FEATURE ARTICLE

Leburah GanagoSaturday, January 6, 2007
advertisement
[email protected]
Atlanta, GA, USA

ANNOUNCE THIS ARTICLE TO YOUR FRIENDS


15TH OGONI DAY: FOR A COORDINATED NIGER DELTA CAMPAIGN


�I harbour the hope that in founding the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, in empowering the Ogoni people to fearlessly confront their history and their tormentors non-violently, that in encouraging the Ogoni people to a belief in their ability to revitalize their dying society, I have started a trend which will peacefully liberate many peoples in Africa and lead eventually to political and economic reform and social progress�- Ken Saro Wiwa, December 9, 1994,
in his acceptance speech on the occasion of the 1994 Right Livelihood Award( Alternative Nobel Prize) in Stockholm, Sweden.


t is a decade and half (January 4, 1993) since MOSOP, Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, under the charismatic leadership of Ken Saro Wiwa, playwright and winner of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Rights Award , awoken the hitherto docile but oppressed ethnic minority tribes of the oil rich Niger Delta to the sad reality of the fact that they must have to do something about their condition, as an estimated 300,000 Ogonis marched on the transnational oil giant , the Royal Dutch Shell and their partners in crime, the Nigerian ruling cabal. Like Ken rightly predicted, the MOSOP campaign has inspired similarly exploited and oppressed minority tribes of the Niger Delta to commence their own struggles, and today the gale of protests in the Niger Delta has unsettled the oppressors. Those who thought that the enslavement of the peoples of the Niger Delta would continue to eternity without challenge must have eaten their words by now.

Where is Philip Asiodu ?. Mr. Asiodu, a one time powerful Permanent Secretary in the Federal establishment, in a fit of power drunkenness, after admitting that the oil producing ethnic minority tribes are being cheated and that their oil revenues are being used to develop permanent resources of agriculture and industry elsewhere in the country, went ahead to taunt these exploited peoples this way : � Given, however, the small size and population of the oil producing areas , it is not cynical to observe that even if the resentments of oil producing states continue , they cannot threaten the stability of the country nor affect its continued economic development�. I do not know if Mr. Philip Asiodu is still alive. If he is still around he would have realized how wrong he was. For I do know that even the blood-sucking ruling cabal , with the awesome instruments of violence at their disposal still feel threatened by the pervasive resentment in the Niger Delta today. The wind of change is now blowing in the Niger Delta and our oppressors are panicking . But they haven�t seen nothing yet, for a �Hurricane Delta� may be on the horizon. Of course, the justness of our cause have given us a psychological advantage over our tormentors.

advertisement

However, for the Niger Delta struggle to have the desired impact it has to be focused and coordinated. But the threat to the survival of the Niger Delta struggles today has less to do with Obasanjo�s shooting soldiers than the dearth of credible activist leadership. We have long ago used to those soldiers shooting us. Looking critically on the scene it is evident that leadership is lacking, and so is focus. One cannot find ,an outstanding leader, who can serve as a rallying point, in the mode of Ken Saro Wiwa or Isaac Adaka Boro out there on the stage. There is no arrowhead. There is a gapping hole of leadership vacuum. The vacuum created by the murder of Ken Saro Wiwa has never been filled . Some of those who are now parading themselves as activists and representatives of the people are actually saboteurs who are always eager to mortgage the aspiration of their peoples for personal gains. This category of �activists� have made themselves vulnerable to the settlement virus of the corrupt Obasanjo dictatorship. They have been striking gold in personal enrichment at the expense of their peoples� aspiration. If you think that the leadership credibility crisis rocking the Niger Delta stays with the politicians alone, you are gravely mistakenly. Some of the so-called activist leaders are no better than the quisling party politicians we all love to castigate. These days, we have seen activist leaders who like prosperity preaching evangelical pastors, no longer await reward from heaven. Indeed , they solicit and actually get their � rewards� from the same oppressors they are supposed to be fighting. Sometimes they are caught in this web of contradictions and so exposed that they no longer command respect among the people and so lack the moral authority to lead.

This lack of credible leadership has evidently weakened the struggle with very austere if any, progress made. And like sheep without Shepard or an army without a commander, there is a seeming state of confusion in the Niger Delta struggle. There is a cacophony of voices of those claiming to be fighting the Niger Delta cause. Sometimes it is hard for one to understand what some of these groups, and there are a multifarious of them, really want.

Yet, certain pronouncements made by some of these groups betray an ignorance of what the struggle is all about. For instance, a recent press report credited to a group which calls itself Iduwini Volunteer Force( IVF), based at Ekeremor quoted the group as having decided to � suspend all forms of hostilities� and called on other �combative� groups in the Niger Delta to follow suit .There may be nothing curious about a group fighting the Niger Delta cause reviewing or changing their methods however, what is curious is the reason adduced for their action . According to the report , the Ekeremor group decided to lay down their arms as a mark of appreciation for the PDP�s nomination of the Bayelsa State Governor Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, as the ruling party�s vice presidential candidate. As if the election of Dr. Jonathan (that is if he is eventually elected) would have any effect on the core issue of resource control or the demand for an end to the looting of our oil wealth. Even if Dr. Jonathan gets elected as the Vice President , he would not be in a position to change anything. Dr. Jonathan would only end up being a stooge of the ruling cabal who appointed him . He may even be used against our peoples in the Niger Delta. And in the event that he dares try to be his own man , he could be given the Atiku treatment. What is more, like Ken Saro Wiwa would say, the issue is not about individual appointments or positions but what happens to the condition of the generality of the people.

The Nigerian government is now goading on Shell to go back to the Ogoni oilfields and resume production; claiming that they are losing revenue as a result of the inactivity of some of the country�s oil wells . The government has made it clear that it wants all oil wells in the country active ( producing oil) so more money could be made. Then, the question is : In whose interest is more oil revenue coming to the Nigerian government at this time? What have they been able to do with the tens of trillions of Naira they have realized from oil sales since 1999?. Only everlasting fools would believe that this Obasanjo administration needs more oil revenue to improve the economic situation in the country. Rathe, experience has shown that the more oil revenue they make the more they steal. In the 1980s and early 1990s when the price of oil has not shot through the roof, Nigerian government officials were stealing money in hundreds of millions ( at least at the state level) now they are stealing in hundreds of billions of Naira. It is indeed in the economic interest of the Ogoni and indeed all of Niger Delta communities to ensure that no more drop of oil leaves our soil for now. This is true, as the predators who are now plundering our oil wealth as if there is no tomorrow, and opposing our demand for resource control are going to turn around to advocate and implement resource control whenever our oil reserve is depleted . Of course, we all know that when cocoa and groundnut were the economic mainstay of the country there was resource control, as the regions which produced those products were allowed to keep 50 percent of the proceeds for the development of their regions.

The whole issue of power struggle and the high tension desperation to covert political power in the country is driven by the desire to plunder the Niger Delta oil wealth . And General Olusegun Obasanjo who has by today established himself as the most greedy and most corrupt usurper of power that country has ever produced, has made the point so poignantly clear � that the greatest attraction to political power in Nigeria is unlimited access to the Niger delta oil money. In Nigeria the chief executive officer of the state is the � treasurer� of the state ; who collects the oil money from the national pool in Abuja, called the Federation Account, on a monthly basis, and distributes( note , distribute not disburse) the money in whatever manner he so chooses. He may decide to distribute our money in his custody in bank accounts spread across the globe and acquire castles the world in the world�s capitals.

The EFCC recently discovered that Governor Peter Odili has in one fell swoop �misappropriated� N200 billion. Please, note that this amount is not the total sum of the Rivers State funds which Peter Odili has stolen; this may just be the tip of the iceberg if a comprehensive audit of the state�s finances is done.

Government officials also load their cronies and siblings� bank accounts with billions of public money. This explains why a whooping sum of N20 billion could be found in the bank account of Hon. Rotimi Ameachi , the long time boy of Governor Peter Odili ,and by the grace of the governor, the longest serving Speaker of a state House of Assembly in the country today. This is the same reason $22 million could be found in the United States bank account of Gbenga, President Obasanjo�s first son. It has nothing to do with Mr. Gbenga Obasanjo being a so-called international businessman like the president�s defenders argued. The only reason is that his father is the president of the largest oil producing country in Africa and the most corrupt nation on the planet.

Sometimes Niger Delta leaders themselves seem to confuse the situation. On occasions they have gone to Abuja to tell Obasanjo that the restiveness in the region could be contained by creating jobs for the youth. I think this type of reasoning trivializes the real issues at stake. This position tends to give the impression that the youth are making all the troubles because they are idle. Indeed they have actually said all the youth need is something to engage them. But I feel the problems in the Niger Delta today go beyond youth idleness or unemployment. Of course, youth of the Niger Delta like those from other parts of the country need employment. But we should not make it appear like the restive Niger Delta youth, be they those who are taking hostages or those protesting through other means are selfish-fighting for their own interest alone. Rather, the crux of the matter is that these peoples are outraged by the robbery of their God-given oil resource by those who do not own them and do not suffer the environmental and economic impacts of oil exploration and exploitation. They are incensed by the pristine living condition of themselves , mothers and fathers, siblings and relations when their oil money is buying paradise on earth for those far removed from the hazards of crude petroleum.

For instance, how can you explain to me that Generals Ibrahim Babangida, Olusegun Obasanjo, Sani Abacha , Abubakar Atiku et al and their cronies have become multi-billionaires from oil money whereas they do not have even a drop of oil on their soil and whereas I and my compatriots in the delta region back in Nigeria are finding it hard to afford a plate of meal ? Or how can one explain a situation where Oloibiri that coastal town in Bayelsa state which in 1956 produced the first oil well in Nigeria, should today look like a ghost town, with no tangible developmental landmark while Abuja , the desert enclave should be transformed into a world class city with skylines comparable to capital cities of the Advanced world ? . Or that Ken Saro Wiwa the undisputable symbol of the Niger Delta struggle got hanged for daring to protest this apartheid like injustice in Nigeria ?

In their reaction to the so-called �New Agenda for the Niger Delta� and the representation by some leaders of the region to the Stakeholders meeting with President Obasanjo, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) noted �: For 50 years the wealth of our people has been looted by the Nigeria government and it believes this injustice can be remedied by providing menial jobs to indigenes of the Niger Delta. We do not need any further mismanagement of the fast-diminishing resources of our land by the award of bogus contracts intended to channel the wealth of the Niger Delta to the hand of those who have looted the Niger Delta all these years. What we have demanded for the is the control of our resources, which the Nigeria government has so far ignored . The so-called Ijaw leaders who have made themselves a part of this fraud do not represent the interests of anyone but themselves� ( The Guardian April 20, 2006).

In that same Right Livelihood Acceptance Speech, Ken Saro Wiwa described the relationship between the multinational oil corporations and the oil producing communities as Modern Slave Trade. In his words :� My experience is that we are face to face with a Modern Slave Trade similar in many ways to the Atlantic Slave Trade in which European merchants armed African middlemen to decimate their peoples and destroy their societies in return for intangible profits. As in the Atlantic Slave Trade, the multinational company reap huge profits; the African middlemen-in this case the Nigerian nation �state- are debt ridden and in chaos ; their common victim, the Ogoni and similar resource -bearing communities face extinction . But what makes the Modern Slave Trade Worse is that it has the capacity of destroying the environment as well and is thus omnicidal and affects all of mankind��When, therefore, I mobilized the Ogoni people and called out 300,000 of them to stage a remarkably peaceful protest march on January 4,1993, the people marched not only against environmental degradation, political marginalization , economic strangulation , slavery and genocide but also against the Modern Slave Trade � .

Ceasing our oil wealth from us only to ration out pittance to us , which pittance is also embezzled by their errand boys in the state government houses, is slavery . The armed robbers who rob us of our oil money in an attempt to hoodwink the outside world have often created agencies such as OMPADEC now NDDC, purporting to be for the development of the Niger Delta. We are told a certain fraction of our oil money is being put into a fund run by an agency whose brief is to develop the oil ravaged Niger Delta, for which we were supposed to be grateful to the slave masters. But here are the facts: The amount put into those agencies are always a pittance compared to our oil revenue. The conception and operation of such agencies are fraudulent. Those appointed to head such agencies are the oppressors� trusted stooges who make returns to those who appointed them. In fact, in most cases the appointments take the form of compensation for the errand boys of the ruling cabal. Yet, more insulting is the revelation that those so-called development agencies for the Niger Delta are being used as conduit pipes through which the armed robbers in Abuja further siphon our oil money. The Oil Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission created by General Ibrahim Babagida in 1992 became a sign post of corruption. President Obasanjo and Vice President Abubakar Atiku are presently entangled over the looting of the Petroleum Technical Development Fund, PTDF. Atiku during his testimony before the Senate Probe Panel accused President Obasanjo of withdrawing N10 billion from the Petroleum Technical Development Fund to fund his ill-fated Third Term agenda. And the tyrant went berserk, declaring the Vice President�s office vacant. President Obasanjo himself has earlier accused his vice of pilfering the PTDF funds and dragged him before the EFCC. Now, it is hard to tell who among them is not guilty of public theft . The two big shots are not the only ones helping themselves from the PTDF funds; it is an expense account for the PDP. That is an aside, anyway. What is important to us is how those thieves in Abuja have conspired to plunder our oil wealth while we starve and worse, being fed with bullets. Of course, the PTDF is one of the greatest scandals rocking the Obasanjo administration. Yet, it is an insult for someone to stay in Abuja and ration fragments of our own oil money to us and still impose on us what type of �development� projects they feel we need in our villages.

The peoples of the Niger Delta must fight fiercely to liberate themselves from both the slave masters and the middlemen. We cannot afford to remain slaves far into the 21st century. We must take charge of our own God-given oil wealth.

It would amount to a gratuitous insult for anyone to suggest that the Ogoni people who suffered five years of military conquest-a scorched earth operation that saw to the extermination of over two thousand Ogonis including an entire generation of their leadership, would make such a huge sacrifice just to find employment for their youth or attract electricity to their villages. Or the Ijaws who suffered the Odi massacre of 1999 or the Umuechem community who were massacred in 1990 when Shell called in the Mobile Police force-alias Kill and go.

Like Professor Wole Soyinka predicted in his classical piece in the New York Times in 1994, titled THE LAST DESPOT AND THE END OF NIGERIAN HISTORY ? THE Ogoni treatment has gone round all of the Niger Delta. There is hardly any community out there whose nose has not been bloodied .The Ijaws, the Ekpeyes, the Ikweres, the Ogbas, the Orohbos, the Itsekiris, the Isokos, the Ibibios have all been visited with military repression. They have all had their blood split.

We were protesting the environmental devastation, economic exploitation and political marginalization before they started shooting to kill us. We have said this over and again that the spilling of the blood of our peoples have raised the ante of the struggle.

We must now demand restitutive and retributive justice from all those who had one way or the other conspired to plunder our oil wealth and turned us into slaves in the land of our birth � be they outside oppressors or our sons who have become cheap tools in their hands.

At this point the struggle is in dire need of leadership and direction, such that can effectively mobilize our peoples to constructively confront our tormentors. Someone needs to step forward to offer leadership-honest, credible and dedicated leadership, to the Niger Delta struggle before it goes adrift . We need a committed leadership capable of articulating our grievances . We need a well-coordinated campaign capable of sending a decisive and compelling message to our oppressors- the transnational oil corporations operating in the Niger Delta and the Nigerian ruling cabal. This has nothing to do with hostage-taking and frivolous ransom demands or any irrational acts that would only give excuse for our tormentors to visit on our peoples superior violence. There is no reason why any oil well should still be operating in the Niger Delta in 2007. All communities in the Niger Delta should ensure that they shut downt their oil wells All other communities in the Niger Delta should follow the Ogoni example : issue a quit order to oil companies operating on their soil and shut the oil wells. They should ensure that no drop of oil is drilled from their land until our demands are met and a stop to the plundering of our oil wealth is effected .

The Niger Delta issue has the potential to decide Nigeria�s fate. And to paraphrase Ken Saro Wiwa, whatever direction it goes depends on what the oppressors choose.