Buhari, War And The Niger Delta

By Paul Onomuakpokpo  

It is mystifying that President Muhammadu Buhari has chosen to capriciously shatter the prospect of peace in the Niger Delta through his massive deployment of troops and weapons in the region. The deployment came at a time the agitators for socio-economic justice in the oil-producing region, especially the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA), have agreed to dialogue with the government.

Buhari and Army Chief, Buratai

The agreement came after much hesitation apparently because the agitators understood the remorseless penchant of successive governments to treat the issue of the ecological disaster and economic deprivation spawned by oil exploration in the region with disdain. Despite their doubts, the agitators have expressed their sincerity by suspending the bombing of oil facilities.

Of course, we should have known that Buhari considered war in the region inevitable. For while apparently leaving the option of dialogue open, Buhari has consistently threatened that he would deal with the Niger Delta agitators the way he crushed Boko Haram insurgents. Buhari may have drawn inspiration from the strident calls from some northern leaders for him to bomb agitators like Boko Haram insurgents. By their position, these northern leaders have lumped up the agitation in the Niger Delta in the same cauldron of misguided religious and blood-thirsty ideology of Boko Haram insurgents.
So what is unfolding in the Niger Delta is only a manifestation of a coveted agenda of Buhari that has escaped the veneer of  pretensions to foster peaceful dialogue to resolve the problems of the region. Buhari only wanted the agitators to lay down their weapons so that he could deploy his own in the region.

The fact that the agitators have declared a ceasefire has rendered the option of war patently chauvinistic. What is needed is for the government to continue with the option of dialogue. Buhari’s acceptance of the option of war amounts to blithely glossing over the fact that there are issues in the Niger Delta that need to be responded to appropriately. These are issues of socio-economic injustice in the region. Here are a people whose oil wealth has been used to develop other parts of the country while they have become impoverished. This has been the situation for over five decades.

The nation and its leaders have not deemed it necessary to engage in a comprehensive agenda to improve the environment, except some sporadic and facetious efforts. Now, the oil funds from the region are now being used to search for oil in the northern part of the country. If oil is found there, would the northerners allow people from the Niger Delta to be the prime beneficiaries? Would they allow them to be those that would lead supervisory agencies and dictate the terms for intervention in those areas where oil is produced in the north?