SUCCESSIVE  Federal governments  have been sustained on a tripod of Deceit, Denial, and Delusion(3Ds). A philosophy that has undermined all the fundamentals of good government and governance viz.- National Planning, Economic Resources management, National Security, Education etc. etc.

So the military simply hired some of the most brilliant minds (brilliant is not necessarily intelligent) in the country to work out a strategy for maintaining their stranglehold on the country’s resources while pretending to govern. The 3Ds have been most applied when it comes to the management of the Niger Delta’s affairs hence 36 years after the end of the civil war, the story of the Niger Delta agitations has remained unchanged and perpetually on the front burner of Nigeria’s stability question. The strategy was so entrenched that President Jonathan(a Niger Deltan) could do nothing to reverse it. Jonathan however was a peculiar case because he never asked to be President. So when it was thrust on him, he saw an opportunity to buy the “SHOES” he did not own as a child and of course with his wife making the choices.

This short reminder has been prompted by the current search for so called “Niger Delta leader” to help negotiations to reign in the so called “Niger Delta Avengers”. In the state the Niger Delta region is at the moment, who is a leader? And who is an Avenger?

No sane person will describe the government of his country as foolish but definitely the federal government strategy for dealing with the Niger Delta restiveness may appear to suit Albert Einstein’s description of foolishness. I do not know what happened that brought about the pre-independence Willink’s commission but I was in college when Isaac Boro started his own revolution in 1965. His reason for revolting were not different from the reasons MOSOP started in Ogoni nor are there any different reason for the emergence of MEND, NDVF, NDAvengers, etc.

It may be necessary if the government is so uninformed, to tell them that every true citizen of the Niger Delta is a potential AVENGER. And all our Kings have been desecrated by the governments since government started appointing whosoever they choose ( sometimes former gatemen or house servants of the King) as Local government Chairmen and gave them responsibility to pay the Kings.

Indeed, I do think that our government is in denial of the reality of the Niger Delta crisis and drunk on Power, deludes themselves to think that they can wish away the problems by keeping the people busy via setting up one commission or authority  after another designed not to solve any problems but as just another avenue for sharing money. For example, the NDDC has at best been an ATM machine for the power elite in Abuja and has contributed nothing tangible to the development of the Niger Delta.

OMPADEC tried a little bit but the strategists in Abuja made sure they never got their allocations of money. The 1.5% derivation before the OMPADEC had also suffered the same fate. Indeed the NPN government of Okilo had to sue the federal government all be it by proxy over the release of the funds.

I don’t remember how that case ended.

It is this untrustworthy and disingenuous approach to a truly human  problem that make one feel that the government is indirectly driving the peoples of the Niger Delta to their limit of endurance so they can snap and create an opportunity for them to exercise their federal might as it happened in Ogoni and Odi.

It will be recalled that the current spate of resistance in the Niger Delta started in 1993 in Ogoni with the declaration of the Ogoni Bill of Rights. As a Senator representing what is today the Rivers East/South-East senatorial District of Rivers State, I took umbrage at the dismissive attitude of my Northern colleagues on the plight of the Niger Delta. I did warn on the floor of the senate that “If those in power at the time believe that Nigeria is too BIG to fail, they should remember that the little finger of our hands is as important as any other part of our body and if neglected and it gets infected as with “whitlow”, the owner of that finger no matter his size cannot sleep. Indeed if the finger is left untreated, the BIG man can die from the infection of that little finger.”

A few months thereafter and the Ijaw Youths came out with the KAIAMA DECLARATION and no matter what knee jerk reactions the government gave to each new burst of agitation, agitation appear to have taken on a life of its own and will be here until Government changes it;s strategy. The integrity /stability of any nation is measured by the treatment of her minorities. The Nigerian governments has been unfair and almost inhuman to the nation’s minorities and this becomes more significant when the minorities sit on the bulk of the country’s wealth. With all that is going on today one begins to wonder if anyone can still boastfully claim that Nigeria can never fail?  The solution to all our problems is not nuclear science but is anyone looking for it?

By Bennett Birabi, a senator , wrote from Abuja.