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With the Nigeria’s economy floundering, the Nigerian nation needs all the revenue it can get to normalise things and restoring peace in the Niger Delta will ensure that that avenue of getting revenue is not stopped which necessitated the tour embarked upon by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Monday, January 16
| By Olu Ojewale | Jan 30, 2017 @ 01:00 GMT |
FOR the year 2017, the Nigerian government has proposed N7.298 trillion budget, as against the N6.06 trillion figures for the previous year. Finance for the budget is expected from an aggregate revenue of N4.94 trillion of which oil is projected to contribute N1.985 trillion, based on oil output of 2.2 million barrel per day and exchange rate N305 to a United States dollar.
The only variable in the proposal is that the Senate on Wednesday, January 18, finally approved the revised version of the 2017-2019 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper, MTEF/FSP and increased the oil benchmark from the proposed $42.5 to $44.5.
As the proposal indicates, N1.985 trillion is expected from the crude oil export from the Niger Delta region. This is the more reason the restiveness in the Niger Delta has been a major concern for every Nigerian. Invariably, the concern also, apparently prompted President Muhammadu Buhari to send Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on tour of the region on Monday, January 16.
As planned, Osinbajo was in Delta State on Monday and Tuesday, and he is expected back in the region at later date when he would visit Bayelsa and Rivers State to be announced by government.
As emissary of the president, Osinbajo visited various important places and held talks with leaders of the Niger Delta on the plans of the government on how to develop the region. He, therefore, called for an end to repeated attacks on oil and gas facilities in the restive region, warning there would be no development in the area without peace.
The VP flagged off the visit on Monday, in Osceola, Gbaramatu Kingdom, Warri South-West Local Government of Delta State, where he promised that the federal government would treat Niger Delta as a special zone and therefore, appealed for cooperation of all stakeholders of the region to embrace peace. He said: “Fellow citizens, to ensure that the future is not worse than it is today and to prepare for a great and promising future for the Gbaramatu Kingdom and the Delta as a whole, three things must happen.
“Firstly, we must recognise the unique environment and terrain challenges of the Niger Delta. We must also recognise that the Niger Delta is a special place and special economic zone, then we must treat it as a special development zone.”
Osinbajo said treating the zone as special zone would require the cooperation of stakeholders such as the federal government, state governments, national assembly representatives from the region alongside the NDDC and the civil society representatives of the Niger Delta people to sit together and develop a plan for rapid development.
“I have come with a message for the people of the Gbaramatu Kingdom and the people of the Niger Delta as a whole. It is a short message and I quote ‘we must prepare for the future,’” he said.
In preparing for the future, he said there must be infrastructure development such as building of schools, hospitals, roads, among others. “The Niger Delta of today is that of daily pipeline vandalisation. In 2014 alone, there were over 3,700 incidents of pipeline vandalisation. From January to June 2016, there were over 1,447 incidents of vandalisation.
“The Niger Delta of today, aside from environmental degradation, between 1998 and 2016, over 20,000 persons have died from fire incidents arising from breaches of pipelines. Illiteracy is poor, thousands of health challenges especially from environmental degradation.
“My message to you today: it is time to prepare for the future. It is not the future of degradation, poor infrastructure and it is not the future of no roads. It is not the future of harassment and locking up.”
Before embarking on his journey, Osinbajo had taken to his Tweeter feed where he wrote: “Starting on Monday, January 16, I’ll be leading a high-level FG delegation to oil-producing communities interacting with people in 3 states. President Buhari is fully committed to finding lasting and negotiated solutions to secure the peace and prosperity of the Niger Delta and Nigeria.
“The interactions will start in Delta State and then we proceed to Bayelsa & Rivers States at a later date to be announced soon.”
Accompanied by Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State and Ibe Kachiku, minister of state for Petroleum Resources, the visits to various communities in the state afforded the government to know their grievances and concerns.
At the much troubled Gbaramatu Kingdom, Warri South-West Local Government Area, the people complained that they had become more endangered and estranged by the current Nigerian state and therefore, appealed to the federal government to reconcile them back to the national union. Godspower Gbenekama, spokesman of Gbaramatu, who presented the people’s position, told Osinbajo that they expected his visit would represent a game-changer capable of building genuine confidence in the people and Niger Delta at large. He said: “Gbaramatu Kingdom is tall and rich in national oil infrastructure that enriches the nation but lamentably lacking in infrastructure that benefits the people… Gbaramatu’s entire landscape wallows in utter government neglect. It was against this backdrop that the immediate past administration established the Maritime University at Okerenkoko, the only federal government initiative that rekindled hope of meaningfully engaging restive youths and prospect of endearing the people to the Nigerian project.”
But as soon as “President Muhammadu Buhari administration was inaugurated, academic activities slated for commencement September 2015 were suspended over varied interests just as construction works at the permanent site were halted due to discontinued funding.”
Therefore, he said the people would want the take-off of the university without further delay.
Further, the people also complained about the militarisation of Gbaramatu kingdom. Gbenekama told Osinbajo: “Under the guise of searching for oil facility vandals, oil thieves and other criminals, the Nigerian military has become an army of occupation, committing serial invasions on Gbaramatu Kingdom. The consequences have been loss of several lives and properties and huge humanitarian crisis.”
Rather than the military occupation, the spokesman said the only solution to problem on ground is dialogue. “The entire Niger Delta region has embraced dialogue as symbolised by mandates for dialogue given to the Pan Niger Delta Forum, PANDEF, which could pan out a way where the people would be involved in protecting the oil resources that also benefit them. “Gbaramatu is not at war with the Federal Government. It is, therefore, our appeal and hope that your visit today will pave way for demilitarisation of the area for genuine and result-oriented dialogue. Dialogue under military occupation and harassments is dialogue in chains,” Gbenekama said.
While welcoming the Osinbajo and his entourage into his palace, on Tuesday, January 17, Ogiame Ikenwoli, Olu of Warri, Delta State, accused the federal and Delta State governments of acquiring the site of the Nigerian Maritime University, NMU, in Warri South-West Local Government Area of the state, now a matter of disagreement between Ijaw and Itsekiri ethnic groups, from impostors. The monarch, therefore, would want the federal government to appropriately acquire the NMU site from the Itsekiri people of Omadino, the lawful owners of Okerenghigho community, and not interlopers, who renamed it Okerenkoko.
There has been no love lost between the Ijaw and Itsekiri ethnic nationalities in the state over the ownership of the location of the university. While the Ijaw claim that the NMU is in Okerenkoko, a Gbaramatu-Ijaw land, the Itsekiri say it is in Okerenghigho, belonging to Omadino people of Itsekiri, which Ijaw allegedly acquired by force and renamed Okerenkoko.
Ikenwoli, however, pointed out that he was not against the university given its potential to train high level manpower, but wanted the site to be legally acquired from the true owners. He said: “But we are miffed that the government of former President Goodluck Jonathan, in connivance with the then Delta State government, purportedly acquired the land from certain individuals who possessed neither historical nor legal title to the land, and reportedly even went ahead to pay compensation to these impostors.
“Similarly, Abiteye and Uton-nanna, where there is the flow station, are illegally annexed as if they were part of Gbaramatu.
“We plead with the federal government, under President Muhammadu Buhari, to continue, and even intensify its constitutional responsibility of protection of lives and properties throughout the Niger Delta region. Criminality should be punished and not rewarded in any form, which has remained at the heart of the crisis, leading to an endless cycle of violence, reward, and then more violence and senseless destruction of oil facilities located mostly in Itsekiri areas, followed by brazen stealing of crude oil, accompanied by massive environmental pollution.
“We enjoin Mr. President to, as a matter of urgency, establish military bases in selected locations in the Escravos and Benin River axis.”
Besides, the Olu also appealed to the federal government to start the Export Processing Zone, EPZ, project which supposed to have taken off in his domain since 2015. He said: “This is a project very dear to us as a people. Ex-President Jonathan performed a colourful ground-breaking ceremony on this project at Ogidigben in 2015, and since then, nothing much has happened there. We appeal to Mr. President to use his good office to fast-track the commencement of this project, as this has huge potentials to create jobs and provide trickle-down economics for our people.
“We understand that the Federal Government will not require to finance the entire project but only to provide the basic infrastructure and the enabling security backing for the international investors, who are eager and waiting to be so encouraged.”
In his response, Osinbajo was silent on the issues raised by the monarch on the improper acquisition of the site of the NMU, a development that did not go well with the Itsekiri chiefs in the palace.
In any case, before his to the palace, he had spoken about the NMU at Oporoza, Gbaramatu Kingdom, where he disclosed that President Buhari had directed the ministry of Niger Delta Affairs to take over the university and that everything thing was being done regarding it, while the bill for its establishment had also passed the second reading in the Senate.
Nevertheless, he said the federal government was in a haste to bring lasting solution to the unrest in the Niger Delta region so that peace could prevail, arguing that it is only in peace that rapid development could be achieved.
According to the VP, the cause of underdevelopment in Niger Delta could be traced to corruption of its leaders and politicians. He, therefore, said: “The future is now, so the federal government should be encouraged to develop the area by stopping all forms of crime against oil facilities and federal government installations/institutions in Niger Delta,” bearing in mind that demand for oil has fallen all over the world as the United States, United Kingdom and other developed nations had found other alternatives to fuel energy.
So far, a good number of Niger Delta people have welcomed the peace initiative, occasioned by the 16-point agenda tabled by the Pan-Niger Delta Forum, PANDEF, led by Edwin Clark to President Buhari.
But it is very difficult to see whether the PANDEF will be able to carry along the militant groups such as the Niger Delta Avengers and Niger Delta Defence Corps, who have been vandalising oil and gas installations in the region. Oil and gas installations have been hit in the region for the past 12 months, cutting production and worsening dwindling revenue from oil sales caused by the fall in global prices. The militants responsible for the attacks say they want a fairer share of revenues for local people, most of who still live in dire poverty and with the consequences of decades of pollution from spills.
A group under the auspices of the Transparency in Petroleum Exploration Initiative, TIPEDI, has, however, called on the federal government to revoke all illegally acquired oil block licences in the Niger Delta as one of the prerequisites for peace in the region.
It, specifically, urged President Buhari and the security agencies as well as the petroleum industry regulatory agencies and the National Assembly to urgently scrutinise and terminate most of the other OML transactions entered into by Diezani Alison-Maduekwe, a former Petroleum Minister.
The TIPEDI’s position, however, seemed to contradict the stand of the Ijaw Youth Congress, IYC, which decried the singling out of the Malabu oil deal for probe, saying it was disheartening that while the other oil blocks awarded the same time and through the same process were left untouched, the Malabu oil deal had been subjected to sustained probe because it was owned by a Niger Deltan.
Nevertheless, Vincent Oyibode, national secretary of the Urhobo Youth Leaders Association, UYLA, would want everyone to know that the PANDEF, comprising all the ethnic nationalities of Niger Delta, including the youths, was the only body mandated to negotiate on behalf of the people of the region. The statement said: “Like we had stated in our position paper, Niger Delta must speak with one voice. We wish to further reiterate that PANDEF is the body to negotiate on behalf of the Niger Delta people. The body is made up of all ethnic nationalities in the region, including the youths. The Federal Government should be fast in setting up the negotiation team to build confidence amongst us.”
Okowa, in his speech, during the tour repeatedly said: “I urge you to give peace a chance to bring development to our region.”
In supporting the peace initiative, Power Aginighan, a former acting managing director of Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, urged the leaders of Itsekiri and Ijaw ethnic nationalities in Warri South-West Local Government Area, Delta State, to forge a united front for the speedy realisation of federal government’s legacy projects in the area.
He argued: “Faced with very gloomy prospect of a Nigeria where crude oil and gas may no longer be relevant, the future generations of Ijaw and Itsekiri sons and daughters will not forgive their leaders of today, who frustrate the take-off of the Nigerian Maritime University, NMU, Okerenkoko and the Gas City project, Ogidigben, for whatever reason. The recent fact-finding visit of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo to Gbaramatu Kingdom and Iwere Kingdom, as well as his engagement with prominent Delta State leaders at the Petroleum Training Institute, PTI, Conference Centre, Effurun, has brightened the prospect of peace founded upon social and economic justice in the Niger Delta.”
But Kenneth Gbagi, a former minister of State, Education, does not hold a similar hope for peace in the region. He simply dismissed the visit as fruitless, saying that Osinbajo and the organisers of the visit had taken the Urhobo nation for granted. “You don’t take the Urhobo for granted and we cannot accept a situation where our traditional rulers are treated like second class citizens in our own land.”
Gbagi said it was against the grain of reason for the vice-president to visit other ethnic strongholds without stopping over at Ughelli, the political headquarters of the Urhobo nation.
In its editorial of Tuesday, January 17, the Punch newspaper warned against succumbing to demands of criminals in the Niger Delta region. It said: “Criminals have, undoubtedly, hijacked what, otherwise, is a Niger Delta struggle for equity and justice. They should be stopped from making the peace process more difficult. That is what their demand for government to withdraw alleged corruption cases against all former public officers and indigenes from the zone represents. This is criminal; and no government that is worth its salt can acquiesce to it.
“How can the withdrawal of military personnel from a region where police personnel are frequently attacked and beheaded, and occurrence of 15, 685 cases of pipeline vandalism advance the cause of peace? Equally suspect is the demand for pipeline surveillance contracts. The Goodluck Jonathan administration used this charade to bribe the militants, waddle through, and ignore the issues at the core of the Niger Delta struggle for the five years of his Presidency. This demand is self-serving.”
Further, the paper noted the challenges posed in cleaning up Ogoniland as contained in the United Nations Environmental Programme report submitted in 2011, which it said underscored the danger inherent in militants’ continual blowing up of oil pipelines, thereby worsening the oil spills in the region.
Besides, according to the newspaper, “oil spills and air pollution agents such as benzene – a known carcinogen or cancer-causing agent is found 900 times more than the World Health Organisation’s normal level – have contaminated sources of drinking water. This is a huge public health hazard. Aquatic life is lost, just as farmland is destroyed.”
Concluding the paper said: “In effect, the region bears more of the consequences of the riotous criminality there than the entire country, under the guise of agitation for a fair deal. Time has come to apply the brakes and for all hands to be on deck for constructive dialogue.”
So, is anyone listening? From the standpoint of health hazard alone, people of Niger Delta would be doing future generation a lot of good by embracing dialogue and stop criminality which is causing more harm than good for the region. The federal government also should develop the region, clean up the environment as recommended by UNEP to spare the nation further agitations from the aggrieved people of the Niger Delta.
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