No amount of Amnesty program will bring lasting peace to the Niger Delta because only about ten percent of the population who are able to carry AK 47 riffles will continue to be beneficiaries. President Buhari should stop running after shadows in the Niger Delta. Let the states control fifty percent of their resources and contribute the rest to the center! Otherwise, the present arrangement will continue to breed tension, acrimony, militancy and calls for right to self-rule as it is being canvased by the likes of Nnamdi Kanu, Niger Delta Avengers etc., across the nation.
Pebbles with Igbotako Nowinta
What is happening today in the Niger Delta reminds me of some of the terrible atrocities the British colonialists committed against some powerful monarchies in what was known as the ‘Niger area’ then.
If the punitive expedition carried out against the Benin Empire was one of the bloodiest crimes on the pages of history, what do we call the inhuman treatment carried out against King Jaja of Opobo by the same imperialists?
Then the fantastic black gold, known as crude oil had not been discovered. King Jaja was humiliated because he stood on the way of the colonial masters who wanted to control absolutely, the palm oil trade and other lucrative in the naturally blessed part of Nigeria.
As soon as the bell of independence was wrung in Nigeria in 1960, another gang of oppressors took over, who gradually became internal colonialists. Who are the internal colonialists?
The internal colonialists (Military) manifested clearly in July 1966 via one of the bloodiest coup d’état on the continent of Africa.
The masterminds of the plot that killed General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi and company were not clear headed; they were parochial, ignorant and tribalistic lunatics.
For me they wasted General Aguiyi-Ironsi for nothing and went on to institute a reckless, selfish and insane agenda that has systematically placed Nigeria where we are today.
How did they start it? General Yakubu Gowon who succeeded Ironsi went berserk and threw whatever was left of a true federalism into the gutter by reversing the derivation formula.
General Yakubu Gowon started messing up with the nation’s derivation formula by slashing it from 50%, where it was during the first republic, to 30%.
Gowon performed the act of treachery by slashing section 140(6) of the 1963 Constitution (that dealt with payment of derivation of oil proceeds from the region) and in its place, slammed The Offshore Oil Revenues Decree No 9 of 1971.
The same cruel decree transferred the ownership of Territorial Waters, Continental Shelf, and Offshore Revenues right into the hands of the then federal military government.
We must not forget quickly that during the first republic, where groundnuts pyramid flourished in the North etc., it was pegged at 50% for each existing regions then.
Shehu Shagari, Olusegun Obasanjo, Muhammadu Buhari, Ibrahim Babangida did their own cutting drastically until it was finally pegged at 13% inside the 1999 Constitution.
The point being made here is that the various leaders that have presided over the affairs of this country have united against the people of the Niger Delta, nay the ordinary people of Nigeria.
For example, characters like Theophilous Danjuma, Jeremiah Useni, etc. that allegedly shot and murdered General Aguiyi-Ironsi are fabulously rich today while the nation is crawling miserably.
They wasted Ironsi because the guy tried to practice a unification decree in 1966, but sadly today what do we have?
We have a system one hundred percent worse than unitary system! We now have an over-centralized and highly concentrated federal system; a system that has turned every state in the federation into glorified beggars and paupers.
Now the Niger Delta is boiling again with Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) and all sorts of groups trying to prove one point or the other.
While the production of oil is being massively affected as a result of bombings being unleashed by NDA and others, the nation’s economy is in dire strait!
At the end of the day who feels the brunt? The brunt bearers remain the masses in the Niger Delta, and all over the country!
Unfortunately, President Buhari’s body language is not different from past leaders; at the moment he is desperately encouraging the search for oil in the Lake Chad basin, because he is running away from reality.
The reality is that the country cannot blossom effectively without restructuring, and true federalism.
Late sage Obafemi Awolowo saw it long ago. What we have is artificial federalism.
Any strategy that will leave out uncompromising fiscal federalism, restructuring and authentic federal system in Nigeria, such as it is obtainable in the United States and other true federal systems in the world will be like chasing the shadows, because there will continue to be peace of the grave yard!
No amount of Amnesty program will bring lasting peace to the Niger Delta because only about ten percent of the population who are able to carry AK 47 riffles will continue to be beneficiaries.
President Buhari should stop running after shadows in the Niger Delta.
Let the states control fifty percent of their resources and contribute the rest to the center! Otherwise, the present arrangement will continue to breed tension, acrimony, militancy and calls for right to self-rule as it is being canvased by the likes of Nnamdi Kanu, Niger Delta Avengers etc., across the nation.
And the earlier the Nigerian nation run away from dependency on oil alone as a source of gigantic revenue, the better it will be.
May be if President Buhari sees oil in commercial quantity somewhere in the North, he will yield to our common sense alternative – true federalism.
Nowinta wrote: Where We Are – A Call for Democratic Revolution in Nigeria
