By Jerome-Mario Utomi
An African proverb states that the way a chimpanzee walks seamlessly reveals that it is not a happy animal’. Likewise, if a visit is made to the crude oil-bearing communities in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, such a visitor will discover without labour that they are not happy people. This visible unhappiness is rooted in protracted underdevelopment, degradation and brazen neglect by state actors and private interests, which characterizes the environment.
Essentially, this concern over the poor environment partially explains the repertoire of literature covering the various epochs of the Region. Part of the literature is written objectively to ‘genuinely address the development challenges of the people while part of the literature was tilted to satisfy some sectional and personal interests’.
To arrest the drifting situation and address the protracted underdevelopment, successive federal governments in the country at different times and places created institutions to assist tackle the underdevelopment challenge that characterizes the region.
These institutions and agencies (past and present) include but are not limited; The Niger Delta Development Board (NDDB) created in the 1960s (rested). Oil Mineral Area Development Commission (OMPADEC) (rested), Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs and Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP), among others.
The above efforts and initiatives notwithstanding, analysts believe that the frustration, marginalization, alienation and poverty in the Region stems from, and have its roots in a piece of legislation that makes oil minerals the sole property of the Federal Government of Nigeria in section 44(3) of the 1999 Constitution which, in part provides, the entire property in and control of minerals, mineral oil and natural gas in, under or upon any land in Nigeria or in, under or upon the territorial waters and exclusive economic zone of Nigeria vested in the government of the Federation and shall be managed in such manner as may be prescribed by the national assembly.
In fact, there are signs that unless something theatrical is done to holistically serve and save the people of the region from infrastructural backwardness and other multifaceted challenges such as galloping youth unemployment, chances are that in the near future, a crisis that may unnerve the people and cause the region to tremble for safety may occur.
What the above information tells us as a nation is that more work needs to be done and more reforms to be made particularly by the government to assist douse the doubt which presently flourishes within the region.
The facts are there and speak for it.
Take, as an illustration, a recent summit held in Delta state, with participants, drawn from the academia, members of specialized groups, presidential amnesty beneficiaries, and students at various institutions of higher learning in the country among others, to proffer solutions to Niger Delta challenge, the gathering queried the Federal Government’s current non-participatory approach to development in the region, as well as its protracted inabilities to embrace a broad-based consultative approach that will give the people of the Niger Delta some sense of ownership over their issues.
While noting that the challenges confronting the Niger Delta as a region dates back to the 15th century, the gathering submitted that to effectively resolve the Niger Delta crisis, the government and other Nigerians should begin to see the problem of the Niger Delta as a national one and not restricted to the region.
Participants were particularly not happy that greed, selfishness, tribalism and brazen absence of political will arising from poor leadership in the country, have become potent factors that derailed the well-conceived PAP created to tackle youth restiveness resulting from galloping unemployment in the region as well as hindered the actualization of Federal Government proposed but now abandoned modular refineries in the region.
Noting that for the challenges presently confronting the region to be frontally tackled, Federal Government must take both practical and pragmatic steps to hold a sincere conversation with Niger Deltans aimed at operationalising modular refineries in the region anchored on the tripod of receipt system, transparent pricing and supervised via a statutory body established by enabling acts for that purpose/objective.
They further regretted that 14 years after the presidential proclamation, the programme has neither dealt with the fundamentals of the Niger Delta struggle nor faithfully addressed the three pillars of the Amnesty Programme: Disarmament, rehabilitation and reintegration; but painfully left the targeted beneficiaries of the programme more as victims of political deceit and manipulation by selfish politicians and other non-state actors that have recently hijacked the programme.
While they observed that the amnesty programme had become a cesspool of corruption and avenues for revenue leakages which must be blocked for efficient management of the programme, the group argued that the Presidential Amnesty Office must stop giving handouts to beneficiaries and in its place develop a workable and democratized roadmap that will ensure that all amnesty beneficiaries are gainfully employed or adequately empowered.
The gathering, therefore, called on the federal government to strengthen PAP to achieve its original Strategic Implementation Action Plan designed to massively develop the Niger Delta, which unfortunately has been ignored for a very long time by the federal government.
Still on the urgent need to have PAP revamped for optimum delivery on its mandate, this piece considers the imperative that the Federal Government and other relevant stakeholders critically x-ray the concern recently expressed by Alabo Nengi James, second National Vice President, Ijaw National Congress (INC), at a function held in Warri, Delta state where he among other fears noted that the Presidential Amnesty Programme is failing in its responsibilities because it was executed with militarization, rather than with civilianization.
Nengi further stressed that the Amnesty Programme was poorly handled by military elements, which lacked the capacity for mediation. Stakeholders were not given enough opportunities through the Post Amnesty Conference to discuss the best ways to implement the Amnesty Programme. The Presidential Amnesty office lacks the personnel with the requisite skills set to manage the Amnesty Programme.
The Presidential Amnesty proclamation, he continued, did not factor in mediation and conflict transformation. This is sequel to the poor strategic conflict assessment of the Niger Delta struggle. Amnesty is no instrument for conflict resolution or conflict management. Amnesty is a general pardon of offence by the government. It is a deliberate overlooking of offences against a government. It is a pardon to release criminally culpable persons from the just punishment of the law.
For me, it will be highly rewarding if agencies such as the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP) take practical steps to employ the large army of professionally trained ex-militants from the region who are currently without jobs.
Talking about youth unemployment in Nigeria, a report recently puts it this way: “We are in a dire state of strait because unemployment has diverse implications. Security-wise, a large unemployed youth population is a threat to the security of the few that are employed.
To get started, it will be rewarding in my view, if the federal government by President Ahmed Bola Tinubu through the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs gets the NDDC adequately funded to carry out more people oriented legacy projects and programmes.
The above call is predicated on the fact that the NDDC governing board is presently peopled with Nigerians who are well informed, self-contained and quietly influential, who are willing, ready and eager to bring the region and its people out of its present infrastructural and socioeconomic woods.
Also working in favour of the above demand for more funding is the rock-solid reality that human beings, which include Niger Deltans are won over by the present, far more than by the past, and when they decide that what is being done here and now is good, they content themselves with that, and do not go looking for anything else.
Finally, in addition to the federal government addressing all the fears raised by stakeholders, the PAP handlers should on their part, devise more creative ways to handle the current youth unemployment challenge particularly that of the trained ex-militants and other similar challenges that have to do with students scholarship among others.
These are little efforts that will lead to great results in 2024.
Jerome-Mario Utomi is the Programme Coordinator (Media and Public Policy) for Social and Economic Justice Advocacy (SEJA), Lagos. He can be reached via [email protected]/08032725374