By Dr. Ugoji Egbujo

The Niger Delta militants were not cowards. They operated clandestinely but didn’t need masks. The morality of their enterprise before amnesty was their pride. But the Avengers are ghosts. Troubled by the glare of the unrighteousness of their present endeavor , they took to the protective shield of anonymity . Anonymity, paints the picture of cowardice.

File: JTF mobilizing for the creeks and Oporoza town

And complicates the moral question the list of their demands threw up. These freedom fighters churned out some patently mercenary demands. At every turn, a glimpse of the nature terrorism for private gain rather than collective emancipation is revealed.

The penchant for mutation and replication left the impression of frivolity and bogusness rather than awe. The hand that spawned these perpetually proliferating fingers is known. The true identity of an Ijele is never a great secret.

But that priest , we are told, holds truth sacred. Who knows if the gods decreed the denials. The only thing constant about these ghosts is erraticism. The ease with which they make oil facilities and pipelines crumble comes next. Shouldn’t ghosts care a little about the environment?

While the youths ran riot, the elders lent them conspiratorial silence. Once in a while they would let out vague cries whose ambiguity betrayed their complicity. I once wondered if Mama Peace would leave up to the calling. The opportunity still beckons. Many came claiming insights. They denied knowledge of the identity of the actors but swore to being conversant with their appetite.

Interlopers and hustlers haven’t been left out. The elders abdicated. An appeasement of the unseen hands writing violence cross the Niger delta may be the capitulation that instigates the mushrooming of indiscriminate violence. Cults have taken over whole villages in Rivers. Since the wells have stopped flowing and the country is sliding down the slope of recession, the wasp on the scrotum has to be attended to quickly and cautiously.

A tough government called upon to flirt with treacherous compromise would need the adroitness of an atilogwu dancer to come out unblemished. It dithered and dithered, and desperation spread. Political Rambos and Spider men announced themselves and engaged in sent and unsent missions. The minister of sports attempted a James Bond. The Avengers met all with elusiveness.

With ghosts, reality could be a mirage. The Army had dabbled into the creeks before realizing that unilateral ceasefire was a beacon on the road map for peace. It took courage to shrug off the humiliation. But the continuation of rampant economic sabotage by the Avengers must have challenged the reticence of an Army conscious of Odi and troubled by the nightmares of the Shiite massacre

Those who had made the Army’s initial withdrawal a prerequisite for calm perhaps overestimated their own influence. Perhaps it was all part of the script. Ghosts have to be seen as only marginally subject to the entreaties of humans. But that let those who want the ghosts not appeased but tamed or exorcised find a footing. Even from prisons, long hands began conjuring a biological warfare. The invisibility and apparent invincibility of the ghosts invited unconventionality and sorcery. So elements marginalized by the last Pharoah morphed into a Moses’ gang.

The prospect of an internecine war between militants is one even elders committed to foolery cannot risk. The last time brothers engaged themselves in the delta , Ogoni convulsed. Ghosts should know that trepidation is sustained by intermittent reprieves. They went on for too long , and a bit too far. No one can begrudge any Moses who is motivated by self preservation to play patriotic roles.

The sermon according to this tribe of Moses is that the ghosts are essentially capricious , utterly selfish , and vanquishable. That the issues affecting the people can be negotiated without the recourse to whimsical violence that caters to certain private political interests at the detriment of the region. If this tribe gains the pulpit, the intransigence of the ghosts will be cursed. And the elders who are their cheerleaders will lose relevance and attract persecution

The army has decided to march the streets and encamp in the creeks , beaming eloquent smiles. The kind of smile that tells of the stupidity of avoidable grief. It wants to help the people find team Moses and their Aarons useful .The elders and the ghosts read the message well. For everything, there is a time.

The elders have not only confessed their paternity of the ghosts but their duty to prevent economic sabotage and violence. It could be face saving. A last ditch attempt to reclaim some relevance. But it is more likely neck saving. Since the the tribe of Moses splintered the ghosts, at least on paper, revelations have been gushing. They can be dismissed as concoctions, tales told by devious schemers.

But fingers have been pointed at high elderly places. And no one so accused simply waits for the accusers to prove. Wisdom will always dictate that even suspicions of such grave crimes may attach substantial consequences if no attempts are made at some passionate exoneration. If the naming of names by reformed ghosts was mere propaganda then that was mischievous but potent .

The ghosts have declared a ceasefire. That was prudent. The elders have been stampeded. The conspiracy theories were given good legs by the loquacity of some militant elements carried away by campaign exuberance in 2015. The innocence of the elders can only be repurchased by a diligent exonerative effort at stilling the storm. The consequences of precipitating a military hurricane will reverberate even in the spiritual realm, and the ghosts don’t want that.

Now that the ghosts have come down to earth and handed a mandate to the elders, the plagues may be averted. The bargain has started in earnest. The Army’s toothy smiles on the streets in the delta and the echoes of jets delivering cargoes to criminals in Ogun, compelling urgency for peace. The nation is broke. The ghosts and their patrons and their threats and the list of their selfishness in the pockets of their elders, deflecting blames of intransigence.

The international community and multinationals frantically nudging both sides to the table, western companies are bleeding. And the pawns – the ordinary people of the Niger delta- await their fate. The nation can’t afford another battle front. But we don’t want crocodile peace. Let the people of the delta have roads and schools and hospitals and life. Let a beleaguered nation have some peace. Let Hypocrisy take a break.