The practice of true federalism in Nigeria and the equitable distribution
of the nation’s oil wells domiciled in the Niger Delta region is the only
guarantee for peace in the volatile region, Niger Delta Environmental and
Rights activist, Ann-Kio Briggs, has said.
She stated this while speaking on a television programme.
Speaking on lasting solutions to the violent agitation in the region,
Briggs, who was a member of the 2014 National Conference convened by
former President Goodluck Jonathan, said the injustice meted out to the
people of the region by the federal government and oil companies gave room
to hostility in the region.
Her reaction followed sustained bombing of oil pipelines in the region
forcing a drastic cut in the nation’s oil output. Even with government’s
decision to withdraw the deployment of troops in the region and limit them
to manning the waterways, the Niger Delta Avengers and other militant
groups have continued to bomb pipelines and threatened to unleash missile
strikes on Abuja, the nation’s seat of power.
“We must sit down and find a way round how Niger Delta people will have
opportunity to utilise what is in their region to develop themselves and
secure their future.
“The people are complaining that all the oil wells in the Niger Delta,
apart from the ones that the federal government is sharing with oil
companies, about 90 percent or more of those oil wells, for the past 20 to
30 years, have been in the custody of Nigerians who are not from the
Niger Delta region.
“They are not contributing to the development of the communities where
they are making these billions of dollars.
“If anybody is saying we are not being reasonable by feeling offended by
such captivation, we are moving round in circles because people will
continue to feel aggrieved.
“It doesn’t matter where the resource is. If it is handled and shared and
denied the people the way it is being denied the Niger Delta people, it
doesn’t matter where in Nigeria, those people will actually agitate. And,
these are the core reasons and we must address the core reasons,” she
said.
She endorsed government’s dialogue with stakeholders and the militant as
the way forward.
“We must remind ourselves in Nigeria that politics is not a war. It is
not a situation of winners take all. It is not a situation where a group
of people will determine that they have conquered certain group of people
in Nigeria. We are equal partners in the Nigeria project,” she said in a
chat with Channels TV.
