By Tony Uranta
“MEND, by coincidence, has an acronym which poses itself as a kind of contextual option to ‘rebranding’. Is Nigeria worth ‘rebranding’ or is it ‘mending’ that is required?”— Professor Wole Soyinka
Dear Professor Omafume Onoge, Many people suspect that you died of a broken heart because a President who has proven himself incapable of keeping his word where your beloved Niger Delta is concerned.
A President that promised both Lagos State and the Niger Delta that monies unconstitutionally held bac from them by OBJ would be paid back; and then went on to pay Lagos State whilst declaring the Niger Delta’s “expired”.
A President whose agents oversaw the calculated obstructions laid in the path of a Presidential Committee whose Report he has not even done the barest honour of mentioning to date, let alone releasing the necessary Government White Paper on it, even though the Niger Delta, Nigeria and the world await it with bated breath.
Prof, we mourn you as we remember how you sacrificed your health, in service of this ungrateful country, during the rigorous seating of President Yar’Adua’s Technical Committee on the Niger Delta; which (as we found out within the first twenty-four hours of its inauguration) was set up to fail! But true progressive Nigerians saluted the determination of yourself and your fellow forty-eight other colleagues to produce the supposedly-desired Report against all odds.
You must be at peace in your new after-life abode, which must be heaven compared to the odium of life in this land of inequities called Nigeria, which you had grudgingly called home for over sixty decades of your iconic life of service and sacrifice in this nation-space of institutionalized injustices and inequities.
You are probably cursing being born into this nation-space called Nigeria; a land where truth is turned on its head and even ministers of justice are at the forefront of promoting wholesale injustice with impunity…a land of the institutionalization of the twin evils of corruption and violence, even in the supposedly hallowed courts where God is worshipped, as we are daily reminded in the north’s regular orgies of religious violence.
We were all aware of the unwholesome working environment and circumstances your Committee was calculatedly subjected to by the Presidency and its agents.
Nigerians heard severally how a distinguished but old sick man like yourself was subjected to the ridiculous stress of having to wash and iron your clothes (as were your distinguished colleagues) even though you were put up in the “prestigious” Transcorp Hilton in Abuja.
The world heard how you were denied the simplest courtesies like drinking water in your Hilton rooms (unless you bought them yourself out of personal funds) after you would have spent upwards of twelve and sixteen hours debating and writing vigorously in an attempt to chart a viable course for sustainable peace and progress in not only the Niger Delta, but in Nigeria as a whole.
Finally, we celebrated, as hopeful Nigerians, on December 1, 2008, when your Committee submitted your “final” Report to the President-in-Council…even though the Presidency had withdrawn all secretarial staff, equipment and support weeks before, and you and your colleagues had been forced to once again dip your hands into your pockets to fund the publication of that seminal work!
Many of us have since wondered at the sincerity of President who declares that he wants peace and progress in the Niger Delta; and even goes ahead to make this “desire” one of the cardinal points of his administration’s putative seven-point agenda; but creates the perception that he’s totally ignorant of the existence of a Report that lays out the best road-map to that desire’s fulfillment … even though he had himself collected the Report from Barrister Ledum Mittee, the Chairperson of the very committee he, the President, had personally entrusted with the task of advising him on how to solve the riddle that is the Niger Delta today.
We have learnt, with chagrin, how to receive Presidential declarations and proclamations (even where they do not seem to concern the Niger Delta region directly) with a serving-spoonful of salt-and-spices.
How are we expected to believe a President who promises us 6000 megawatts of electricity (up from a straggling-1000megawatts) in six months when he has not shown a readiness to deal justly with the peoples of the region supposed to provide most of the basics – gas- for that miracle?!
Or to take positive steps that would free supply of this energy source from agitation-driven sabotage.
How can the President be taken seriously if he will not even respect the minimum desire of the peoples of the region…which has always been that he re-institutionalize fiscal federalism so there’s resource ownership, obliterate or revise certain obnoxious laws like the Land Use Decree/Act (not by the obnoxious way the Petroleum Bill is currently weighted against the region), fast-track development of the region by dedicating a minimum of 5% of the federal budget to that purpose (the way it dedicated 3% to the development of Abuja) [not in the insulting way Niger Delta resources are being brazenly diverted to build institutions in the north that are more relevant to the oil-rich region] etc…in short that he should implement the simple recommendations of the many extant Reports on the Niger Delta issue [which recommendations the Technical Committee, as the President had mandated, had simplified and summarized in its December 1 Report].
After all the trouble that the many distinguished gentlemen and women that President Yar’Adua’s Technical Committee on the Niger Delta went through to produce what even the armed youths in the creeks termed “the last chance”, President Yar’Adua has done all of Nigeria a grave disservice by willfully dumping this painstakingly produced document in his trashcan (thereby showing how little regard he has for the peoples of the Niger Delta and their wishes!) and instead embarked on a specious programme of amnesty, not unlike the resources-wasting pseudo-programme of “Rebranding” Nigeria.
One wonders at the priorities of a President who is so enthralled more with perception than reality that he believes that re-painting a rickety malfunctioning danfo bus is to be preferred to repairing/mending it (apologies, Professor Soyinka); and thus prefers to relish rebranding shadows instead of mending substance.
So long as the President plays the ostrich and refuses to begin squarely confronting the issues of this much-demonised region, by publishing the essential White Paper showing exactly what his comprehensive intentions are for the Niger Delta, so long will his administration flounder on the twin rocks of injustice and underdevelopment of the region…and so long will his national rebranding efforts (rather than mending), which depend largely on the resolution of the Niger Delta’s crises, fail.
As a young Niger Delta scholar in Diaspora recently put it to the peoples of his region, “You must choose one kind; the pain of pressing on, or the pain of giving up”. From all indications, the region has chosen to press on ….even beyond their borders, if need be…at least, until it is mended. Verbum sat.
I am Nigeria. I have millions of acres of arable land and billions of cubic litres of water, but I cannot feed myself. So I spend $1 billion to import rice and another $2 billion to import milk. I produce rice, but don’t eat it. I have 60 million cattle but no milk. I am hungry, please re-brand me.
I drive the latest cars in the world but have no roads. I lose family and friends everyday on roads for which funds have been looted. I lose my young, my old, and my most brainy and productive people to the potholes, craters and crevasses they travel on everyday. I am in permanent mourning, please re-brand me.
My school has no teacher and my classroom has no roof. I take lecture notes through the window and live with 15 others in a single room. All my professors have gone abroad, and the rest are awaiting visas. I am a university graduate, but I am illiterate. I want a future, please re-brand me.
Malaria, typhoid and many other preventable diseases send me to hospitals which have no doctors, no medicines and no power.. So my wife gives birth with candle light and surgery is performed by quacks. All the nurses have gone abroad and the rest are waiting to go also. I have the highest maternal and infant mortality rates in the world and future generations are dying before me. I am hopeless, hapless and helpless, please re-brand me.
I wanted change so I stood all day long to cast my vote. But even before I could vote, the results had been announced. When I dared to speak out, silence was enthroned by bullets. My rulers are my oppressors, and my policemen are my terrors. I am ruled by men in mufti, but I am not a democracy. I have no verve, no vote, no voice, please re-brand me.
I have 50 million youths with no jobs, no present and no future. So my sons in the North have become street urchins and his brothers in the South have become militants. My nephews die of thirst in the Sahara and his cousins drown in the waters of the Mediterranean. My daughters walk the streets of Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt, while her sisters parade the streets of Rome and Amsterdam. I am inconsolable, please re-brand me.
My people cannot sleep at night and cannot relax by day. They cannot use ATM machines, nor use cheques. My children sleep through staccato of AK 47s see through the mist of tear gas. The leaders have looted everything on the ground and below. They walk the land with haughty strides and fly the skies with private jets. They have stolen the future of generations yet unborn and have money they cannot spend in several lifetimes, but their brothers die of hunger. I want justice, please re-brand me..
I can produce anything, but import everything. So my toothpick is made in China; my toothpaste is made in South Africa; my salt is made in Ghana; my butter is made in Ireland; my milk is made in Holland; my shoe is made in Italy; my vegetable oil is made in Malaysia; my biscuit is made in Indonesia; my chocolate is made in Turkey and my table water made in France. My taste is far-flung and foreign, please re-brand me.
My people are cancerous from the greed of their friends who bleach palm oil with chemicals; my children died because they drank ‘My Pikin’ with NAFDAC numbers; my poor die because kerosene explodes in their faces; my land is dead because all the trees have been cut down; flood kills my people yearly because the drainages are clogged; my fishes are dead because the oil companies dump waste in my rivers; my communities are vanishing into the huge yawns of gully erosion, and nothing is being done. My livelihood is in jeopardy, and I am in the uttermost depths of despondence, please re-brand me.
I have genuine leather but choose to eat it. So I spend a billion dollars to import fake leather. I have four refineries, but prefer to import fuel, so I waste more billions to import petrol. I have no security in my country, but would rather send troops to keep the peace in another man’s land. I have 160 dams, but can not get water to drink, so I buy ‘pure’ water that roils my innards. I have a million children waiting to enter universities, but my ivory dungeons can only take a tenth. I have no power, but choose to flare gas, so my people have learnt to see in the dark and stare at the glare of naked flares. I have no direction, please re-brand me.
My people pray to God every morning and every night, but commit every crime known to man because re-branded identities will never alter the tunes of inbred rhythms. Just as the drums of heritage heralds the frenzied jingles, remember – the Nigerian soul can only be Nigerian – fighting free from the cold embrace of a government that has no spring, no sense, no shame. So we watch the possessed, frenzied dance, drenched in silent tears as freedom is locked up in democracy’s empty cellars.. I need guidance, please re-brand me.
But then, why can I not simply be me, without being re-branded? Or does my complexion cloud the color of my character? Does my location limit the lengths my liberty? Does the spirit of my conviction shackle my soul? Does my mien maim the mine of my mind? And is this life worth re-branding? I am not yet born, please re-brand me.
What good can dey give wen dey did get in wit bad ways.Dey shouldnot rebrand or mend dey shuld step down and conduct a new election so we can mend/rebrand/polish/sweep d bad ways out off Nigeria.Woo 2 iwo.
Hi URANTA,Rebranding is a conduit to further steal our money,i strongly belief that if the government fix Nigeria just like what FASHOLA is doing in Lagos.Fixing and mending Nigeria is the only way out of the seemingly intractable socio economic and political quagmire in Nigeria.Rebranding is a concept by the government to hoodwink ourselves and the outside world to believe that all is well with us.If not because of my sense of patriotism, i would have concluded that Nigeria is a failed state,what can one say about a country that can boast of 24 hours uninterrupted power supply,a country with a dilapidating educational system,a country that has institutionalised corruption,a country where her citizenry live below poverty level, even in the means of abundance,i beg to pause here before i ll mistakenly throw caution into the wind.Mr URANTA keep talking objectively and keep pushing,maybe one day we ll get there.
Take heart Tony, the report of the committee is bieng translated to the Hausa/Fulani language and will then be rewriten with the correct ink in the exact colour of crude oil and gas.However, the speed of translation will depend on the market price of Bonny light crude and this speed will vary inversly with the market price.
Over to you MEND.
Re-branding which Dora and her cohorts are using to defraud Nigeria, they should MEND but I fear, the government is insincere and a government that is embroidered in lies cannot be trusted