The leader of an acclaimed militant group in Rivers State, the Niger Delta Vigilante Movement, Ateke Tom, said his group would cease armed struggle for 90 days to observe Federal Gover-nment's seriousness towards enhancing the development of the Niger Delta.
Ateke, who had been on the wanted list of security agencies for sometime now and whose group had been prohibited alongside many other groups by the Rivers State House of Assembly in 2005, also warned the new state government to desist from setting armed groups against each other.
Ateke, who stated these in a press statement and circulated in Port Harcourt on Tuesday, urged the Federal Government to give attention to “provision of schools, good health-care facilities, basic social amenities, rehabilitation and creation of jobs for youths of the region.”
He further demanded, among other things, that the new federal administration release, “with immediate effect,” the leader of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteers Force (ND-PVF), Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, and the deposed governor of Bayelsa State, Chief Diepreye Alamieyesei-gha, from detention.
“We wish to enjoin the new administration to focus on issues that will impact positively on the lives of the Nigerian citizens, especially the Niger Delta people,” he said in the statement.
Strike is Causing Strife
Commercial activities in some parts of the country were almost paralysed yesterday as a result of fuel scarcity.
There were long queues at the few filling stations that have fuel and they were selling at various inflated prices.
Some of the filling stations visited by the Nigerian Tribune sold petrol for between N90 and N120 per litre.
In Lagos, transport fares have gone up by almost 200 per cent following the scarcity.
In Ibadan, long queues of vehicles were seen at filling stations around Mokola/Dugbe axis yesterday.
While petrol was sold at N80 at Total, Texaco and Oando filling stations in Mokola, findings showed that Oando station at Inalende sold the commodity for N90.
Consumers who spoke with the Nigerian Tribune said an extra N50 was collected at the pump before the product was dispensed.
Petrol sellers, who were asked reasons for the rise in price, declined comment. Some consumers, however, ascribed the scarcity to the tanker drivers’ strike.
At various filling stations in Abeokuta, Ogun State, vehicles were seen in queues but attendants did not sell fuel.
A taxi driver, who spoke with the Nigerian Tribune, said the long queue was caused by a possible reduction in price which he said might be effected by the new president, Alhaji Umar Musa Yar’Adua.
Residents of Akure, the Ondo State capital, are groaning under pain as fuel scarcity bites harder in the town.
Apart from Akure, other major towns in the state affected by the scarcity of petroleum are Ondo, Owo, Ore, Okitipupa and Ikare-Akoko.
Findings by the Nigerian Tribune showed that virtually all the major marketers in the town were not selling the product.
Most of the filling stations on the major roads in the town were deserted.
Port Harcourt Airport to Open Soon?
Government is concerned about the users of the airport and would want to do everything to complete work on the airport on time, according to Anadu.
Aside the runway rehabilitation, the airfield lighting is to be upgraded from CAT II to CAT III to meet international standard, and the water system improved upon. The car park facilities will be also expanded.
There have been several calls to the FAAN authorities to reopen the airport as lots of air passengers have been faced with travel rigour due to the closure.
The airport was shut down in August 2006 after a fire incident at the powerhouse, and aviation authorities said before December of the same year the airport would be fully repaired and ready for operation. Even Femi Fani-Kayode, minister of state for aviation, early this year said the airport would have been fully rehabilitated by April.
Bothered by the silence of the authorities and the untold hardship the continued closure was causing air travellers, the Rivers State House of Assembly reacted angrily in one of its sessions last week.
The state assembly later followed up with a resolution to visit representatives of the state at the National Assembly to urge them to mount pressure on the authorities to expedite action on the rehabilitation process.
It would not understand why a national asset of that magnitude would be so neglected, and alleged that there was a political undertone to it all. Franklyn Nwosu, manager of the airport, dismissed any such political manoeuvring as reason for the delay, pointing out that work had actually started on repairing the airport.
According to him, Julius Berger has gone very far into the resurfacing of the airport’s runway, which is one of the four areas the rehabilitation work would cover
He added that at the moment the first layer of asphalting the runway was in progress, noting that there had to be a second layer of asphalt, but expressed joy that Julius Berger had been working round the clock to ensure speedy completion of the job.
He explained that he was not the site engineer and could not determine the percentage of work already done, "all I want to see is a new runway."
"But I have been informed by headquarters that work on the other three areas will take off any moment from now," the airport manager said. Explaining the delay on the three other areas, Nwosu stated that it was to ensure that due process was followed in the award of the contracts. "The (award of the) contract does not just happen in a second and remember there is due process to comply with."
"You cannot blame Nigerians for being too anxious," he further said, adding that the good thing about the rehabilitation was that since 1979 there had not been any major rehabilitation of the airport. He expressed happiness with government for carrying out what he described as aggressive repairs on the airport.
Nwosu acknowledges that it is not only air travellers and other ancillary businesses at the airport that are suffering from the continued closure of the airport but the staff as well as the airport itself.
Russian Bargaining Begins
from www.kommersant.com
Six Russians that were abducted by gunmen of ultra-left Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta are in the Niger delta now, secret services of Nigeria determined. There are no practical chances to liberate the Russians by force, as the kidnapped are kept in one of thousand islands, and the delta is swampy and full of crocodiles. But the Russians could be bought out, as the Red Brigade fighters feel no class hatred to foreign prisoners.
The abduction of six Russians looked more like a special action aimed at wiping out some terror underground, RUSAL representatives in Nigeria said.
Driving in two Toyota minibuses, the gunmen broke into a compound at Alscon aluminum smelter early Sunday. They were armed by Kalashnikov sub-machine guns and dressed in field uniform of Nigerian army. The faces of gunmen were covered by masks and they were led by a man dressed as an officer.
Given the great influence of military in Nigeria, it is not surprising that the guards didn’t attempt to oppose attackers. A local driver, who tried to step in, was shot down in no time.
The police that arrived to the compound chased the gunmen, to no avail though. The witnesses said they took to the boats and headed for the Niger delta.
Quite soon, the kidnappers called a few federal officials of Nigeria, to inform that the abduction was carried out by Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta.
All Russians are alive, Nigerian police assured, but it won’t be easy to liberate them by force. The militants started with political claims, but the usual practice is that they shift to bargaining in the next move, according to the police.
The amount of average ransom isn’t very much – just tens of thousands of U.S. dollars. But the price will soar several fold if the gunmen learn from the media that they captured top managers, which, perhaps, explains the refusal of RUSAL to disclose names and positions of the kidnapped, said one of the Russia’s diplomats working in Nigeria.
A Fresh Look at the Niger Delta?
Analysis by Kayode Komolafe, THIS DAY
Since the Henry Willink Commission submitted its report to government in 1958 on the development of the Niger Delta, there has never been a lack of analysis of the problem of the poor region. Indeed, there has been a surfeit of reports of boards, commissions, task forces, committees etc. Each of these fora has come up with its own survey and interpretation of the Niger Delta Question.
But as Karl Marx said of the society, "philosophers have interpreted the world, the point, however, is how to change it". It is safe to say that there is fairly enough definition of the problem to change the grotesque reality of the Niger Delta for the better. What the situation in the region needs now is a fundamental approach to solving problems. The time is ripe to think of efficacious solutions instead of merely playing politics with the people's misery.
In the last one week, two windows of opportunity seemed to have opened for a fresh look at the problem while seeking fundamental solutions. President Umaru Yar'Adua has openly called for a dialogue on the situation. In his inaugural speech, he said among other things that : " I appeal to all aggrieved communities, groups and individuals to immediately suspend all violent activities and respect the law. Let us allow the impending dialogue to take place in a conducive atmosphere. We are all in this together and we will find a way to achieve peace and justice". The statement is significant in the present circumstance. It is also noteworthy that the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta has also promised to "suspend attacks on oil installations for one month, a period of which we hope the government will take advantage to ruminate on positive and realistic measures towards a just peace in the delta."
The Federal Government scheduled a summit on the Niger Delta for this Monday. It has been postponed indefinitely to allow for thorough preparations. That is a wise thing to do. When you add to this picture the fact that a Master Plan is already in place for the development of the region, the moment promises a breakthrough if only there is committed to justice and equity in untying the knot. Good enough, this plan, facilitated by the Niger Delta development Commission (NDDC), has the inputs of the communities, state governments, local governments, oil companies and civil society in the region. Like the President said, this plan would serve as a "basis for a comprehensive examination of all the issues".
With this renewed attention to the region, generation of fresh ideas should be central to finding solutions. Talking about another look at the problem, it should be stressed that past efforts failed to achieve transformation in the region partly because the approaches in themselves were decidedly tokenist. This time round the approach must transcend tokenism. For too long the agitation of the people of the region has been treated as if it is the cry of a baby to be pacified with some sweets.
At the root of the problem is a crisis of underdevelopment. The crisis has been exacerbated by emergent issues of a gross distortion of Nigerian federalism in respect to resource control; citizenship rights and environmental degradation. Unfortunately, the external manifestation has been mainly that of violent agitations and criminal activities of some elements taking advantage of the bad situation.
Last year, a political forum convened to look at the 1999 Constitution could have confronted the problem squarely. But the opportunity was lost largely because the whole atmosphere was fouled by the "third term" manipulation. In any case, the delegates from the Niger Delta states staged a walkout from the conference when their demand for 25% derivation fund to be graduated to 50% was turned down. Since then, hostage-taking and violent eruptions have increasing become the defining features of the troubled region.
Yet, to tackle the issues definitively, some fundamental questions have to be asked. No one should be scared of thinking about what in the past would be regarded as unthinkable. The truth is that different economic and political forces are at work promoting different class interests in the region. It is necessary to unravel the true character of these forces in finding a solution. For instance, the militants are not only confronting the Nigerian state, they are also at war with an extension of global capitalism represented in the region by the multinational oil companies. Hostage taking has become "propaganda by deed" as anarchists would say. It has become a potent weapon of drawing attention. The truth embedded in these dynamics should not be ignored. Even then, these anarchistic manifestations are only a symptom of a deeper problem.
That is why any summit on the problem now should come up with well thought out ideas for a national debate. For instance, in an insight into the problem published in this newspaper on Sunday, Oronto Douglas, a Niger Delta community rights activist and environmentalist, provoked some thinking on resource control. In his view, community ownership is more than federal or state government holding wealth "in trust for the people". In the alternative he has proposed "that the oil and gas companies must at no cost to the communities devolve at least twenty-five percent of their holdings to the communities where natural resources are found. The government on its part should invest its holding from the companies and become an effective and robust tax collector, regulators and ombudsman. The government will make more money than it is doing at present from this system of allowing the companies to be real business concerns not quasi-governments or monopolistic entities".
Legitimate questions are also being asked about what the state and local governments in the region do with the relatively huge volume of resources flowing into their faults from the Federation Account. More of such critical questions are bound to crop in a well-structured and genuine summit.
Surely, there are elements around many workable ideas; the problem is how to create an honest framework to solve the problem.
Meanwhile, in order not to make the proposed summit just another television show of the problem by the Nigerian state, some preliminaries are imperative. While the dialogue is "impending", the government should embark on a discreet exercise of productive engagement with forces at play in the region. In fact, there should be several micro-summits before the proposed summit. The inputs of the militants holding sway in the creeks, the thoughts of the oil companies that have actually divided the region into turfs for extractive control of resources and the feelings of the hapless communities, which are the victims, should be considered. For now, it is wrong to lump all these categories together as stakeholders. As Douglas has demonstrated nothing so far suggests that the impoverished and dehumanised communities have stakes in the region in the way the Nigerian state or multinational oil companies talk of themselves as stakeholders.
It will also be helpful to compose a body of arbiters who can earn the respect of all the contending interests to help in steering such a summit. There are national figures with non-subjective views of the issues involved and they can nudge the contending forces to look at the larger picture. The character of the arbiter will depend on what amount of confidence would be generated in the process especially on the part of the aggrieved. Such as summit should not be managed by elements of the Nigerian state with an incurable conqueror mentality. It is not a job for those who see the problem of Niger Delta as basically that of security that should be dealt with by crushing the troubled makers and criminals in the creeks. It is rather a task for those who are sufficiently nuanced to know that the problem has a political solution and that there is no military or legalistic way out.
The government should also create the right psychological environment for dialogue by ensuring that those held for political charges including Asari Dokubo are released and be integrated into the dialogue.
There is nothing in the books that says that the Yar'Adua approach of dialogue to the Niger Delta problem cannot work provided fresh ideas are welcome and there is honesty of purpose to go beyond tokenism in assuaging those angry in the region.
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