flop. Obasanjo was against the national conference before he was for it.

What happened? It was the first time a "cut and paste" Constitution was hoisted in favor of the president's so-called "Third Term" agenda. That draft document eventually made its way into the plenary session of a bipolar assembly, majority of whom were rented recruits from the president's camp. When the center could not hold, the conference turned into a basketball game. Rather than give extra time to complete the task of re-tooling Nigeria, Obasanjo's men threw in a chair in the arena, and ran out the clock. The South-South delegates, representing the same Niger Delta people for whom the bell now tolls, walked out of the hall in anger and frustration. The bone of contention was "how much is too much" 13%, 15%, 25% or 50% of oil revenue accruable to the producing areas. The president did not see the need and did not consider it paramount and important enough to persuade all parties to return to the bargaining table and hammer out their concerns. He refused to intervene. That conference hardly had enough funding to complete its assigned mission. But Mr. Grease Manchuria Mantu and his head honchos had cash, foreign and domestic, enough to sit in a hotel room and amend a country's constitution in a week.

Obasanjo knew Resource Control was a wedge issue too potent and handy to be exploited by his Third Term Crusaders. The calculation was that South-South would accept a presidential gift in lieu of agitation to field candidate for the Office of President, come 2007. The situation reminds one of paralytic in the Bible. His four friends took him up the roof and brought him down from there to receive healing from Jesus. Unfortunately the Jews believed that all afflictions were the wages of sin. But Jesus wanted to disabuse their minds as they questioned His power and ability to forgive sin. He asked them, "Which is easier, to say to the afflicted, your sins are forgiven or take your mat and walk"?

Does Obasanjo really have the power to heal Niger Delta with this type of development plan or is he just playing the JOJ or the hypocritical art and science of" Cognitive Dissonance". Warning the youths who have been restive since the last roll call to make the choice between "social and economic development of their area" and continuing the "violence" presupposes the situation and plight of the people changed yesterday simply because Obasanjo said so. Does Obasanjo know how to forgive and forget the sins of the youth? Is he saying Dokubo would be released the next day? No news about Alarms the one-time governor of Bayelsa is not necessarily good news for those who wait for him to come back. Their argument, "He stole like the rest of them and so"? But Obasanjo's argument, "you cannot carry weapon on one hand and expect warm handshake with another" is simply too banal to assuage Niger Delta anger and frustration. The answer is resoundingly yes, you can, disturb the market and still chew "groundnut". It surely sounds like the language Obasanjo's government would understand at this time - violence for peace.

Recruiting illiterate sons and daughters from Delta into the Nigerian military is not an exclusive favor the rest of Nigerian ethnic majority is not getting or has not been getting. What happens to the many that would not join the military? Is Obasanjo planning to send the new recruits to Dafur, the Sudanese ethnic civil war theater? It would not be the first time. Babangida and later Abacha sent innocent Nigerians to Sierra Leone and Liberia to defend and protect democracy that was denied Nigerians at home. It was better to keep them busy and away with life and death exposure than keep them close by to plot military coup. And so rather than having the youths of Delta running around the creeks with AK-47s, kidnapping and disrupting oil operations and revenue flow, why not get them enlisted and find a peace-keeping mission somewhere in Congo or Kosovo?

Talking about power supply and telecommunication would not be different than what the new and improved "NEPA" by way of the Nigeria's Power Holding Company is providing at this time; using the Global Systems for Mobile (GSM) Communication would not reduce service costs and charges to Deltans; would it? Renaming the Petroleum Training Institute (PTI) and calling it a University does not make it different than any of its type in Nigeria? Again recall Congressman Charlie Rangle; he says it is like putting lip-stick on Miss Piggy and calling it a lady. The Community Primary School at Okerenku, Delta State will be the same and so will the new Federal Polytechnic in Bayelsa State. The same president providing all these "donatus" recent declared Nigerian Engineers unemployable. Are these new ideas, the reasons for all the rumblings in the mangrove?

I doubt Obasanjo knows exactly what it would take to offer the real bribe to these people since their traditional leaders have lost the power of persuasion. In the past the government would line up a fleet of executive Mercedes Benz vehicles as "settlement" pay-off to the traditional rulers with special tag and directive to keep the peace in the land. These days the traditional Kings have lost their glamour; they are mindful of the dangers, the uncertainty of coercion. Obviously, the Niger Delta problem must be one that Anenih and his cabal could no longer fix; the crooks have finally run out of ideas, jailing the few perceived trouble-markers lucky to escape "government" trained armed robbers. Unfortunately Harry and Dikkibo died before this Plan B could maturate, and the government finally realized it has over-reached itself.

The big question - on what budget is the president making this kind of trillion Naira promises? How does the projected expenditure square with the rest of Nigeria both short-term and long-term? Is short-term the short-life of a government with expiration date May 29, 2007? What does long-term actually mean, until the next election or what? What is the role of a 50-member"Consolidated Council on Social and Economic Development of Coastal States of the Niger Delta"? Does this Council also consolidate the federal mandate as provided for the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC)? Is this project for real or is the president starting what he knows he can neither accomplish nor complete?

Unfortunately, the famous Blues Musician B.B. King just finished playing the tune. I love BB's music but the lyric seems quite apt here. President Obasanajo, hear it loud and clear, "The Thrill Is Gone". If you really have anything to offer Niger Delta, albeit Nigeria, sit down with 50-member council of elders from all parts including Coastal States, fashion out a workable Constitution for the people, not Mantu's midnight fraud. A constitution that provides for the rights and privileges of the federating units will be the best gift you would have given the Niger Delta people and the rest of Nigeria. A Constitution that allows each federating unit to develop at its own pace under a defined equitable process of revenue-sharing and resource allocation would empower the people to take their fate in their hands rather than rely on a "development plan" from a lame-duck administration.

Mr. President Obasanjo, why not go for what you can achieve rather than baking this pie in the sky. Every mad man in Maiduguri knew Nigerians could not conduct reliable census without a workable and meaningful Constitution. So, why waste money conducting head count under the same prevailing situation as 1963. You knew Nigerians play games with numbers but you insisted the outcome would be different this time around. You are wrong and will continue to be wrong. Obviously expending all the energy and resources to restructure Nigeria into a workable federation would definitely eliminate the scramble for the center. When each constituent unit knows what resources are accruable to it, there would be no need to inflate census figures. Population count would cease to be the acrimonious exercise for which people lose their lives. It is even worse when a multi-ethnic plural society is told that tribe, tongue and religion would no longer be vital statistical data for census. People become suspicious when government policy becomes too arbitrary, confusing and uncertain. Taking politics out of census exercise cannot happen without a real Nigerian Constitution.

The next task Obasanjo can tackle right now would be to establish the proper mechanism for holding elections in Nigeria so people can vote and be voted for without foul-play. More importantly would be to establish a system that ensures those who win elections get the chance and opportunity to serve out their terms in office. It would appear to all sincere observers that the "Impeachment Clause" has been bastardized in Nigeria. Congressional forum has become a mad house of gangsters ready to hold court even in the toilet if it becomes the convenient place to oust an elected member and remove him or her from office.

To fix most of the problems, Obasanjo must begin to atone by telling Nigerians the truth, and particularly those clamoring for his life-tenure in office. It is not enough to keep quiet pretending to be above board. Unfortunately "the emperor has no clothes" any longer. The president's men should be told to drink some "pure water" and cool their temperature. Obasanjo please tell them you are going home (Ota Farm) to meet the roosters, the ones you abandoned since that Abacha sabbatical. You have nothing else tangible at this last hour to offer Niger Delta and Nigeria but the enabling environment to realize the fore-going. Just do that much. At least if you do not receive any more praises given the current state of the mess, you will do well to reduce and minimize further criticism for the stench already caused and for saving Nigerians more troubles and undeserved punishment. Come to think about it, you should know having one man who has served for over 12 years as military head and as president in a multi-ethnic society, still insisting on remaining in power with all things considered, is absolutely immoral and certainly a sin.