The carnage going on presently in the villages of Ijaw should be a source of concern not only to the people of Nigeria but to the international community who may be indirectly instigating it because of the negative impact the Niger Delta crisis has had on the price of oil at the international market. Of a truth, the Niger Delta freedom struggle and agitations for more government attention have been hijacked by criminally minded hoodlums who have exploited every volatile opportunity to perpetrate acts of kidnapping, rape, murder, robbery, vandalism and sabotage of the genuine agitation of Niger Delta loving individuals and groups hence, the resolve of the Federal Government to stamp out acts of criminality in the region. What is however bewildering is the blatant and callous bombardment of villages with children and women being directly or indirectly targeted. Worse still is the absence of any emergency efforts to evacuate and relocate innocent civilians caught up in the fiery crossfire.
It is a pity that a government which is supposed to be protecting lives and property of her citizens is taking a decisive action to annihilate same with impunity. The ambush and killing of JTF soldiers by MEND is highly condemnable but the government's retaliatory response to the detriment of innocent civilians is equally repugnant. Can criminality be quenched with genocide? What the Umaru Musa led government of Nigeria is doing is reminiscent of what his predecessor did in Udi that left scars that will take years to heal. The Niger Delta has been the goose laying the golden egg for Nigeria since the discovery of oil but successive governments have only milked the region without doing anything to address the ecological and environment challenges faced by the region as a result of oil exploration. These villages rely on their water for livelihood but incessant pollution of their water has made life unbearably difficult for them, hence, their survival has been at the mercy of the elements.
They lack schools, potable water, electricity, health centres, roads to name but a few and yet the resources exploited from their God-given land has developed places like Lagos, Abuja, Kaduna, etc. How does the government expect a people so shortchanged and neglected to be happy with the Nigerian state? How does the government not expect that a child denied access to education and modern ways of living will take to militancy? The Nigerian government has consistently reaped from the Niger Delta without ploughing back and the accummulation of it has exploded into the die-hard form of militancy we are seeing today in that region. Sadly enough, it is this same cry for attention that took the lives of Isaac Adaka Boro and Ken Saro Wiwa to name a few and yet that cry is to be heeded adequately. The establishment of the Niger Delta Ministry was a step in the right direction taken rather late and the annoying budgetary allocation to it for the 2009 fiscal year lays credence to the fact that government is yet to be totally committed and sincere to tackling the Niger Delta injustice.
Now, rather than engage these elements in a meaningful dialogue towards resolving the crisis once and for all, the government has been palying hide and sick with the trial of Okar while paying some supposed war lords behind the back. It is not enough to grant the militants amnesty without addressing the root cause of the militancy. The crux of the matter is that, that region deserves a sincere effort at developing it in terms of infrastuctural and human development. When children are shown the way to school when they are supposed to, their energy will be saved for something productive rather than militancy. When a man is fed, he will cease to be an angry lion. The onus of bringing normalcy to the Niger Delta region lies with the government and not the militants by doing what is expected of it. For now, what is expected of it is to put an immediate halt to the genocide in Ijaw villages and activate its emergency machinery to take care of the displaced and wounded.
Kingsley Ogbuji
Texas, U.S.A
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