Some groups in the Niger Delta, Niger Delta Security Watch Organizations, the Ijaw Peoples Development Initiatives and Foundation For Human Rights and Anti-Corruption Crusade have described the latest call by President Muhammadu Buhari to begin a fresh dialogue with Niger-Delta militants as a lukewarm disposition aimed at avoiding the real issue in dispute.
The groups said the call could be described as ‘’a banana skin that ridicule the Government’s sincerity in addressing the crisis.’’
According to a joint statement signed by Dickson Bekederemo, Austin Ozobo and Alaowei Cleric Esq, the groups
Posited that, ‘’It makes no sense for Mr President to call for dialogue with the militants when he already has a barrage of demands on his table presented by a cross section of the Niger Deltans which includes the militants as a prelude to a genuine dialogue.’’
The group further advised the government to realign its alleged obnoxious and draconian laws that governed the Petroleum industry, if it must make any viable progress in addressing the problem of the Niger-Delta.
The statement in full:
Our attention have been drawn to a statement credited to President Mohammadu Buhari on the 25th of December 2016 where he was appealing to the Niger Delta militants to dialogue with the Government. While we are not averse to any genuine dialogue initiated by the Federal Government, we view the call as a lukewarm disposition of the Government to shirk from addressing the issues in dispute. The President’s call is a telltale sign that he is looking for flimsy excuses to absolve himself of the mounds of blame staring at him. His call can best be described as a banana skin that ridicule the Government’s sincerity in addressing the crisis
It makes no sense for Mr President to call for dialogue with the militants when he already has a barrage of demands in his table presented by a cross section of the Niger Deltans which includes the militants as a prelude to a genuine dialogue. It is no more secret that the militants while heeding to the advice of the voice of reasons, unilaterally suspended their armed campaigns in September, 2016. This culminated into the setting up of the Pan Niger Delta Dialogue Forum (PANDEF) which is made up of elders and stakeholders of the region to represent the militants in dialogue with the Government. On the 1st of November, 2016, PANDEF in a parley with Mr President, presented a 16 point demands to the Federal Government.
Almost two months after the said historic meeting by our leaders with the Federal Government, the cynical Nigerian Government has neither responded to the demands of the Niger Delta people nor initiated a Federal Government dialogue team to commence the much-talked dialogue. Who did Mr President want to blame? The militants have already acceded to the demand for dialogue and that was the reason they entrusted their leaders to dialogue on their behalf. Buhari cannot press-gang the Niger Delta people into doing his bidding. The road to dialogue has already been opened. He cannot hold the people in limbo, using one illusory dialogue as an excuse, while he has the solution in his palm.
Judging from the said comment attributed to Mr President, we believed that the reason the Government is foot dragging in addressing the Niger Delta conundrum is because of the knotty issue of resource control which centred the demands of the Niger Delta people. The President cannot feign ignorance of the importance of resource control to addressing the Niger Delta crisis. Resource ownership by the component States that make up the Federation will not only usher the country into an unimaginable economic growth but it will also engender ethno-religious cohesion among the diverse ethnic groups in the Country. It is naive and anachronistic for the Federal Government to rely on its repressive laws which bequeathed the ownership of oil to the central Government. It is surprising that while the Country’s maladroit laws parted with ownership of oil in the Federal Government, there are no similar laws that give exclusive ownership of solid minerals in the Federal Government. It is obvious that the oil laws were deliberately enacted to steal from the minorities tribes. In the words of late Bola lge (SAN), “All Nigerians are thieves, stealing the property of the NIGER-DELTA. Nigerians have stolen the treasure of the NIGER-DELTA and if care is not taken, we will face the wrath of God because, it is a sin to continue to plunder the resources of the people.” Mr president who anchored his campaign slogan on integrity and honesty and as a true Muslim, we expected him to not only speak against these unjust laws but also take a deliberate step to remedy the wrongs of the past against the helpless people of NIGER-DELTA.
For the Government to secure lasting solution in addressing the logjams in the Niger Delta, it needs to rejig its obnoxious and draconian laws that governed the Petroleum industry. There is no where in the world ownership of natural resources is given to foreigners while the real owners are reduced to a mere beggars who begged to eat the crumbs left in the table of the feudal lords. This is just a meretricious policy of the Government that will continue to bit off peace in the region for as long as the policy stays.
