PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari, like every other leader, has a style of governance that is peculiar, and this style is admired by some, while others loathed it. It is the style of talking to Nigerians about national burning issues, more when he travels out of the country than when he is in the country. This style was applied again few weeks ago in faraway Nairobi, Kenya, about how to deal with the Niger Delta militants.

The President warned the Niger Delta agitators to move fast to the dialogue table and succumb quickly in accepting whatever is offered them by government, else he would give them “the Boko Haram treatment”.

In other words, he was already running out of patience with them and was fully prepared to bomb them out of existence, like he did with the Boko Haram insurgents in the North-East of Nigeria. President Buhari is a no-nonsense man in character by all purposes and intents. In all things, the old soldiering habit in him makes him speak less but act much. He could destroy.

He could dis-organise. He could dis-orientate the camp of the “enemy”. He could shoot to kill if the need arises. It is all part of his training as a military man. Such a man must be dreaded at all times. This was the message he  put across to the Niger Delta Avengers. Ditto every agitator with whatever claim of legitimacy from the geographical Niger Delta region of the country, or so he believed.

Of course, the President would have “genuine and legitimate” reason to issue that threat. He is the Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces and President and in that capacity; all machineries of the Nigerian State are concentrated under his command – which includes machineries of destruction and coercion.

To exercise this power, most importantly in the person of  Buhari’s character, recognition of other tiers of government; like the Judiciary and Legislature, and living in obedience to the checks and balances that emanate from them [the judiciary and legislature] may  be non-existent. In Buhari, the tendency of absolutism is always an attractive temptation. Any one in doubt can go and check out previous court orders and Buhari’s reaction to them.

The question remains however, if the President was right by comparing the Niger Delta issue to that of Boko Haram in drawing up his conclusion. It is my candid submission that both the Niger Delta challenge and the Boko Haram of the North/East issue are not on the same template.

They are far from each other as the heaven is far from the earth. And until our President comes to understand this, he would be getting it wrong in approach, modus operandi, and instrument of prosecuting either peace or war in this Niger Delta affair. Let us help Mr. President in defining the difference as such may help him in being more objective in this matter. But let me first admit that it is not only the President that has the wrong notion over the differences between the two – Niger Delta agitation and Boko Haram insurgency.

Example of others with similar misleading concept and full understanding of the differences is the most respected and erudite shining star from the North; Anglo Abdullahi. Here was a former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s anchor man, a former Vice-Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University, a leading leader of the Hausa/Fulani oligarchy and current spokesperson of the Northern Elders Forum, saying that “Niger Delta Avengers are worse than Boko Haram”. What a great irony! What a misinterpretation of facts of events!  I am not willing to subject his perimeter of judgment to scrutiny at this point but suffice to advice President Buhari never to associate himself with this type of conclusion. Its misconception and misleading implication could jeopardise everything about qualitative dialogue for peace in the Niger Delta.

The Niger Deltans are demanding for constitutional equity in recognition of legitimacy for the distribution and sharing of its own wealth. The region is asking not to be alienated from its inalienable rights to the God-given natural wealth, by any instrument of State’s legislation.

The region is saying that it would be sin against God and mankind to take what the Creator of Heaven and Earth has given to them, without proper due natural process of negotiation. It is telling the whole world that since it pleased the Creator; at creation, to give to each people and their region of occupancy, what would help them to grow, it would be naturally unfair to deny such group their inalienable rights under whatever interpretation.

They are saying; in view of their knowledge that every geographical region has concentration of one natural provision or other to survive economically, that the principle of “resource control” should remain a golden and divine guiding legal principle applicable to all – other geographical regions inclusive.

This sets the people of the Niger Delta region and their demand totally separate from the Boko Haram insurgents; whom nobody knows their origin, concept, demand and what exactly they wanted from the Nigerian State. Except that they are out to impose Islamic religion on the whole country; a notion that had been adequately denied by Islamic religion, Northern Muslim leaders; including his Eminence the Sultan of Sokoto,

President Buhari himself and other Islamic scholars/cleric leaders across the North, the purpose and reason of Boko Haram taking up arms against the Country remains non-existent. Hence, it shall remain a voyage in absurdity for anyone to compare this Boko Haram group with the Niger Delta agitation and its prosecutors.

President Buhari should therefore approach negotiating with the Niger Delta people without any threat of tyranny because if the stance of threat is maintained, there might be more chaos without solution to both the Niger Delta region and the Nigerian State. If the truth must be told, bullets and bombs are not necessarily equipment of enforcing and maintenance peace in all cases. Bomb and bullet dosage for North East might not, wisdom dictates, achieve same result in the Niger Delta. Let  caution prevail.

Mr. Godwin Etakibuebu, a veteran journalist, wrote from Lagos.