By Ray Ekpu
The story
is not one of an earthquake proportion but it seems to cause some excitement in
high and low places. And what is the story? That former President Goodluck
Jonathan is on exile in the Ivory
Coast . He has countered the story sharply
and angrily. “I am not on exile. I have
no cause to go on exile. It is a wicked and malicious report. I was Vice
President for two years and President for six years. I did everything I could
and I served my country very well. This is what they keep saying any time I am
outside the country. I was in Ecuador .
They said I was on exile. This is my second time in Cote
d’ Ivoire and I am rounding up my visit. It is a wicked attempt to link me with
the renewed Niger
Delta crisis.”
*Ray Ekpu (pix:vanguard) |
Let’s
connect the dots. There is a crisis in the Niger Delta. Pipelines are being
broken by militants who seem to have issues with the President Buhari
administration. Jonathan is from Bayelsa, a major theatre of this crisis. Some
of Jonathan’s former executives have been pulled in by the EFCC on allegations
of corruption: Badeh, Diezani Allison-Madueke, Sambo Dasuki, Femi Fani-Kayode,
etc. Could it be that the militants think the government is trying to get their
man? Does the government think these militants are sponsored by Jonathan to
destabilise the government or to prevent the government from getting him if
indeed they think he has some explaining to do about how he ran the country?
Jonathan has
given himself a brilliant self-assessment. The report card issued by him on him
reads A plus. That is reflected in his statement: “I served my country very well.”
But does the EFCC think so? The Nation newspaper quotes an unnamed
EFCC source as saying that although “Jonathan
has been implicated in all transactions under its investigation the
ex-President was not yet its target.” The “yet” in that sentence is very
important, isn’t it?
The truth
of the matter is that going by what has been revealed in court so far Jonathan
must have made some questionable approvals. But no corruption has been directly
traced to him so far. If Jonathan is “implicated in all transactions” so far
investigated as the EFCC claims why is he not yet its target? Is it hoping to get
more worms crawling out of the can? Or is it waiting for orders from “oga at
the top?” or is it gauging the temperature of the Niger Delta or of the country
to be able to determine whether or not to go for the big fish?
Let me give
you a parable. In 1983, Dele Giwa was the editor of the Sunday Concord and I the
Chairman of the Editorial Board of the Concord
group of newspapers. Dele was arrested by Sunday Adewusi’s policemen for
publishing “classified government
information.” I was arrested for an article titled “Sodom
and Gomorrah ”
in which I alerted the public about the tactics of corrupt people: whenever
there was fraud they would set the place on fire to obliterate the evidence.
There was a huge fraud at the Nigerian External Telecommunications and I warned
the government to keep watch lest the arsonists destroy the documents. The
place was set on fire the day after my article was published. One person died
in the incident. I was charged with murder, the press dubbed it “murder by
pen.”
Dele and I
were detained at Ikoyi Prison. Chief Moshood Abiola, the proprietor of Concord was
a member of the National Party of Nigeria, NPN. He had stormed out of the party
when he was schemed out of the presidential race. So the relationship between
Abiola and the government was mortuary-cold. Our arrest and detention were seen
by Abiola as an attempt to get at him. When he came to visit us at Ikoyi prison
he gave us the parable of the ant and a cube of sugar. He said that the reason
ants are only able to nibble at a cube of sugar is that they can’t carry it
away. They would like to swallow the entire cube of sugar but since they can’t
they just nibble at it. He told us he is the real target, the cube of sugar.
Before he left the prison he pushed a wad of naira notes into the hands of the
warder and told him “please give them whatever they want.” When Abiola left,
the warder asked us what we wanted. We both said “cognac.” He brought it at
three times the market cost. Cognac
is a luxury drink. In prison it is a super luxury drink.
*Jonathan and Buhari |
So is
Jonathan the real target, the main man on the EFCC radar, the cube of sugar
that the ants would like to carry away if they can? Well, when Buhari assumed
power he dropped this quotable quote: “Jonathan
has nothing to fear from me.” Did that mean that if he had committed a
criminal offence while in office he will not be called to account? Or was the
agreement brokered by the former Head of State, Abdulsalami Abubakar, before
the election which was signed by all the presidential candidates omnibus? Did
it have room for the forgiveness of sins whether these sins are as black as
charcoal or as red as crimson? Or has Buhari changed his mind despite the
acknowledgement by many people that if Jonathan had not accepted defeat by
congratulating Buhari, Buhari may not have been sitting where he is sitting
now? But all of these are in the realm of conjecture. In the fullness of time,
we will know what we need to know.
Cote d’
Ivoire seems to be a favourite country for Nigeria ’s fugitive offenders. Emeka
Odumegwu-Ojukwu was in exile in that country for several years after the
collapse of Biafra . In fact, Cote d’ Ivoire was the only country in West
Africa that recognised Biafra . Many years
later, some wanted coup plotters from Nigeria found solace in that
beautiful country. But it doesn’t appear that Jonathan is on exile even though
he is known to be quite friendly with the leadership of that country. Abidjan is seen by many Africans as the Paris of Africa,
and those who would like to see Paris without
going there go merrily to Abidjan .
Jonathan can afford to go to Paris but what is
wrong with him going to Abidjan
for business or for pleasure.
*Dele Giwa |
The crisis
in the Niger Delta must be situated properly. It is not about Jonathan. It is
about surveillance contracts which some of the youths feel have been denied to
Niger Deltans after Jonathan’s exit. It is also about employment opportunities
or lack of them. The current Amnesty programme in the Niger Delta is simply a
palliative, not a cure-all. There are 6000 kilometres of
pipelines in the Niger Delta, snaking through people’s backyards and farmlands.
If the people do not feel they are the owners of these assets the crisis will
continue. People must be able to feel they own the pipelines. If we do not
involve the communities in the protection of these assets, all our efforts will
be in vain.
Dr.
Emmanuel Egbogah who was the Special Adviser to President Olusegun Obasanjo on
Petroleum, owns an oil company. He works within the oil communities. He told
conferees at a Newswatch colloquium on the Niger Delta some years ago that he
gave the community where he operates a certain percentage of the shares and he
has been operating seamlessly since then. No wahala.
The
controversy about the PIB granting certain percentage of oil proceeds to the
communities is unnecessary. If we don’t think the communities matter, they will
continue to prove that they matter. The same problem has hindered solid
minerals development over the years. Since these minerals exist in all states
of the federation we need to come up with appropriate legislation that factors
in state, local government and community interests if we want to have smooth
operations in these territories.
The kind of
partisan politics we play in this country does not allow us to see clearly and
think clearly. If we choose to think that the communities where we have both
liquid and solid minerals do not matter in the booty sharing equation, then we
will continue to stagnate and starve ourselves of the abundant fruits of these
resources.
*Ray
Ekpu, the Chief Executive of Newswatch Communications Limited, writes a weekly column
for The Guardian
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