The narrative of the last election
was deliberately made simple to fool the simpleminded: portray Nigeria as a
ship heading for the bottom of the ocean unless the captain of the ship is
removed because that captain was corrupt, unable to secure the land and the
economy was also spiralling out of his control. In the aftermath of that
electoral mutiny spurred by the greatest and most ideologically diverse members
of the ruling elite since 1960, the captain was removed and anothercaptain put
in command. Ever since then however, the worst fears have been realised
particularly in the economy, subliminally with security and apparently with the
unity of Nigeria. President Goodluck Jonathan was referred to as the “Ijaw
Christian”
President under whose watch Boko Haram
was growing. In choosing General Muhammadu Buhari as its presidential
flagbearer, the APC sought to capitalise on the natural ethnic and religious
divisions of Nigeria as a country. By making Professor Yemi Osinbajo, a
Pentecostal Pastor his running mate, the gambit was complete. If some had
thought that Boko Haram would go away with the election of a President of
Fulani ethnicity, I am sure they never envisaged the greater danger of roving
marauders whom we are often reminded not to call Fulani Herdsmen.
Mr. Joe Igbokwe is a spokesman of
the APC in Lagos State but one expect a man of his standing to either tell
truths or maintain a ghostly silence rather than engage in half-truths; the
realm of which his last article dwells in. Igbokwe by refraining from telling
the whole truth sends an obscure message to the powers that be and history must
remember him as one of those who provided intellectual justification for any carnage
that thereafter follows.
Of course Igbokwe is not an
unwilling megaphone of his political interests – he worked assiduously for the
emergence of the Buhari government and should find political reward. To do so
at the price of Whole Truths when telling it all can foster solutions to
national problems and abstaining from them as he did can bring death and
carnage in the short-term as well as destroy national unity in the long-term is
not only sad but wicked. To do so in direct negation of a position previously
held (until the coming of #Change) demands that students of history respond with
clear minds and consign the silly position of men like Joe Igbokwe to the
dustbin of history where it rightly belongs.
Igbokwe says: “I have preached
justice, equity and fair play for the people of the Niger Delta but 17 years
after, I am beginning to have a rethink about the inhabitants of the Niger
Delta and their antics”.
The Change that makes a man revoke
his position of 17 years must be a Change that he hopes to benefit from and APC
is full of them – last year it was Rotimi Amaechi who at his Senate screening
when asked about his position on Resource Control said that he had been an
advocate of it in times past but a recent visit to a far Eastern country had
made him revise his position as he now no longer believes in it. Amaechi was
rewarded with a Ministerial portfolio, far more than Igbokwe can hope for.
Where Igbokwe’s faulty thought
process falters is that he failed (or deliberately ignores) to understand that
concept of justice, equity and fair play goes beyond throwing money at a
problem and hoping it would go away. He describes the agitations of the
Niger-Delta as ‘blackmail’ against former Presidents Obasanjo, Yar’Adua and
Jonathan then carefully attributes Jonathan with giving oil wells and so on to
Niger-Delta indigenes to placate them.
If this is Igbokwe’s definition of
justice that has made him revoke his former stand then perhaps he needs to be
schooled – and I say this respectfully.
The issue of the Niger-Delta goes
far beyond social rehabilitation which was only the placing of band-aid on a
deep gash, a treatment of ringworm while leprosy festers on the skin.
Justice and equity for the
Niger-Delta goes beyond the Amnesty Programme and even beyond the election or
rejection of a President from the Niger-Delta. It is a problem to which we in the
Southwest have always had a solution, which if Joe Igbokwe had been thoroughly
educated in this school of political thought, he would have readily hit on as
the solution to any problem that emanates from the Niger-Delta. We can of
course blame Igbokwe’s schoolmaster – Bola Tinubu – for this gradeschool
thinking at the tertiary level. Tinubu in merging the ACN with the CPC to win
federal power also had to chuck out the progressive syllabus handbook and
embrace feudalist thoughts.
Fortunately, some of us although
younger studied at the feet of their masters – my learning in late Bola Ige’s
thoughts helps my mind to see through the haziness of the Igbokwe’s of this
world. Ige once said “There is nobody outside the Niger-Delta who is a bigger
friend of the Niger-Delta than myself”. Indeed, he also said that “God who put
oil beneath the ground of the South-South knew it would cause some damage to
their land” in advocating for greater responsibility from the Nigerian state to
the Niger-Delta. Even when Ige served under a PDP government which had a
cacophony of voices for and against Resource Control, Ige tried to force a
national dialogue on the matter by going to the Supreme Court to determine the
issue under the guise of littoral states.
Igbokwe verbally urges Buhari to go
to war in the Niger-Delta. If Igbokwe assumes that a war in the Niger-Delta
would help Nigeria then he is perhaps actually just a terrible student of
Tinubu’s school of politics and I apologise to his schoolmaster – some students
just do not pay attention as even Bola Tinubu can never think this way. Igbokwe
continues the trajectory of this government which is divisive (97% versus 5%,
Wailers versus Hailers etc) – an ironic fulfilment of the prediction that
Jonathan would divide Nigeria, now being fulfilled under Buhari.
Igbokwe’s article is the most
dangerous type of prophecy (in the Hebrew sense of the word as “truth-telling)
– he mixes and exaggerates his truth which has been carefully subtracted from
the truth. One can agree when he says that elders from the Niger-Delta should
call the Avengers to order, but to ignore the larger question is to postpone
the evil day and to encourage madness which my generation will ultimately reap,
long after the sowers of violence and the intellectual justifiers of their
actions are dead and buried. As one of many diverse thinkers in my generation,
Igbokwe’s.
The concept of Justice, Equity and
Fair Play to the Niger-Delta may involve things like the Amnesty Programme or
electing and rejecting a Niger-Deltan as President but the ultimate solution to
such and other crises in Nigeria is True Federalism. Unless a system of
equitable distribution of resources is evolved to force every part of Nigeria
and every state to look inwards and utilise their best resources, issues will
continue to provide moral justification for groups like the Avengers – even if
their actions are wrong and condemnable. True Federalism is the ultimate
justice to the Niger-Delta and this shouldn’t be hard to achieve as Igbokwe
profusely tries to explain that every part of Nigeria contributes one thing or
the other and so the Niger-Delta had no reason to feel responsible for bearing
the fiscal burden of the federation.
Funnily, there is also another truth
beside this one. The truth is that divisive Presidents bring out the worst
divisions in any multi-ethnic country. By failing to unite the country after a
divisive election where the vanquished incumbent left without fanfare and
continues to urge support for his successor in the war against Boko Haram, the
Buhari Government continues to fan the flames of division rather than seeking
unity and now, that opportunity may have been missed. Many political watchers
expected that Niger-Delta response to a Goodluck Jonathan defeat would be
violence but this government had a period of close to a year to embrace unity
in the South-South at least, yet it chose to ‘unlook’ and keep playing the
arrogant and all-conquering victor. And in case some truant student still
doesn’t get it, let’s break it down and give them some tips:
What would it cost Buhari to go to
Otuoke in Bayelsa and visit with former President Jonathan? Is Mr. President so
insecure that he feels this would make Jonathan feel important or that someone
up north would think him weak? Such a symbolic move would go a long way to
defuse tensions as these issues are not only a problem of multi-ethnic countries
but also of political issues.
Mr. President would do well to for
once remember that this is 2016 and much water has flowed under the bridge
since the days when he fought the civil war. An all-out assault on the
Niger-Delta would find sympathy for the Niger-Delta outside the Niger-Delta and
even internationally. Not every Niger-Deltan supports this violence but war in
the Niger-Delta wouldn’t endear him to the people. Statesmen do not reach for
guns as a first option but if men like Joe Igbokwe continue to encourage Mr.
President’s natural tendencies, then I too see war but not just in the
Niger-Delta.
I see a war in Mile 12 where
Hausas/Fulanis and Yorubas clashed recently over a minor motorcycle incident. I
see another war in Akure where a foremost Yoruba leader was not only kidnapped
but has had his farmland attacked severally, resulting in the death of an OPC
member. I see another war in places across the north where Shia Muslims now
feel a greater sense of being besieged. I see a war in some Eastern parts where
IPOB protesters have been killed and in Enugu where farmlands have been
ravaged. I see a war in Agatu but that war already happened on the watch of
this President with many dead but not a single person arrested.
When citizens feel a sense of being
second class in their own country and some feel superior to them, either by
actions or inactions of Government, any eyes can see wars.
Even if your name is Joe Igbokwe and
the war may one day extend to our individual doorstep.
Demola Olarewaju is a Lagos-based
Public Affairs Commentator and Strategist.
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