Echoes From The Niger-Delta – By Chinedu Ekeke
Apart from the very strange, utterly shocking and painful deaths, yesterday, of Kaduna State governor, Patrick Yakowa, the former National Security Adviser, Andrew Azazi and four other people in an inexplicable helicopter crash; as well as the dramatic release of UNN’s retired professor Kamene Okonjo, mother of Nigeria’s Finance minister, by her abductors, two other very important messages came from the Niger-Delta last week. The messages were words of mouth, from two ‘leaders’ of the region who represent two different generations, and varying degrees of closeness to Nigeria’s presidency, the source of mega money.
The first of them was the salvo by the Ijaw ethnic warlord, Edwin Clark, who declared that President Goodluck Jonathan cannot kill himself in a bid to prove to critics that he is fighting corruption. He said the president is waging a tough war on the monster, contrary to what critics say, and that he is very honest about it, so much so that he is trying the son of his party chairman for sleaze. He wondered who amongst the past leaders who now criticize Jonathan can achieve such feat.
I do not expect Edwin Clark to sound differently. You don’t think about country if you have a warped definition of life and success. Mr Clark’sdefinition of success is to have surplus, in bank accounts, from the money that should be used to build Nigeria’s infrastructure andhuman capital. If he can go on a motorcade, maintain an exquisitesuite in the Sheratons and Hiltons of this world, and have enough left with which to enslave the many broke boys in his village, then he is successful. And, yes, the country is working: nothing to be ashamed of. That explains why the recent report by Transparency International means nothing to Mr Clark. That equally explains why the report by Punch Newspaper that about N5trillion has been stolen under the Jonathan presidency is bullshit as far as Clark is concerned. It is for the same reason that he wouldn’t mind ignoring the recent Gallup polls in which the Nigerian government is grossly perceived by Nigerians as very corrupt, coming second to Kenya amongst the countries polled.
Whenever Edwin Clark talks, Nigerians should know what is talking. It is never patriotism. It is a mind that is a slave to filthy lucre.
The other message from the Niger-Delta was delivered by the very loquacious militant, Asari Dokubo. He declared that Jonathan will lose the 2015 elections. He said the president has been caged by some greedy people. And that Jonathan should not have allowed himself to disagree with former President Olusegun Obasanjo since the former helped him become president.
For me who want an emphatic and dramatized defeat for President Jonathan in 2015, the only sense in Asari’s rants is his acknowledgment of what I have long concluded – that Mr Jonathan will not win another election in Nigeria. And that all the armed forces combined cannot help him achieve an electoral victory even in a local government. My reason is that he has made non-performance an art, and has excelled in it with unbelievable expertise.
Every other thing Asari said is rubbish, and should be thrown into the trash can. If not frustration and a possible reduction in the amount of free money that goes to him from Jonathan, I wonder what would have made Asari to speak out against an oppressive regime which head is from the Niger Delta. Asari is a younger version of Edwin Clark, whose definition of performance of any public office holder is the amount of patronage he gets, personally, from the leader of such government. His truth is paid for, and will never weigh as truth in the world where truth isn’t produced by cash or wealth, but conscience.
Recall that in January this year, while Nigerians groaned under the corruption-coating policy of Mr Jonathan, the one they called subsidy removal, Asari Dokubo called them unprintable names. He particularly declared that Nigeria would be in for a war – possibly costlier than our very costly civil war – if the protests continued. He even asked oil workers to leave their ‘Niger-Delta’ if they would join other Nigerians to protest the government’s anti-people policy.
I watched him on TV fume like a medieval warrior in the company of his minions. As he thundered his threats, moved his body dramatically in a certain rhythm like Ohafia war dancers, reducing the subject matter of his disagreement to a mere joke and attention-grabbing opportunity, I could discern the hubris concealed by his thick flesh.
While Asari fumed, Ademola Aderinto and about a dozen other Nigerians were lying stiff and lifeless in various mogues across the country, conscious of nothing. Jonathan’s police had killed them in cold blood without any remorse. They committed a sin: demanding transparency from an opaque regime. It was on their blood and a future cut short that Asari stood, devoid of any jot of empathy, issuing threats and making a mockery of common sense.
And then two months later, in March, he followed through to type, declaring that Jonathan was going to contest the 2015 elections. He even declared that the president’s open declaration during his 2010/2011 campaigns that he was going to serve only one term was ‘unacceptable’ to him (Asari). He said Mr Jonathan must go for a re-election so as to serve the full eight years which is the turn of the South South.
The question is: what has changed? I don’t know. But if I’m forced to guess, I would think his expectations from this government, possibly in the form of an oil block or some juicy contracts like Tompolo’s, may not have come his way.
He quickly took a jab at the president on why the East-West road has not been constructed. But I still wonder where Asari wants the money for the East-West road to come from. Here’s a man who is paid $9 million per year just for being a militant, a renegade who should be tried for the crimes he committed against the state and even his people. He isn’t just the only one. Tompolo – the one who secures our waterways – is paid $22.5m, while Ateke Tom and Boyloaf each collects $3.5m from Jonathan’s government. It isn’t important converting the money to naira to put these amounts in perspective. It is only an unreasonable fellow that will eat his cake and insist on having it. Ethnic warlords cannot continue to ask for money unworked for from the government and still expect infrastructural development. Money doesn’t grow on trees.
In one rare demonstration of guts, his wife lashed out on critics of the bizarre amounts being doled out to her husband and his co-travelers. Without minding her inability to understand what punctuation marks mean in English language, Mrs Asari made a post on her Facebook wall, without comma or full stop, calling the critics names and boasting that the money was ‘their’ money.
The assertion that Jonathan should not have disagreed with Obasanjo is quite unintelligent. Where is it written that two people should not disagree? I didn’t vote Jonathan, but I feel the millions who sincerely voted him are insulted each time anybody tries to attribute Jonathan’s victory to just a few individuals. Even if Obasanjo had not supported Jonathan, he would have won that election. The sentiments were high and greatly tilted towards the ‘poor, harmless kid from the creeks’. In Jonathan many Nigerians – I wasn’t among – saw goodness and a promise of a good future. Nobody in this country could have stopped his victory. Even as I took a different stand on the election, I knew Jonathan was going to win.
Somebody should tell Asari to shut up and enjoy his just desert from Jonathan’s presidency, whichever way it comes.
Back to the other two messages from the Niger-Delta. Those in government have always blamed the media for the negative coverage of Nigeria. Interestingly, part of those who think the media is unfair to their honest efforts is Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the daughter of the kidnapped 82 year-old Professor Kamene Okonjo. In the heat of the woman’s abduction, I asked friends how best Nigeria media could report the story so as not to portray Nigeria in bad light before the world. Nobody could answer. The very simple truth – which, unfortunately, those in government have refused to acknowledge out of sheer mischief, is that Nigeria is in trouble, and that it will take only a humble acceptance from the government, and a sincere will for change, to face the troubles and surmount them. Denial has always hurt us, and will continue to do so, even as Nigeria accelerates to the bottomless pit.
How much have we spent on security in the last two years? What have we got in return: mounting insecurity and a few overnight billionaires? How many policemen do we have in Nigeria? Of that population, how many are drafted to the houses and offices of politicians, capitalists and traditional rulers for private protection? The insecurity is worse than we’ve always thought, and the kidnap of Prof Okonjo should cause a security reform. But again, have we chosen between private wealth of a few friends and cronies of those in government and public security? I don’t think so.
The death of Kaduna State governor and Andrew Azazi underscores what many have been echoing since the day of Dana: that Nigerian airspace is not safe, and that refusing to fix our roads because government officials can fly is not an escape from the carnage on the roads. Happening barely two months after Governor Suntai of Taraba State had a crash that has reportedly rendered him perpetually brain-damaged, the Bayelsa helicopter crash should remind Nigerian rulers of both the necessity of good public life and the finality of death.
It is not too late to ask those who stole the funds voted for our roads to return them. It is equally not late to start using the instrumentality of the law to punish those who brought us this path of total state dysfunction. The government should be awakened today to the demands of posterity.
I said yesterday on twitter that the most important thing in life isn’t money, it is the life itself. This is a simple lesson that must be learnt by Nigerian rulers.
Every of the echo from the Niger-Delta in the last two weeks should cause this federal government to rethink how they have treated Nigeria and Nigerians in the last two years. If the baggage they are dragging will let them, then there’s still room for change.
You can follow @ekekeee on Twitter for more direct engagement.
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