Annkio Briggs, Niger Delta freedom fighter and the National Convener of the Niger Delta Self-Determination Movement and spokesperson of many of the Niger Delta groups, as well as the founder, Agape Birth Right, Rivers State. In this exclusive interview with DAILY TIMES, revealed that soon after the general elections, they would kick-start their agitation for justice regardless of whoever emerges as president. Augustine Aminu and Mathew Dadiya captured every detail.
You’ve been at the forefront of the agitation for the emancipation of the Nigeria Delta ever before Goodluck came on board as the president, now that one of your own brothers is the president and commander in chief of the arm forces of the federal republic of Nigeria, are you fulfilled that your agitations have achieved its goal?
In the sense that somebody from the Niger Delta is the president, we all know how that came about. It was not something that we were agitating for; we were not agitating for the presidency. We were agitating for equity and justice; we were agitating for resource ownership. We have longtime left behind resource control; we need to take ownership of the resources. The land belongs to us, the region belongs to us, and therefore, we are agitating now for resource ownership because it is the practice all over the world.
But Jonathan’s emergence as the president was something that happened while we were agitating. We all know about the story of Adaka Boro, we all know about the story of Ken Saro-Wiwa, we all know about the story of MEND (Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta) and eventually Jonathan becoming the president. Fortunately for Nigeria and unfortunately for us, because Jonathan is the president, we actually had no choice but to stop agitating. The beneficiary of Jonathan’s presidency primarily is Nigerians and if you look at even the development he has achieved within the last four years of his elected tenure, most of his developmental projects almost 90 percent has been done outside of the Niger Delta and some people seem to think that that is a minus for him. It ought to be a minus for him from where he comes from but not for the rest of Nigeria. The rest of Nigeria should not judge Jonathan on that, actually, we should be complaining. But because Jonathan is from the Niger Delta, we have not complained but again, Nigerians expect us to complain so I promise that we will complain, but let us just finish with the election, we will start with complaining about ownership of the resources. That will be the first agitation that will come out from the Delta the Niger. So the beneficiary of the Goodluck’s presidency is Nigerians not the Niger Deltans. I don’t mean that in a negative way for Jonathan I meant that in a positive way for Nigeria.
You were part of the people that participated at the National Conference how would you describe the resolution of the conference?
The resolution of the national conference, as far as we are concerned, these are very, very thought out resolutions. Nigerians sat down together and came to those conclusions on issues that we discussed on behalf of Nigeria. We considered a lot of things even though we were not allowed to discuss the unity of Nigeria, we considered all of those things from state creation to autonomy of a level to creation of more local government or not. Broadly we look at everything and fortunately for Nigeria we look at everything from the holistic perspective of Nigeria and Nigerians. We didn’t look at it from our position as to what we wanted and not considering in everybody wanted. So there was give and take that report in my opinion is a well-balanced report and again, it is in the interest of Nigeria, it is geared towards maintaining Nigeria as a nation.
Recently, some members of the Confab including you, in conjunction with HH Macaulay Centre for Democratic Advancement were calling for the implementation of the 2014 National Conference Report, are you nursing any fear that the report may not be implemented?
Well, one hopes not, one always hopes for positive thing. I believe that it is better to hope for positive things than to feel that something negative would happen. But there are some parts of the report that does not need to go to National Assembly that really need only the decision of the president, the pronouncement of the president. There are some parts of the also parts of the report that should go to the national assembly; so the ones that don’t need to go to the National Assembly, there is no need for not implementing those ones immediately. The national conference came to an end almost five months ago, I think that by now, Nigerians by should begin to see implementation or the process of implementation of the recommendations that do not need to go to the National Assembly. And that is why we were calling for that.
I have always said that the National Assembly is made up of men and women that we put there and they are supposed to do what is good for the nation. Therefore, they should really not have problem with recommendations that Nigerians have made for Nigerians. All they need to do as lawmakers is to make sure that they fulfill the expectations and the will of the people of Nigeria. It was not strangers that sat down at the national conference, it was Nigerians, and we looked at everything. So I would hold the members of the national assembly responsible to making sure that they are able to do what Nigerians have asked them to do.
The 2014 confab could be describe as a brain child of President Jonathan even though Nigerians have long been yearning for it, but today implementing the recommendations of the report seems to be a; where do you think that the problem is coming from?
As you rightly said, Nigerians have been calling for a Sovereign National Conference even before the president became deputy governor of Bayelsa that is how far the yearnings of Nigerians to sit down and discuss has gone. That he as the president of Nigeria with the power that he has was able to take the bold step, it was then a very bold decision because I remember even the president during the 20011 electioneering campaign, when he was asked about convoking a national conference, he said he did he didn’t believe that Nigerians needed a sovereign national conference. So, for him to turn around and just placed Nigerians in that position by just saying that do not discuss whether Nigeria will breakup or not breakup, that was the only no-go-area even though we objected to it. But we still felt that this was an opportunity that must be taken because no really, no Nigerian’s heart desire I must believe is to breakup Nigeria. Whenever the issue of braking up Nigeria has come up it came up in the process of people been frustrated with the system of governance. So this is federal government that is not really a federal government. Nigeria should not in action be a federal government; if it is then we should not be talking about resource control, resource ownership and stuff like that because, automatically you would pay tax to the federal government then, that is what the federal government is. Because government after government in Nigeria wants to pretend itself as a federal government that is why people like me and many other people begin to feel that that there may be other way out but to discuss the possibility that if we cannot accept to find a way to live together, then we must find a way where we don’t live together peacefully.
Then on the issue of whether there is a problem of implementing or not implementing, I do not see a problem and there should not be a problem because there are people we can hold accountable; we can hold the National Assembly accountable and we can hold Mr. President accountable for not implementing the thing that he can. If it is not implemented, I will hold myself responsible; I would hold other Nigerians accountable because we must make sure that our desires and our hopes and aspirations are carried out by the people that we have put them in power to do those things for us.
As a patriotic citizen, what would describe as the Nigerian problem and what could be done to solve this problem?
The Nigerian problem is not insurmountable. It is the people that are hanging round the Nigerian problem. What is the Nigerian problem, who created the Nigerian problem? The Nigerian problem goes as far back as the creation of Nigeria; the amalgamation is the problem of Nigeria. The amalgamation was a fraudulent move by the British government to fraudulently create an area in Africa for themselves for economic reason and they called it Nigeria. In that process they brought many people together who really culturally, religiously, development wise have nothing in common, they brought us together. Now we’ve been together for a 100 years. The first solution is not to breakup Nigeria, the first solution is to sit down for the first time and say ok, we accept that we are a 170 million people made up of so many ethnic groups that speak different languages, have different culture and have different desire. How do we relate together as a nation, that is the Nigerian problem? Then, because Nigeria is a man-made country, because it was made fraudulently, it has at its foundation fraud; it has at its foundation corruption. We’ve always accuse our leaders from 1960 as being corrupt, and they are, and they are thieves. We have Nigerian ideas to find the will to fight corruption, see; Nigerians will not be able to get rid of corruption until they are prepared to fight corruption. You do not ask the man you accused of being corrupt to fight corruption, you don’t! The woman in the market that has the cup that she uses to sell gari and sale you a three-quarter cup as one cup and charges you for one cup is corruption.
Anybody who is corrupt in the market would be corrupt in the villa; anybody who is corrupt in the market would be corrupt in the senate. So, it doesn’t matter the market woman that is saying the government is corrupt, if she is cheating the buyers in the market she is also corrupt. We have to individually fight corruption because he who goes to equity must come with a clean hand. So if you know that in your office in the ministry you are collecting N10, 000 before you pass somebody’s file then, the man who is also doing exactly what you are doing in the villa and he is collecting a N100, 000 then you said he is corrupt and you think you are not corrupt because you are collecting 10,000, all of you are corrupt. That is why the Bible said that if you cannot be trusted in little nobody would trust you in big. That is why in the bible you find a place where Jesus gave talents to people and he came back and took away the one that has the least talent and gave it to the one with the most, because the man that has the little was not able to multiply, to look after and to take charge and be able to give account for that talent. If we don’t want corruption we have to fight corruption. So the problem of Nigeria would be solved by Nigerians. You said the police are corrupt, but when the police ask for something you give them, then you say the police is corrupt, this is not the way to fight corruption. The way to fight corruption is not to hail the local government chairman who is looting the money; you hail him: chairmore! chairmore!! And because he is going to give you something; you can’t have it both ways if we must fight corruption. Then tomorrow you say they are corrupt in the presidency, it’s the same corruption of the chairman that is in the highest office. Corruption is everywhere, we have to fight it.
The amnesty program for disarmament was seem as the last sort of solution to the crisis in the Niger Delta, are you satisfy with the implementation of the program and would you say it has provided answer to your agitations?
Quite honestly, as it has turned out, it’s not only the indigenes of the Niger Delta that have benefited from the amnesty program, other people who are not from the zone also benefited in one way or the other, that is one. Number two, the amnesty was given for a specific number of people, the amnesty is not meant to be a forever process, amnesty is not a ministry; it is something that was offered by the late President Yar’adu to the Niger Delta to stop the agitation. That is why it was guns that was brought out they didn’t bring out pot of soup, they brought out guns because it was the guns that was creating the problem for the Nigerian economy, and there were specific people that participated in this process. The first set of people were the Boyloafs, Tompolos, Asari Dokubos, Henry Okahs, the Faras, Solomon from Ogoni, and somebody called Bin Laden (a nick name) and so many of them. These were the key leaders across the Niger Delta from Bayelsa to Rivers, to Delta states. When this was offered some people were in the forefront of making sure that it came to pass unfortunately, Yar’adua did not live to see the process to the end. Amnesty anywhere in the world is not forever, it happens in other places. You tailor it to meet the need of the place where you are giving the amnesty. It is when the people brought out the arms; you have to contain them and engaged them in other ways. As a matter of fact there should have been even offers of entrepreneurship and ownership of access to oil was supposed to have been part of the process to be given to certain Niger Delta people: some that carried arms and some that didn’t carry arms but played a role in the process of making sure that even though the region was very hot and has brought the government of Nigeria to its knees economically. From 2.5 million barrel per day to 600 barrel per day, oil companies were declaring forcemajure. So, that process gave birth to amnesty. Now, amnesty is satisfying depending on where you are looking at it from, depending on if you are a beneficiary, depending on if you are from the Niger Delta, if have benefited from the training or you have benefited from given training to the Niger Deltans. But on the whole I will think that for the purpose it was set out, in my opinion, the beneficiary remain the Nigerian government and the oil companies for that I think it was a success because we now have a situation where the production of oil has gone always up from 2.5 to 2.7 million barrel per day which is basically the total amount of the budget of Nigeria in any one given year. Definitely, Niger Delta has proven that it provides the budget that Nigeria functions with. In general term, definitely, nothing is perfect and there would always be issue with any process whether it is amnesty, NDDC, Ministry of Niger Delta and any other thing in the past like the Water Basin Authorities and things like that. Nothing really in my opinion that has ever been set up for the Niger Delta people has ever worked. It never quite meets what we are looking for. So in that regard, neither the NDDC nor the Ministry of the Niger Delta has met the expectations of the Niger Delta people, and amnesty cannot meet the expectations of the Niger Delta, because it was set up for 30,000 people who either were armed or had potential of carrying arms. So that is the truth and the position of the issue of the amnesty program.
If the NDDC, Ministry of the Niger Delta, the Amnesty program and lots other programs set by the federal government to ameliorate the condition of the Niger Delta region have not met their expectations, then, what exactly are the expectations of the Niger Delta people?
When I look back now, and I look at the environmental pollution that we have suffered and I look at the lack of development in the Niger Delta in every ramification, I look at the fact that we’ve been denied ownership of our resources and some people somewhere just share our resources to the rest of the country and give us what they perceived is good for us and looking at the fact that somebody from the Niger Delta in 2009 when Yar’adua died, there was a great opposition even to accepting Jonathan as an acting President, there was greater opposition to accepting him as the substantive president after he has acted, there was a greater opposition for him even to come out and vie as a potential candidate in 2011. And when he refused the agitation against him not to run and he ran, we’ve all seen what has happened. There’ve been the keeling of youth corpers, there’ve been the rampage killings by Boko Haram and today it’s been used in the hands of politicians to disregard what Jonathan’s government has achieved.
The insecurity of Nigeria is the insecurity of activities of terrorism. Terrorism is a global phenomenon; it’s all over the world. In America, you there is Islamic terrorism, in Europe, look at what happened in Paris recently. So, it’s an ongoing thing.
If you look at what they are doing in Iraq, Iran, in Syria etc, why are they not blaming the governments in those countries, they are kidnapping girls in Iraq, Iran, and in Syria, they are doing all these things in these countries, why are the presidents of those countries not blamed? Because those countries no matter how sophisticated they are, do not have the capacity to contain the type of terrorism that is sweeping across the world. Look at what they’ve done; they just executed a Japanese national. Now that is the type of mentality that is confronting Nigeria, the Boko haram is killing Christians and Muslims, now they are burning both churches and mosques.
They started with the killing of Christians but now in all honesty as a Christian I cannot say it’s just Christians, they are killing both; these are innocent Nigerians that they are killing and kidnapping it’s unfair when in Nigeria, we politicized it, and limit it, and make it look as if it is the failure of Jonathan that has brought Boko Haram. That is not true. Politicians are using it, I wonder if Jonathan was not the president if Boko Haram would have metamorphosed in Nigeria the way that it has. But that does not mean that Jonathan does not know what he can do, it’s just that there is a push to make sure that Boko Haram is carrying out its surge so that Jonathan can be blamed for it. And I for one, would do not blame Jonathan because it is in Iran, Iraq, it is in America, Europe and many countries across the world and America is fighting terrorism for over 20 years they have not succeeded. You can’t blame the activities of insurgents on the President of Nigeria; I disagree with that type of attitude.
When you look at that, I am not longer sure that Niger Delta people should not continue their agitation. We must continue our agitation. I am disappointed and saddened that today we have a Niger Delta leader as the president, and from day one; the very people that we thought would have been the major support that we should have – the northerners. We’ve always supported the northerners from the South-South. Without the South-South, Nigeria would not have won the war against Biafra. Nigeria won the war against Biafra because of the South-South people particularly the riverine people (the Ijaws) because they won the war from the water. We thought that if any group of people, any nationality, and any ethnic group would have been able to support a Niger Delta president no matter what other circumstances he emerged as long as it was not a coup that brought him, and even if it was a coup, so what? Northerners have governed purely by coup.
It is very disappointing for us in the South-South particularly people from the riverine because at the time Shagari won election, the figures that swollen his vote, were from the creek. They waited for those figure to come from the creek and when it came he was declared president. It was people like the late Okilo, and other leaders that supported the north even before independent to have their say in the then Assembly. We are highly disappointed and therefore, it is a consideration for the Niger Delta people that we must continue our agitation. Jonathan should aspire to be the president in 1015; the rights whether you vote for him or not is purely electorates right not the right of anybody to influence Nigerians with lies or with confusion. It is the right of Nigerians to get their path right, make their decision and vote whoever they believe that they want to vote for.
Now having said that, when Jonathan emerges as the president of Nigeria in 2015, let nobody take it for granted that the Niger Delta would behave the way it has behaved in the last four years of his governance, no, we would not because our kindness has been appreciated, it has been was taken for a dirty rag. We want ownership of our resources; we do not think it is fair to continue to take the resources of the Niger Delta to develop the whole of Nigeria. Particularly today, when the 13 percent was based on the high price of over $100 at which oil was selling, today with the drastic drop in oil price of less than $50. So, the value of the 13 percent of 2011 has depreciated at least by two-third. It means we are getting 13 percent of two-third less of what we were getting in 2013. These are mathematics, we too are educated. These are calculations that we are making based on all these indices bearing in mind that there is a prediction that oil will dwindle in the Niger Delta between now and the next 20-30 years. So we have now, 20 years to develop ourselves with our own resources.
Let nobody makes any mistake that because Jonathan is the president that Niger Delta people between 2015 and 2019 we would agitate for resource ownership. No, we will do whatever means we find necessary for those agitations because it is our survival that is at stake. There is a saying in my place, that: iboso fi, peniso fi (whether you died face up, or you died faced down, you are dead). So that is where the Niger Delta is. So we must agitate for justice and that is coming, it will come after the election, it will come after Jonathan has been sworn in.
The meaning of that in simple terms is; it doesn’t matter who is the president, whether Jonathan is the president or Jonathan is not the president I assure Nigerians that Niger Delta people are going to agitate for justice and this time we would not stop until we get justice.
The general elections are close at hand, what are your expectations and advice to the Nigerian electorates?
The Nigerian electorates, if they don’t know it will be sad, very sad. The Nigerian electorate as of today is disenfranchised by INEC. INEC is not preparing for this election, it is not Nigerians that are not prepared for the election, it is not the candidates perhaps that are not prepared for the election. The body that has the responsibility to conduct the election is not prepared, why are we fooling ourselves? As I am talking to you now, I still have my temporary voters card of 2007 I’ve not been able to collect the permanent voters card because it was still that temporary one that we used to vote in 2011. As I am talking to you now, I do not have PVC. So basically, that my one vote whether I like it or not, I cannot use it for Jonathan and I cannot use it against Buhari, because I can’t vote.
I cannot make a decision on who can be my governor, because the person that PDP has given the flag to is not the person I want as my governor. But now, I am not able to have my voice heard and I am not the only Nigerian, there are millions of Nigerians that have not collected their PVC. So vote is a basic human right. This story that people from the south have refused to go and collect PVC is a lie from the pit of hell. We want to collect our voters’ cards we can’t see it. The INECT in Rivers state last week (fortnight) made an announcement that hoodlums came and stole 14,000 voters’ cards, how can hoodlums steal 14000 voters’ cards? That is 14,000 votes that could go one way or the other, where are they? They’ve been stolen! INEC is not in a position to replace them before the February 14. So those people are disenfranchised.
When you disenfranchised 14000 people in a day, how can say that you are prepared for election? INEC is not prepare for election and I want to call on Nigerians to refuse to allow INEC to conduct this election because as long as INEC will guarantee that they will be able to conduct election and the swearing-in to take place on the 29th of May, then, they should postponed the election because, they can have election in April. It’s only two Saturdays for crying out loud. They can have the next on the 14 of April and the next on the 28 of April and still be swearing-in in May within 30 days. These things I hear from Nigerians that okay, if we don’t find our PVC, it doesn’t matter let those who have vote. That is selling your birth right, you cannot condemn somebody you didn’t vote for or didn’t vote against.
If you desire to vote, mind you the right to vote is a basic human right the right not to vote is also a basic human right. You can decide to sit in your house but the right to hold the card you must have it because that is your voice in your country. Your voters card is your voice, therefore, the fact that INEC after billions of naira tax payers money that have been given to them and after four years of promises that they are ready and they are not ready, we won’t kill them that they are not ready but we are prepared to extend two months for them let them put their house in order, they should extend this election. If they don’t extend this election there would be fallout of failing to do their right thing for Nigerians. There would still be agitations against the fact that some people were disenfranchised it is a very wrong attitude for people to think that it is ok not to vote when people are taking their time to go and register, people took time days of work to go and register.
Why therefore, would you say that you INEC you are not ready? Then somebody should be fired because they have not done their work. If they have not delivered then they should be fired and let somebody who has capacity to do the job, come and do the job. Otherwise, we are prepared to give them two-months extension to be able to let Nigerians to collect their PVC. If they were not able to do it they should have said it. But they promised Nigerians and you cannot tell us that we should vote with temporary voters’ cards because there would room for fraud in the temporary voters’ card, so we must have our PVC.
Look, they’ve collected the money for the PVC; it’s like the issue of the National Identity Card contract. Money has been collected for those things, this is corruption! Somebody somewhere is saying I can fight corruption, how? What INEC is doing is a pure case of corruption; if it is not then they should produce the PVC. What is the excuse of them not producing the PVC? Only 70 million registered voters yet INEC cannot produce voters’ cards, how many minutes does it take to print these cards? We claim that we are capable of running a country of over 170 million people together when we cannot even produce 70 million voters’ cards. This is why I think that there is a need for autonomy, there is a need for self-determination in this country because if each region or each ethnic group or each state is autonomous or has a say over their destiny, then if you want to elect a governor, depends on the state, when and how you want to elect your governor, you don’t have to do it when every other state is doing it. Each state needs its own constitution so that each state would be bound by its own constitution. All of these things were provided for, before the military came and messed everything up and when you say military messed things up there are people that would tell you leave the military out, how can you leave the military? They are part and parcel of the problem Nigeria is facing today.
Finally, let us look at the UNEP Report on the cleaning of the Ogoni Land, it is expected to have been implemented long before now but all we’ve seen is foot-dragging; what exactly is happening to the report and why has it not been implemented even when the president is from the Niger Delta?
Again, what happened in Nigeria is what is happening to the UNEP report. The UNEP report is an independent report and therefore you cannot say that the UNEP report is a true report. It was not paid for by the Nigerian government, it was a report that was carried out in the interest of justice. Now that report shows very clearly that using Ogoni land which is a small portion of the Niger Delta as a case study to show the level of devastation in the region. Now if that is the case and the UNEP reports we are finding it difficult to even start a process of implementing it in the process of cleaning up Ogoni land alone, how can anybody come and tell me now as a campaign promise that the person will cleaning up the Niger Delta? There is nobody that has done anything for the Niger Delta, who? Is it the British that did anything for the Niger Delta? Is it after independent that something was done for the Niger Delta? Nothing has ever been done for the region.
Therefore, I believe and I am driving the process that there is a need for the Niger Delta Self Determination Movement which is a group that I am the National Convener. Our voices need to be heard, we need to show that we alone are the people that can take care of our problem nobody else is going to come and do it. But we cannot solve our problem without the resources. Look at Abuja, if you look at Abuja, one naira is not coming from anything than oil. Everything that is built in Abuja is from oil, even this hotel (Transcorp Hilton) we sit in is money from Niger Delta that built it. There is nothing in Abuja that is not coming from Niger Delta. Therefore, if you can make Abuja like this in less than 30 years, don’t tell me that there is any reason I and my people would not realized to use our resources to develop our region. We must take our resource back because, already, it’s very clear now before the price of oil will rise to another 100 dollars, is it today matter? It’s not today! Economy doesn’t work like that, it has fallen it has fallen, it will trip up. So we are the people that are paying that price now. So we want to use what is remaining of our resources to develop our land.
Are you really satisfied with the way the governors in the Niger Delta are using the 13 percent derivation funds or you have another alternative option to making them ensure they use the money to develop the area in such a way that would have direct impact on the lives of the common man in the region?
Definitely that is an issue; it is something that people like me has talked about. I have not shy from that side but what I have said in the past, it is offensive to us in the Niger delta for somebody to ask that question implying that, because the 13 percent has been misused or not used properly that we do not earn the justification to agitate. So that is where I differ. But on the issue of 13 percent, if actually we are getting the full 13 percent derivation and it is going directly to the governors of the Niger Delta states, then, definitely, both the government of the six states that make up the Niger Delta region, the NDDC, the Ministry of the Niger Delta, there is nothing as far as we are concerned in the Niger Delta to show for the amount that has gone to the region. Having said that, there is nothing to show for the 87 percent that has gone to the federal government; so if we are doing comparism, 13 percent is less 87 percent we don’t like whole of these going back and forth, these are not the issue. The issue of course is we want 100 percent, we want to own, we want to decide who will come and explore buy, who will sale all of those decisions we want to make it. We don’t want Danjuma to own an oil well; we don’t want people who are not Niger Delta people to own oil well. What qualifies the? It’s not money naw, it’s just a piece of paper that qualifies them, and that piece of paper was not signed by Niger Delta man, it was sign by the military to themselves and they didn’t sign it to the Niger Delta people. There is only one man from the Niger Delta that is exploring oil and that is Tobi Lulu Briggs and his own is offshore.
What I am saying is that there is an injustice that is going on and we are now prepared to resist that injustice no matter what it takes and no matter how long it will take to resist that injustice. The licenses for all these secret oil wells that Nigerians owned are going to come up for renewal, we want the names of all the companies that own these licenses to be published and the CAC is an organization that must public the information that we need. We want to know the people who owned those companies and we want to know where they come from, we want to know what due process they went through to owning those oil wells. We want to demand that every oil well that comes up for renewal must be published and we from the Niger Delta want to know on what grounds these licenses are going to be given because these oil are found on people’s farmland. You cannot come from Sokoto to own an oil well in the Niger Delta when I cannot go to Sokoto to mine a bitumen or clay. There is a lopsided way of doing things in Nigeria, and it must stop, if everybody else is happy with it we are not happy with it.
You’ve been at the forefront of the agitation for the emancipation of the Nigeria Delta ever before Goodluck came on board as the president, now that one of your own brothers is the president and commander in chief of the arm forces of the federal republic of Nigeria, are you fulfilled that your agitations have achieved its goal?
In the sense that somebody from the Niger Delta is the president, we all know how that came about. It was not something that we were agitating for; we were not agitating for the presidency. We were agitating for equity and justice; we were agitating for resource ownership. We have longtime left behind resource control; we need to take ownership of the resources. The land belongs to us, the region belongs to us, and therefore, we are agitating now for resource ownership because it is the practice all over the world.
But Jonathan’s emergence as the president was something that happened while we were agitating. We all know about the story of Adaka Boro, we all know about the story of Ken Saro-Wiwa, we all know about the story of MEND (Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta) and eventually Jonathan becoming the president. Fortunately for Nigeria and unfortunately for us, because Jonathan is the president, we actually had no choice but to stop agitating. The beneficiary of Jonathan’s presidency primarily is Nigerians and if you look at even the development he has achieved within the last four years of his elected tenure, most of his developmental projects almost 90 percent has been done outside of the Niger Delta and some people seem to think that that is a minus for him. It ought to be a minus for him from where he comes from but not for the rest of Nigeria. The rest of Nigeria should not judge Jonathan on that, actually, we should be complaining. But because Jonathan is from the Niger Delta, we have not complained but again, Nigerians expect us to complain so I promise that we will complain, but let us just finish with the election, we will start with complaining about ownership of the resources. That will be the first agitation that will come out from the Delta the Niger. So the beneficiary of the Goodluck’s presidency is Nigerians not the Niger Deltans. I don’t mean that in a negative way for Jonathan I meant that in a positive way for Nigeria.
You were part of the people that participated at the National Conference how would you describe the resolution of the conference?
The resolution of the national conference, as far as we are concerned, these are very, very thought out resolutions. Nigerians sat down together and came to those conclusions on issues that we discussed on behalf of Nigeria. We considered a lot of things even though we were not allowed to discuss the unity of Nigeria, we considered all of those things from state creation to autonomy of a level to creation of more local government or not. Broadly we look at everything and fortunately for Nigeria we look at everything from the holistic perspective of Nigeria and Nigerians. We didn’t look at it from our position as to what we wanted and not considering in everybody wanted. So there was give and take that report in my opinion is a well-balanced report and again, it is in the interest of Nigeria, it is geared towards maintaining Nigeria as a nation.
Recently, some members of the Confab including you, in conjunction with HH Macaulay Centre for Democratic Advancement were calling for the implementation of the 2014 National Conference Report, are you nursing any fear that the report may not be implemented?
Well, one hopes not, one always hopes for positive thing. I believe that it is better to hope for positive things than to feel that something negative would happen. But there are some parts of the report that does not need to go to National Assembly that really need only the decision of the president, the pronouncement of the president. There are some parts of the also parts of the report that should go to the national assembly; so the ones that don’t need to go to the National Assembly, there is no need for not implementing those ones immediately. The national conference came to an end almost five months ago, I think that by now, Nigerians by should begin to see implementation or the process of implementation of the recommendations that do not need to go to the National Assembly. And that is why we were calling for that.
I have always said that the National Assembly is made up of men and women that we put there and they are supposed to do what is good for the nation. Therefore, they should really not have problem with recommendations that Nigerians have made for Nigerians. All they need to do as lawmakers is to make sure that they fulfill the expectations and the will of the people of Nigeria. It was not strangers that sat down at the national conference, it was Nigerians, and we looked at everything. So I would hold the members of the national assembly responsible to making sure that they are able to do what Nigerians have asked them to do.
The 2014 confab could be describe as a brain child of President Jonathan even though Nigerians have long been yearning for it, but today implementing the recommendations of the report seems to be a; where do you think that the problem is coming from?
As you rightly said, Nigerians have been calling for a Sovereign National Conference even before the president became deputy governor of Bayelsa that is how far the yearnings of Nigerians to sit down and discuss has gone. That he as the president of Nigeria with the power that he has was able to take the bold step, it was then a very bold decision because I remember even the president during the 20011 electioneering campaign, when he was asked about convoking a national conference, he said he did he didn’t believe that Nigerians needed a sovereign national conference. So, for him to turn around and just placed Nigerians in that position by just saying that do not discuss whether Nigeria will breakup or not breakup, that was the only no-go-area even though we objected to it. But we still felt that this was an opportunity that must be taken because no really, no Nigerian’s heart desire I must believe is to breakup Nigeria. Whenever the issue of braking up Nigeria has come up it came up in the process of people been frustrated with the system of governance. So this is federal government that is not really a federal government. Nigeria should not in action be a federal government; if it is then we should not be talking about resource control, resource ownership and stuff like that because, automatically you would pay tax to the federal government then, that is what the federal government is. Because government after government in Nigeria wants to pretend itself as a federal government that is why people like me and many other people begin to feel that that there may be other way out but to discuss the possibility that if we cannot accept to find a way to live together, then we must find a way where we don’t live together peacefully.
Then on the issue of whether there is a problem of implementing or not implementing, I do not see a problem and there should not be a problem because there are people we can hold accountable; we can hold the National Assembly accountable and we can hold Mr. President accountable for not implementing the thing that he can. If it is not implemented, I will hold myself responsible; I would hold other Nigerians accountable because we must make sure that our desires and our hopes and aspirations are carried out by the people that we have put them in power to do those things for us.
As a patriotic citizen, what would describe as the Nigerian problem and what could be done to solve this problem?
The Nigerian problem is not insurmountable. It is the people that are hanging round the Nigerian problem. What is the Nigerian problem, who created the Nigerian problem? The Nigerian problem goes as far back as the creation of Nigeria; the amalgamation is the problem of Nigeria. The amalgamation was a fraudulent move by the British government to fraudulently create an area in Africa for themselves for economic reason and they called it Nigeria. In that process they brought many people together who really culturally, religiously, development wise have nothing in common, they brought us together. Now we’ve been together for a 100 years. The first solution is not to breakup Nigeria, the first solution is to sit down for the first time and say ok, we accept that we are a 170 million people made up of so many ethnic groups that speak different languages, have different culture and have different desire. How do we relate together as a nation, that is the Nigerian problem? Then, because Nigeria is a man-made country, because it was made fraudulently, it has at its foundation fraud; it has at its foundation corruption. We’ve always accuse our leaders from 1960 as being corrupt, and they are, and they are thieves. We have Nigerian ideas to find the will to fight corruption, see; Nigerians will not be able to get rid of corruption until they are prepared to fight corruption. You do not ask the man you accused of being corrupt to fight corruption, you don’t! The woman in the market that has the cup that she uses to sell gari and sale you a three-quarter cup as one cup and charges you for one cup is corruption.
Anybody who is corrupt in the market would be corrupt in the villa; anybody who is corrupt in the market would be corrupt in the senate. So, it doesn’t matter the market woman that is saying the government is corrupt, if she is cheating the buyers in the market she is also corrupt. We have to individually fight corruption because he who goes to equity must come with a clean hand. So if you know that in your office in the ministry you are collecting N10, 000 before you pass somebody’s file then, the man who is also doing exactly what you are doing in the villa and he is collecting a N100, 000 then you said he is corrupt and you think you are not corrupt because you are collecting 10,000, all of you are corrupt. That is why the Bible said that if you cannot be trusted in little nobody would trust you in big. That is why in the bible you find a place where Jesus gave talents to people and he came back and took away the one that has the least talent and gave it to the one with the most, because the man that has the little was not able to multiply, to look after and to take charge and be able to give account for that talent. If we don’t want corruption we have to fight corruption. So the problem of Nigeria would be solved by Nigerians. You said the police are corrupt, but when the police ask for something you give them, then you say the police is corrupt, this is not the way to fight corruption. The way to fight corruption is not to hail the local government chairman who is looting the money; you hail him: chairmore! chairmore!! And because he is going to give you something; you can’t have it both ways if we must fight corruption. Then tomorrow you say they are corrupt in the presidency, it’s the same corruption of the chairman that is in the highest office. Corruption is everywhere, we have to fight it.
The amnesty program for disarmament was seem as the last sort of solution to the crisis in the Niger Delta, are you satisfy with the implementation of the program and would you say it has provided answer to your agitations?
Quite honestly, as it has turned out, it’s not only the indigenes of the Niger Delta that have benefited from the amnesty program, other people who are not from the zone also benefited in one way or the other, that is one. Number two, the amnesty was given for a specific number of people, the amnesty is not meant to be a forever process, amnesty is not a ministry; it is something that was offered by the late President Yar’adu to the Niger Delta to stop the agitation. That is why it was guns that was brought out they didn’t bring out pot of soup, they brought out guns because it was the guns that was creating the problem for the Nigerian economy, and there were specific people that participated in this process. The first set of people were the Boyloafs, Tompolos, Asari Dokubos, Henry Okahs, the Faras, Solomon from Ogoni, and somebody called Bin Laden (a nick name) and so many of them. These were the key leaders across the Niger Delta from Bayelsa to Rivers, to Delta states. When this was offered some people were in the forefront of making sure that it came to pass unfortunately, Yar’adua did not live to see the process to the end. Amnesty anywhere in the world is not forever, it happens in other places. You tailor it to meet the need of the place where you are giving the amnesty. It is when the people brought out the arms; you have to contain them and engaged them in other ways. As a matter of fact there should have been even offers of entrepreneurship and ownership of access to oil was supposed to have been part of the process to be given to certain Niger Delta people: some that carried arms and some that didn’t carry arms but played a role in the process of making sure that even though the region was very hot and has brought the government of Nigeria to its knees economically. From 2.5 million barrel per day to 600 barrel per day, oil companies were declaring forcemajure. So, that process gave birth to amnesty. Now, amnesty is satisfying depending on where you are looking at it from, depending on if you are a beneficiary, depending on if you are from the Niger Delta, if have benefited from the training or you have benefited from given training to the Niger Deltans. But on the whole I will think that for the purpose it was set out, in my opinion, the beneficiary remain the Nigerian government and the oil companies for that I think it was a success because we now have a situation where the production of oil has gone always up from 2.5 to 2.7 million barrel per day which is basically the total amount of the budget of Nigeria in any one given year. Definitely, Niger Delta has proven that it provides the budget that Nigeria functions with. In general term, definitely, nothing is perfect and there would always be issue with any process whether it is amnesty, NDDC, Ministry of Niger Delta and any other thing in the past like the Water Basin Authorities and things like that. Nothing really in my opinion that has ever been set up for the Niger Delta people has ever worked. It never quite meets what we are looking for. So in that regard, neither the NDDC nor the Ministry of the Niger Delta has met the expectations of the Niger Delta people, and amnesty cannot meet the expectations of the Niger Delta, because it was set up for 30,000 people who either were armed or had potential of carrying arms. So that is the truth and the position of the issue of the amnesty program.
If the NDDC, Ministry of the Niger Delta, the Amnesty program and lots other programs set by the federal government to ameliorate the condition of the Niger Delta region have not met their expectations, then, what exactly are the expectations of the Niger Delta people?
When I look back now, and I look at the environmental pollution that we have suffered and I look at the lack of development in the Niger Delta in every ramification, I look at the fact that we’ve been denied ownership of our resources and some people somewhere just share our resources to the rest of the country and give us what they perceived is good for us and looking at the fact that somebody from the Niger Delta in 2009 when Yar’adua died, there was a great opposition even to accepting Jonathan as an acting President, there was greater opposition to accepting him as the substantive president after he has acted, there was a greater opposition for him even to come out and vie as a potential candidate in 2011. And when he refused the agitation against him not to run and he ran, we’ve all seen what has happened. There’ve been the keeling of youth corpers, there’ve been the rampage killings by Boko Haram and today it’s been used in the hands of politicians to disregard what Jonathan’s government has achieved.
The insecurity of Nigeria is the insecurity of activities of terrorism. Terrorism is a global phenomenon; it’s all over the world. In America, you there is Islamic terrorism, in Europe, look at what happened in Paris recently. So, it’s an ongoing thing.
If you look at what they are doing in Iraq, Iran, in Syria etc, why are they not blaming the governments in those countries, they are kidnapping girls in Iraq, Iran, and in Syria, they are doing all these things in these countries, why are the presidents of those countries not blamed? Because those countries no matter how sophisticated they are, do not have the capacity to contain the type of terrorism that is sweeping across the world. Look at what they’ve done; they just executed a Japanese national. Now that is the type of mentality that is confronting Nigeria, the Boko haram is killing Christians and Muslims, now they are burning both churches and mosques.
They started with the killing of Christians but now in all honesty as a Christian I cannot say it’s just Christians, they are killing both; these are innocent Nigerians that they are killing and kidnapping it’s unfair when in Nigeria, we politicized it, and limit it, and make it look as if it is the failure of Jonathan that has brought Boko Haram. That is not true. Politicians are using it, I wonder if Jonathan was not the president if Boko Haram would have metamorphosed in Nigeria the way that it has. But that does not mean that Jonathan does not know what he can do, it’s just that there is a push to make sure that Boko Haram is carrying out its surge so that Jonathan can be blamed for it. And I for one, would do not blame Jonathan because it is in Iran, Iraq, it is in America, Europe and many countries across the world and America is fighting terrorism for over 20 years they have not succeeded. You can’t blame the activities of insurgents on the President of Nigeria; I disagree with that type of attitude.
When you look at that, I am not longer sure that Niger Delta people should not continue their agitation. We must continue our agitation. I am disappointed and saddened that today we have a Niger Delta leader as the president, and from day one; the very people that we thought would have been the major support that we should have – the northerners. We’ve always supported the northerners from the South-South. Without the South-South, Nigeria would not have won the war against Biafra. Nigeria won the war against Biafra because of the South-South people particularly the riverine people (the Ijaws) because they won the war from the water. We thought that if any group of people, any nationality, and any ethnic group would have been able to support a Niger Delta president no matter what other circumstances he emerged as long as it was not a coup that brought him, and even if it was a coup, so what? Northerners have governed purely by coup.
It is very disappointing for us in the South-South particularly people from the riverine because at the time Shagari won election, the figures that swollen his vote, were from the creek. They waited for those figure to come from the creek and when it came he was declared president. It was people like the late Okilo, and other leaders that supported the north even before independent to have their say in the then Assembly. We are highly disappointed and therefore, it is a consideration for the Niger Delta people that we must continue our agitation. Jonathan should aspire to be the president in 1015; the rights whether you vote for him or not is purely electorates right not the right of anybody to influence Nigerians with lies or with confusion. It is the right of Nigerians to get their path right, make their decision and vote whoever they believe that they want to vote for.
Now having said that, when Jonathan emerges as the president of Nigeria in 2015, let nobody take it for granted that the Niger Delta would behave the way it has behaved in the last four years of his governance, no, we would not because our kindness has been appreciated, it has been was taken for a dirty rag. We want ownership of our resources; we do not think it is fair to continue to take the resources of the Niger Delta to develop the whole of Nigeria. Particularly today, when the 13 percent was based on the high price of over $100 at which oil was selling, today with the drastic drop in oil price of less than $50. So, the value of the 13 percent of 2011 has depreciated at least by two-third. It means we are getting 13 percent of two-third less of what we were getting in 2013. These are mathematics, we too are educated. These are calculations that we are making based on all these indices bearing in mind that there is a prediction that oil will dwindle in the Niger Delta between now and the next 20-30 years. So we have now, 20 years to develop ourselves with our own resources.
Let nobody makes any mistake that because Jonathan is the president that Niger Delta people between 2015 and 2019 we would agitate for resource ownership. No, we will do whatever means we find necessary for those agitations because it is our survival that is at stake. There is a saying in my place, that: iboso fi, peniso fi (whether you died face up, or you died faced down, you are dead). So that is where the Niger Delta is. So we must agitate for justice and that is coming, it will come after the election, it will come after Jonathan has been sworn in.
The meaning of that in simple terms is; it doesn’t matter who is the president, whether Jonathan is the president or Jonathan is not the president I assure Nigerians that Niger Delta people are going to agitate for justice and this time we would not stop until we get justice.
The general elections are close at hand, what are your expectations and advice to the Nigerian electorates?
The Nigerian electorates, if they don’t know it will be sad, very sad. The Nigerian electorate as of today is disenfranchised by INEC. INEC is not preparing for this election, it is not Nigerians that are not prepared for the election, it is not the candidates perhaps that are not prepared for the election. The body that has the responsibility to conduct the election is not prepared, why are we fooling ourselves? As I am talking to you now, I still have my temporary voters card of 2007 I’ve not been able to collect the permanent voters card because it was still that temporary one that we used to vote in 2011. As I am talking to you now, I do not have PVC. So basically, that my one vote whether I like it or not, I cannot use it for Jonathan and I cannot use it against Buhari, because I can’t vote.
I cannot make a decision on who can be my governor, because the person that PDP has given the flag to is not the person I want as my governor. But now, I am not able to have my voice heard and I am not the only Nigerian, there are millions of Nigerians that have not collected their PVC. So vote is a basic human right. This story that people from the south have refused to go and collect PVC is a lie from the pit of hell. We want to collect our voters’ cards we can’t see it. The INECT in Rivers state last week (fortnight) made an announcement that hoodlums came and stole 14,000 voters’ cards, how can hoodlums steal 14000 voters’ cards? That is 14,000 votes that could go one way or the other, where are they? They’ve been stolen! INEC is not in a position to replace them before the February 14. So those people are disenfranchised.
When you disenfranchised 14000 people in a day, how can say that you are prepared for election? INEC is not prepare for election and I want to call on Nigerians to refuse to allow INEC to conduct this election because as long as INEC will guarantee that they will be able to conduct election and the swearing-in to take place on the 29th of May, then, they should postponed the election because, they can have election in April. It’s only two Saturdays for crying out loud. They can have the next on the 14 of April and the next on the 28 of April and still be swearing-in in May within 30 days. These things I hear from Nigerians that okay, if we don’t find our PVC, it doesn’t matter let those who have vote. That is selling your birth right, you cannot condemn somebody you didn’t vote for or didn’t vote against.
If you desire to vote, mind you the right to vote is a basic human right the right not to vote is also a basic human right. You can decide to sit in your house but the right to hold the card you must have it because that is your voice in your country. Your voters card is your voice, therefore, the fact that INEC after billions of naira tax payers money that have been given to them and after four years of promises that they are ready and they are not ready, we won’t kill them that they are not ready but we are prepared to extend two months for them let them put their house in order, they should extend this election. If they don’t extend this election there would be fallout of failing to do their right thing for Nigerians. There would still be agitations against the fact that some people were disenfranchised it is a very wrong attitude for people to think that it is ok not to vote when people are taking their time to go and register, people took time days of work to go and register.
Why therefore, would you say that you INEC you are not ready? Then somebody should be fired because they have not done their work. If they have not delivered then they should be fired and let somebody who has capacity to do the job, come and do the job. Otherwise, we are prepared to give them two-months extension to be able to let Nigerians to collect their PVC. If they were not able to do it they should have said it. But they promised Nigerians and you cannot tell us that we should vote with temporary voters’ cards because there would room for fraud in the temporary voters’ card, so we must have our PVC.
Look, they’ve collected the money for the PVC; it’s like the issue of the National Identity Card contract. Money has been collected for those things, this is corruption! Somebody somewhere is saying I can fight corruption, how? What INEC is doing is a pure case of corruption; if it is not then they should produce the PVC. What is the excuse of them not producing the PVC? Only 70 million registered voters yet INEC cannot produce voters’ cards, how many minutes does it take to print these cards? We claim that we are capable of running a country of over 170 million people together when we cannot even produce 70 million voters’ cards. This is why I think that there is a need for autonomy, there is a need for self-determination in this country because if each region or each ethnic group or each state is autonomous or has a say over their destiny, then if you want to elect a governor, depends on the state, when and how you want to elect your governor, you don’t have to do it when every other state is doing it. Each state needs its own constitution so that each state would be bound by its own constitution. All of these things were provided for, before the military came and messed everything up and when you say military messed things up there are people that would tell you leave the military out, how can you leave the military? They are part and parcel of the problem Nigeria is facing today.
Finally, let us look at the UNEP Report on the cleaning of the Ogoni Land, it is expected to have been implemented long before now but all we’ve seen is foot-dragging; what exactly is happening to the report and why has it not been implemented even when the president is from the Niger Delta?
Again, what happened in Nigeria is what is happening to the UNEP report. The UNEP report is an independent report and therefore you cannot say that the UNEP report is a true report. It was not paid for by the Nigerian government, it was a report that was carried out in the interest of justice. Now that report shows very clearly that using Ogoni land which is a small portion of the Niger Delta as a case study to show the level of devastation in the region. Now if that is the case and the UNEP reports we are finding it difficult to even start a process of implementing it in the process of cleaning up Ogoni land alone, how can anybody come and tell me now as a campaign promise that the person will cleaning up the Niger Delta? There is nobody that has done anything for the Niger Delta, who? Is it the British that did anything for the Niger Delta? Is it after independent that something was done for the Niger Delta? Nothing has ever been done for the region.
Therefore, I believe and I am driving the process that there is a need for the Niger Delta Self Determination Movement which is a group that I am the National Convener. Our voices need to be heard, we need to show that we alone are the people that can take care of our problem nobody else is going to come and do it. But we cannot solve our problem without the resources. Look at Abuja, if you look at Abuja, one naira is not coming from anything than oil. Everything that is built in Abuja is from oil, even this hotel (Transcorp Hilton) we sit in is money from Niger Delta that built it. There is nothing in Abuja that is not coming from Niger Delta. Therefore, if you can make Abuja like this in less than 30 years, don’t tell me that there is any reason I and my people would not realized to use our resources to develop our region. We must take our resource back because, already, it’s very clear now before the price of oil will rise to another 100 dollars, is it today matter? It’s not today! Economy doesn’t work like that, it has fallen it has fallen, it will trip up. So we are the people that are paying that price now. So we want to use what is remaining of our resources to develop our land.
Are you really satisfied with the way the governors in the Niger Delta are using the 13 percent derivation funds or you have another alternative option to making them ensure they use the money to develop the area in such a way that would have direct impact on the lives of the common man in the region?
Definitely that is an issue; it is something that people like me has talked about. I have not shy from that side but what I have said in the past, it is offensive to us in the Niger delta for somebody to ask that question implying that, because the 13 percent has been misused or not used properly that we do not earn the justification to agitate. So that is where I differ. But on the issue of 13 percent, if actually we are getting the full 13 percent derivation and it is going directly to the governors of the Niger Delta states, then, definitely, both the government of the six states that make up the Niger Delta region, the NDDC, the Ministry of the Niger Delta, there is nothing as far as we are concerned in the Niger Delta to show for the amount that has gone to the region. Having said that, there is nothing to show for the 87 percent that has gone to the federal government; so if we are doing comparism, 13 percent is less 87 percent we don’t like whole of these going back and forth, these are not the issue. The issue of course is we want 100 percent, we want to own, we want to decide who will come and explore buy, who will sale all of those decisions we want to make it. We don’t want Danjuma to own an oil well; we don’t want people who are not Niger Delta people to own oil well. What qualifies the? It’s not money naw, it’s just a piece of paper that qualifies them, and that piece of paper was not signed by Niger Delta man, it was sign by the military to themselves and they didn’t sign it to the Niger Delta people. There is only one man from the Niger Delta that is exploring oil and that is Tobi Lulu Briggs and his own is offshore.
What I am saying is that there is an injustice that is going on and we are now prepared to resist that injustice no matter what it takes and no matter how long it will take to resist that injustice. The licenses for all these secret oil wells that Nigerians owned are going to come up for renewal, we want the names of all the companies that own these licenses to be published and the CAC is an organization that must public the information that we need. We want to know the people who owned those companies and we want to know where they come from, we want to know what due process they went through to owning those oil wells. We want to demand that every oil well that comes up for renewal must be published and we from the Niger Delta want to know on what grounds these licenses are going to be given because these oil are found on people’s farmland. You cannot come from Sokoto to own an oil well in the Niger Delta when I cannot go to Sokoto to mine a bitumen or clay. There is a lopsided way of doing things in Nigeria, and it must stop, if everybody else is happy with it we are not happy with it.
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