By Sonny Atumah

Last Sunday President Muhammadu Buhari in a national broadcast to mark his one year in office called for dialogue with the Niger Delta communities to find lasting solution to the spate of vandalism of critical energy infrastructure. He did not mince his words on militiamen testing the administration’s will and resolve. There was the choice of carrot-and-stick approach by the President which may be ideal.  But the current agitators’ comprehension of the meeting between government and ex-militants in Abuja and Benin may not have been that of a conciliatory gesture considering the President’s speech to fish out the perpetrators, and their sponsors brought to justice.

Covert operations against the state have caused economic losses, colossal to Nigeria that government spends more funds for repairs of these critical infrastructures. The greater damage is the environment with oil spills that may never support fauna and flora in the delta ecosystem.

Bombing of oil pipeline, illegal bunkering, insecurity, kidnapping of expatriate oil workers especially with the oil super majors operating in the region rent the air until 2009 when President Umaru Musa Yar’adua granted agitators’ amnesty with illegal weapons handed in without prosecution. We are again back to losing about 800,000 barrels per day to bombings.

One has never supported criminal activities; but cannonades and heavy equipment deployments would escalate tensions. A cursory appraisal of the current upwelling of unauthorized quasi-military groups in the creeks of the Niger Delta is needed as Odi military invasion is playing out in Oporoza community in Gbaramatu kingdom of Delta State, perceived haven for non-state actors.

A former Federal Commissioner (Minister) of Information in the Yakubu Gowon administration, Chief Edwin Kiagbodo Clark urged President Buhari to dialogue with militants whose activities were threatening the corporate existence of Nigeria. Although some commentators’ perception of Clark is that of an ethnic chauvinist his echo for the avoidance of bombardments in the region is a wise counsel. Clark is the chairman Board of Trustees of the Ijaw National Council.

Demands since the 1990s as they resonated should be our challenge to address as the Niger Delta narrative has been a chronicle of blotchy region yearning for socio-economic development since oil was discovered on January 15, 1956 at Oloibiri, Bayelsa State. The Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) in 1992 protested IOCs operations and demanded justice from oil companies.

The administration of Goodluck Jonathan which mandated the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) to assess the damage in Ogoniland never had the political will to implement the Report submitted to his government on August 4, 2011. President Muhammadu Buhari dusted the Report in August 2015, approved the composition of the Governing Council and Board of Trustees of Hydrocarbon Pollution Restoration Project (HYPREP) without members named.

It is not clear whether militias resumed hostilities compelled the flag off implementation two days ago? The Report’s remedy to combat immediate harm to communities’ polluted drinking water had an initial funding of US$1 billion to clean-up Ogoniland. There was also the promise that $10 million deposit be made by stakeholders for a Trust Fund.

Putting the Niger Delta matter in context, amnesty may not be the lasting solution in the region. Agitations would stop with integrated and sustainable development that would guarantee gainful employment to majority of the poverty stricken people. Ad-hoc programmes of OMPADEC and the like have had lackeys appointed heads; unfortunately funds in their care for development are stolen as theirs to repossess.

Governments sincerity for socio-economic development of the region may not be doubted but predatory fellas from the region are employed. Some former state Governors from the region had gaol terms for stealing from the peoples tills they held in trust. With these failings pipelines and other critical infrastructure are not protected by communities that have an attitude of disgust for government entreaties. Let the government reassess the NDDC and reorganize it as a parastatal of the Niger Delta Ministry; the ministry relocated to the Niger Delta to enhance projects and schemes evaluation and monitoring.

Again Oil super majors’ headquarters in then Federal capital Lagos ought to be in operational areas to breed corporate social responsibility. In the United States, the three oil super majors have headquarters in host communities as follows: ExxonMobil Irving, Texas; Chevron San Ramon, California; and Conoco Phillips Houston, Texas; and not in Washington DC or New York. The Gulf Coast State of Texas (about three quarters the size of Nigeria) has 29 refineries and Louisiana State has 17 refineries. Texas has about 500,000 km of highway more than any other state in the United States. It has a 20,000km of railroad track and has 31 airports including 3 international airports.

With oil and gas deposits along the U.S. Gulf Coast and offshore, refineries and the manufacture of equipment for the oil and gas industry combined with shipping made the Gulf coast the heart of petrochemical industry. The Gulf States of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida developed in aerospace, biomedical research, agriculture and tourism to increase the wealth of the United States.

From the Gulf coastline in the southern tip of Texas to the southern reaches of Florida, a distance of 2625 km the intra-coastal waterway connects 9 of the 15 largest ports in the United States to boost commerce. Most Nigeria ports are not strong in merchant shipping so need restructuring. Apart from the Lagos ports, Calabar and Onne others are not functional.

Delta ports in Warri, Burutu, Sapele, Koko and petroleum terminals in Escravos and Forcados as well as the Port Harcourt port are not generating their own cargoes, so survive on captive cargo.  The proposed rail project from Lagos to the Niger Delta is a step in the right direction. Along this coastal corridor refineries and petrochemical plants can be developed to merge development areas into conurbations’ to stimulate growth and development in the Delta and by extension Nigeria.

These are serious developmental problems begging for genuine solutions. Let all militias lay down their arms. President Buhari needs the peace and should embrace it. The dialogue we fail to have today would be the bombardments of tomorrow. For how long do we call our gallant men and women in uniform for insurrectional action: North east, Fulani herdsmen and delta militias? Let there be strategic thinking for concerted development in our land. Let Nigeria be!