By Igbotako Nowinta
This unkindest milking and siphoning of our God-given resources by non indigenes, who are sitting somewhere in Bauchi, Kafanchan, Kano, Lagos, etc., while our brothers and sisters in Warri, Calabar, Port Harcourt and elsewhere in the riverine areas are living in stark penury must be stopped. Poor indigenes of the oil-producing communities in Nigeria remain disease-stricken, and are being daily driven to their early graves because of chronic environmental pollution in the Niger Delta – an injury too painful to continue to experience. The legendary fiery African-American abolitionist, Frederick Douglas once said: “power concedes nothing without demand. It never did and it never will.” Flowing from the above, therefore, we as a people must try and stop the on-going breakneck speed and flagrant disregard for decency and caution being employed by the oil blocks billionaires and enemies of the common man.
Eric Blair was not only a key witness of the wholesale horror of the Second World War, but a soldier who defended the British flag known as the Union Jack.
As a demobilized soldier, he fell totally back to writing, which had been his passionate engagement. Meanwhile, some of the issues that dominated the headlines during the monumental pogrom, called world war ll sank into his mind.
Therefore, he put pen to paper and wrote one of the greatest satires in human history titled: ‘Animal Farm’ In writing Animal Farm, Eric Blair decided to use the sobriquet or pen name, George Orwell, for reasons best known to him.
Orwell’s Animal Farm was destined to intoxicate readers of his generation, as it still staggers us today.
In Animal Farm, we saw a group of animals that felt brutalized, cheated and bastardized by their master, and chose to conspire against him.
After succeeding to chase Mr. Jones, their master out of the ‘Animal Farm,’ they took charge of the farm and agreed to operate a system of egalitarianism, saying ‘all animals are equal.’
But unfortunately, at the end of the day, the animals in ‘Animal Farm’ fell miserably into a manipulative intriguing scenario, where some of them decided to play the role of Mr. Jones, their former master.
The ‘rat race’ that became the ‘Animal Farm’ produced a dramatic alteration to their original slogan as follows: “all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.”
It is imperative to quickly add that the Anima Farm was written to ridicule the then Soviet Union under communist grip.
Honestly, the can of worms that took over the red chamber of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, recently, when Senator Enang reeled out the incredible lopsidedness in the ownership of oil blocks in Nigeria, reminds me about Mr. Jones and the animals in George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
Here is vintage Senator Enang during the plenary session in the Senate: “Now it is still said that the Niger Delta is taking too much when one person is taking from the profit he makes from each of the oil blocks more than what even the derivation that the totality of the states are taking.”
In 1960, on behalf of the people of Nigeria, the nationalist fighters took power from the British colonialists and promised us a nation of freedom, democracy, equality and progress.
The various ethnic nationalities, Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, Ijoh, Edo, Ibibio, etc. entered into an artificial alliance that was midwifed by the colonial masters, which satisfied their hidden economic agenda to the detriment of the so-called union.
60 years after, today, what we see is worse than treachery, democratic insanity and unprecedented manipulations of the wealth of the nation by a few uncaring opportunists in our midst.
Why is the Petroleum Industry Bill encountering storming sessions and controversy each time it comes up to be debated on the floor of the Senate? Why has the bill still not been passed given the enormous advantages in it for the growth and progress of the nation? Who are the enemies of the PIB?
How could we continue to exist as a nation when few individuals can buy and sell our patrimony at their beck and call? Why have the present political masters toying with this type of extremely advantageous Bill?
Those who have persistently ensured the greatest form of inequality, robbery and enslavement through their opportunistic closeness to political power in Nigeria must be disrobed, exposed and incapacitated.
It takes courage, tenacity and perseverance to knock down this type of engine of gory imbalance and cruelty; this animal farm in Nigeria – ‘privileged oil blocks’ being exploited by a greedy cabal of super billionaires, must be decapitated.
This is what we demand from the present Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, to force through this overdue Petroleum Industry Bill, at all cost and by all means. We all must stand shoulder to shoulder with Senator Enang to stop this reign of rogues, hypocrites and bullies.
This daylight oppression, exploitation and dehumanization of the majority by the minority are outrageous. It is excruciating to know that oil blocks multi-billionaires are intent on extracting the last juice out of the hapless majority.
What is going on currently in the distribution of the oil blocks is criminality, pure and simple; it is one of the most scathing and baleful acts of merchants of corruption, and ardent opponents of collective progress and prosperity.
The Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ) is a household name in this struggle, and this is the most auspicious time in the history of our country, for all civil society organizations working on the extractive industry, to demonstrate pragmatic alliance, to achieve this all important statutory instrument once and for all.
Why l is not a sympathizer of the activities of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), being led by Daniel Kanu and his crowd, but in a nation where the goose that is laying the golden eggs for our Commonwealth is being punished with hunger, Injustice and certain death, what do you expect?
The present leadership once promised us that the oil sector would be sanitized, the PIB inclusive, but what do we have? A Federal Government who reduced the pump prize of fuel in the middle of the lockdown, only to jerk it up again behind the door when the Covid 19 menace is still very much around.
Now is the time for the presidency to move in the interest of the people of Nigeria.
The Animal Farm in Nigeria, such that is being experienced in the distribution of oil blocks is odious, and a show of shame, illegality and travesty of justice.
What is tying the hands of the Federal Government from revoking the licenses of these oil blocks magnate? We need urgent explanations from the presidency?
We must no longer allow the beneficiaries of this our animal farm to continue to have a field day creating agonizing situation of being ‘more equal than the rest of us’, especially those who have made their lands available for crude oil to be explored for the benefit of all of us in Nigeria.
This unkindest milking and siphoning of our God-given resources by non indigenes, who are sitting somewhere in Bauchi, Kafanchan, Kano, Lagos, etc., while our brothers and sisters in Warri, Calabar, Port Harcourt and elsewhere in the riverine areas are living in stark penury must be stopped.
Poor indigenes of the oil-producing communities in Nigeria remain disease-stricken, and are being daily driven to their early graves because of chronic environmental pollution in the Niger Delta – an injury too painful to continue to experience.
The legendary fiery African-American abolitionist, Frederick Douglas once said: “power concedes nothing without demand. It never did and it never will.”
Flowing from the above, therefore, we as a people must try and stop the on-going breakneck speed and flagrant disregard for decency and caution being employed by the oil blocks billionaires and enemies of the common man.
Nowinta Igbotako wrote: Where we are – A call for democratic revolution in Nigeria.
