By Dan Amor
To all intents and purposes, the raging war in the South South
geopolitical zone between irate militants and the security forces is needless
and avoidable. Unfortunately, Niger Delta youths have once again played their
much-abused region which, ironically, produces the wealth of the nation, into
the willing hands of the establishment under the watch of a central government
with an unstated or hidden agenda to totally exterminate the goose that lays
the golden egg from the face of the earth. Even while the region was yet
relatively peaceful, when the reawakened restiveness had not reached
fever-pitch, President Muhammadu Buhari, even in his inaugural speech alluded
to how he would combat and defeat Boko Haram and Niger Delta militants. One can
then safely assume that the current war is directly or indirectly orchestrated
by the powers that be just to create room for them to execute their plan
against the region.
|
(pix: amnesty) |
Yet, a fact too potent to be disputed, is that the deepening grouse
of the people of the oil rich Niger Delta has largely gravitated to the growing
consciousness that what the Nigerian state and the international monopoly oil
companies take from their soil is not commensurate with what they give in
terms of provision of social amenities, quality of life and the maintenance of
a delicate balance between the human being and the natural environment. While
not supporting the wanton destruction of major oil installations in the Niger
Delta and its concomitant degradation of the national economy, reason, no
doubt, resides in this claim of neglect, which has further been justified and
accentuated by the predatory disposition of some of the oil companies with the
collaborative instincts of successive Nigerian governments over the years.
Most of these governments were military dictatorships lacking the requisite
legitimacy, sufficient political will and constitutional mandate to protect the
people and their environment.
As at Tuesday this week (May 31, 2016), the Senate and House of
Representatives joint committee on Niger Delta Development Commission, (NDDC),
had issued bench warrant on seven oil companies operating in the Niger Delta
region for failing to appear before a public hearing to defend themselves over
allegation of non-remittance of statutory funds to the commission for the
development of the region. That is how the multinational oil companies have
been treating with levity issues relating to the development of the region due
to their disdain for the laws of the land. Attitudes of successive Nigerian
governments actually created a dangerous class-a totally frustrated
population- who now see the multinational oil companies and government as
conspirators in the unholy and rapacious plot to drive them permanently out of
their ancestral homes in order to have free reign out the oil. Former
president Olusegun Obasanjo was spending N200million daily to maintain the
Joint Task Force in the region whereas the people were dying from hunger and
want. The persistent Niger Delta crisis is therefore an economic process
caught in a political web.