The NDCSC unequivocally condemns the show of shame by Nigeria’s Foreign Minister, Chief Ojo Maduekwe, and his counterpart in the Niger Delta Ministry, Obong Ufot Ekaete at one of Washington D.C’s major Policy think-tank, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies on Monday June 15, 2009. To stand in a liberal democratic environment and gloat and justify the displacement and slaughtering of women and children in Yar’dua’s latest War of Choice in the region, is a further reminder of Nigeria’s leadership deficit, failure to learn from past missteps and how to repair such mistakes. These hard powerites, Nigeria’s grave-diggers and triumphant schemers failed to realize that this is no longer the age of Niccolo Machiavelli, nor does the administration in Washington admit arbitrary abuse of citizens, that obnoxious governments are indifferent to, in the first place.
What transpired before our very eyes in Washington, D.C., provided further credence to the argument and absolute need to allow Mediation and Third Party intervention to resolve the conflict and build a just peace in the region. The structural violence of the state, their complicity in the degeneration taking place in the region, does not favour them as viable and effective arbiter in the matter.
One of such incapacity was displayed when to the chagrin of so many, Chief Maduekwe ignorantly reduced and likened the genuine struggle against extreme injustice in the region to a war of secession similar to the Biafran one. An assertion so difficult to sustain in the face of profound evidence to the contrary. This is the same kind of ‘law and order’ mongering that enabled the grimmest genocides in the twentieth century. It was in this same guise that Hutus in 1994 could freely, joyfully, and systematically slaughter 8,000 Tutsi a day for 100 days without any interference.
The Minister for Niger Delta, Obong Ekaete, who was the topmost bureaucrat during President Obasanjo’s years of usurpation, supervised series of Committees Reports fashioned to cause peace in the region (The Ogomodia Report stands out) gather dust on his shelves; watched as the NDDC remained underfunded, drain-pipe and mere public relation agency of that administration, watched as his brother and party colleagues governors from the region turned the enormous wealth that accrued to the region into their private estates, yet come to Washington to tell those most knowledgeable policy experts on the region, that those who are calling for restraint on use of indiscriminate force in the region are ‘unpatriotic’ elements who do not wish Nigeria well, and must not be listened to.
The minister forgot to tell the audience that he has been part of the competitive authoritarian system since 1999, that used the instrument of political violence and bad governance to create and maintain the monsters – the sheer criminals that have infiltrated the genuine struggle for justice in the region. That it is the same system that replaced the ballot box in the region with small arms and light weapons, therefore, the ultimate beneficiaries of criminality, oil bunkering inclusive.
It with this background in view in mind, that the NDCSC wishes to remind the government that the conflict in the Niger Delta is beyond what a mere ‘law and order or ‘cauldron and search’ strategy could cure. First, there are thousands, if not millions of small arms and light weapons in circulation, not just in the creeks of the delta, but in almost all the communities of the region – land and waters, that need to be removed or at best reduced. The proliferation of groups are multicaceted, well known, known and unkown. Their support base are widespread, especially so at all levels of the Nigerian administrative/political structure. The core genuine agitators in the region are effectively and intellectually structured and trained with deep root support in communities that have been at the receiving end of the evil governance of the state over time. The Nigerian security apparatus have shown themselves as forces without required intelligence data to prosecute a humane battle, but are instead profiting from the turmoil. Integrity of government globally is worse for it today.
The NDCSC once again, urge the government to take the recommendation of Niger Delta Technical Committee copiously put together based on tested experience on ground and in the trenches seriously, especially the component on an internationally recognized standard Disarmament, Demobilization, Reintegration (DDR) programme. The absolute need for a mediation and third party intervention is based on the fact that success of this measure would depend on the trust and confidence that those who lead the effort will resonate. Today, the governors of the region, are seen by majority of the citizens as part of the problem, those seen on the Amnesty Committee, especially the military that have sanctioned the latest dehumanisation of the population and communities of Gbaramatu kingdom, cannot and will not resonate the required confidence and trust to move forward.
The NDCSC therefore, urge the government to see third party intervention not necessarily as reducing the integrity of its sovereignty nor those of its soldiers, but one that enables urgent peace in the region and country as a whole; propels its respect globally and the kind of investment climate that is necessary for sustainable human and infrastructural development and growth. A Nigerian leadership that cannot place value on the lives of its citizens, swallow its ego, allow others in its times of difficulties to help in making peace at home, is a leadership that wishes to stand alone in the world, a leadership that would not have a moral scruple to ask to engage in the processes of peace elsewhere.
Nigeria in today’s world will fail alone, but will succeed together. Mr President must stop himself from being dragged off practical path by the demons of principles, politics, and the arrogance of power and into tragic failures. Power and policy issues on the Niger Delta ought to be governed by common sense, not elevated to rocket science. It is also critical for the government to learn that the power to lead is best derived from the power to solve problems in the interest of the population.
The NDCSC calls for an urgent DDR that is open, participatory, accountable , emphasize the voluntary, not forced. The open approach that commands the trust , confidence and respect of all have a better chance of helping in the gradual elimination of illicit trafficking and misuse of weapons in the hands of ex-combatants and armed gangs. Essential to DDR is ensuring that once weapons are collected, they are destroyed or stored safely, to prevent future theft or misuse. The victor and vanguished approach, approach based on military invasion and amassing of barbarous death penalty laws in the region would at best help in filling the proposed amnesty camps, as they have done in the case of Rivers State, with some non-commissioned militants, sheer criminals and the jobless, leaving the real and weapons of human destruction littered all over the place for future use. As long as there are available loose weapons, there will be those who would be tempted to live from the muzzle of a gun.
The NDCSC calls for a leadership that understands that making peace is more difficult than ordering a war. In the age of instant communication and information, civil society groups in the region that have championed the cause of peace in the region for decades, will not allow civilized world democracies to ignore the fact that over 10,000 lives have been lost in the region in the past decade by reason of state oppression and suppression; the ongoing extrajudicial executions carried out by the army of occupation throughout the region as exemplified by the graphic execution of “Boma and his brother’ recently in Rivers State, whose offence seem to be that of unsubstantiated allegation of provision of information on the Joint Military Task Force; and the stance of the governors and others which reminds of the gradual tracks that led to Hitler and other camps of genocide in recent memory. This is one debate that a combination of One Col. Rabe Abubarkar, and the entire official propaganda machine of the government cannot win nor be allowed to win locally and globally. History no doubt is not on their side.
Let us build peace that is participatory instead.
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Signed:
Anyakwee Nsirimovu
Chair
2b, Railway Close, D/Line, Humanity Suite, Port Harcourt. Rivers State. Niger Delta Region, Nigeria.
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