By: Ebuka Onyekwelu
Nigeria’s government in the past few years have remained so easily predictable, particularly in the manner it relates with her citizens and the society.
The government of Nigeria has continued, unabated, to show openly its overwhelming readiness to reason with, and engage in meaningful deliberation, only that section of her citizens who disagrees with it, and engages the state violently.
In an attempt to keep evading doing justice, there is increased opposition from citizens who are demanding one right or another, or protesting one deprivation or more.
In each case, instead of the state taking the matter on its merits with a view to resolving it as it ought to be in a democracy, Nigerian government usually ignores complaints from citizens.
When the citizens prove tough and start protests, they (the citizens) are quickly contained using state’s apparatuses of force.
But when the protest goes a step higher and starts to really cause serious damages for the country and the economy, the strategy automatically changes and the government becomes immediately yielding and willing to pay any amount to the rampaging distraught group. And at this stage put in a lot more than the situation would have required in the beginning.
Often, the country’s leadership very conveniently fritters opportunities for productive interface with her disgruntled citizens until the problem gradually slips into a mini war. Perhaps, there is something about Nigeria that simply ignores small disputes or agitations as a norm.
May be that is also why gullies are so conveniently ignore until they become gigantic erosions requiring humongous amounts of money and tact engineering to construct, after endangering lives and properties, and sometimes wasting many.
Just maybe it is the reason Nigerian roads and institutions are not maintained routinely until they are comprehensively dilapidated. Nigeria never appears ready to deal with issue as they arise. There is this deliberate overlook or cheer look warm approach that allows it to fester until it becomes a big issue and suddenly the government is alarmed and everybody is talking about it and wants it addressed immediately.
Slow or adamant to accept a problem or spot a danger right on time and put machinery in place to robustly resolve it, yet, there is an infinite tendency to apply a quick fix when the situation gets out of hand like they always do.
Sometimes it looks like though the country is saying that something that does not yet constitute a serious threat or costs huge money, is not a problem it is willing to solve. Perhaps, Nigeria government uses these avenues to create fine reasons to embezzle public money.
For whatever reason, at the end, the evidence is overwhelming that Nigeria is a country that abhors protests, but rewards rascality.
Let us look at these instances. The agitation by Niger Delta militants has been on even before Ken Sara Wiwa and eight others were killed by the Abacha Military government. In 1999 when Nigeria returned to democracy, the agitation continued with the government not even as much trying to hear the agitators out.
The complaints are clear and unmistaken. In most oil producing Niger Delta communities there is no portable water, no accessible road, no hospital much less good hospital, and no school; virtually no basic amenities for the people.
This is in addition to the damages caused by oil spillage that is rampant as a result of oil exploration, which has summarily rendered their fishing business and other farming activities absolutely redundant. A visit to any oil producing community in Niger Delta will leave anybody thoroughly amazed.
Despite the vastness of wealth their black gold has brought to Nigeria, they themselves continue even till date, to live in abject deprivation. For all that it is worth, demand for fair share in the oil money by Niger Delta is a matter of fundamental fairness and if not a human right.
These issues informed the inclusion of the 13% derivative principle in the allocation sharing which are paid to Niger Delta states; that is oil producing states which include Imo, Abia and Ondo states and then the creation of the Niger Delta Development Commission- NDDC in year 2000.
Yet the agitations continued and climaxed into organized militancy. A most demonstrable evidence that the measures put in place were not working. But government did not look at how the 13% derivative and NDDC is not addressing the needs of the people of the region.
In response, government formed the Joint Task Force- JTF- to fight Niger Delta militants in the region who around 2004, nearly crippled oil production in Nigeria with attendant consequences on the country’s economy.
The fact remains that the 13% derivative did not solve the problem of deprivation in oil producing communities because; the money does not go to the communities and there is no system around which it is disbursed accountably.
It goes to the state and in which instance the state governors can keep the money as their security votes, with no effort whatsoever for any form of accountability. Same also goes for the NDDC which is a political creation and without any specific agenda for the communities devastated by oil exploration who should otherwise benefit from such government interventionist agency.
Not all communities in the Niger Delta region suffer the disturbing impact of oil exploration. So when government fails to narrow down its intervention in Niger Delta to affected communities, it merely created an avenue for people who are privileged to freely access public money and use it at will.
Hence, precisely twenty years after the creation of NDDC, how exactly has the agency helped to meet the needs of deprived communities in Niger Delta? Only recently, the agency was reported to have spent a whopping N81.5 billion in only six months, with, as always, nothing to show for it.
In fact, the agency is said to have expended around $40 billion since inception with nothing to show for it. Many people are now calling for it to be disbanded, without appreciating that the agency was not designed in the first place to succeed. Who can point to anywhere where the 13% derivative goes to? These interventions are mere chasing after shadows.
Typically Nigerian, Niger Delta militants were granted amnesty after the government has properly assessed the situation and seeing the dangerous damages they posed, they were granted amnesty with many of them gaining big breaks and massive government contracts.
Thousands of them were rewarded with international scholarships and other trainings, with a presidential committee on amnesty, tones of money; millions budgeted for allowances and etc. But the problem remained unresolved. In retrospect, the amnesty was an invitation to partake in the largesse and nothing more.
Till date, the core problematic remains unaddressed, altogether abandoned. Ogoni land has not been cleaned up. Oil producing communities continue to be among the most deprived communities in Nigeria, even as they continue to live under some of the most dehumanizing conditions.
While their former heroes now christened ex-militants, are some of the wealthiest people in the region aside their politicians. Violence does appear to pay off after all, for those ex-militants. Just may be the agitators, not only the government, do not really care about solving the problem.
Boko Haram in the Northeast started like a joke around 2009. Government never took it seriously nor made any serious attempt to resolve the problem on the merits of the people dissent or grouse with the government of Borno state as it were, at the time.
Then a few years after, it became a big issue and government is suddenly alarmed and overwhelmed at how to solve the insurgency in the north.
With acute lack, extreme poverty and near absence of government’s presence, mixed with religious dogma in the northern parts of the country, terrorism has a natural habitat in parts of the zone. Under normal circumstances, the overriding preoccupation of the government ought to be how to change the narrative in northern parts of Nigeria.
But no, it has not become big enough to warrant the attention of the government. So a few years down the line, Nigeria is trapped in a ragging war against home grown terrorists groomed under the almajiri system, and obvious failed government. In all, Nigeria has lost properties worth fortune, this in addition to the countless lives lost and others who are still being held by the terrorists who are waging a war that has no end in sight.
Only days ago, another six hundred and two “repentant boko haram members” were shunned out after undergoing the de-radicalization, rehabilitation and reintegration- DRR- exercise. Altogether so far, more than one thousand former boko haram members have been taken through this process of reintegration.
With some of them likely to enjoy international scholarships and other countless benefits, allowances, etc, courtesy of the Nigerian state, just like the Niger Delta ex-militants. Benefits extended to violent dissidents are never deemed fit on most part, for good and responsible law abiding citizens of Nigeria and that is the irony.
Ex militants live in stupendous opulence and affluence, while the law abiding others, still live in their polluted, deprived and abandoned communities. Now, repentant boko haram members are set to live in flamboyance and abundance, while the law abiding others remain trapped in poverty, lack and deprivation. Of course, this is not comparing boko haram to Niger Delta militants, beyond the consistent manner Nigeria rewards aggression.
Nigeria’s response pattern unequivocally reinforces the storyline that hostility is a credible alternative to securing one’s dividends of democracy from the government of Nigeria.
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