USA Africa Dialogue Series - Books, books, and more books on Niger Delta

By Juliet Bumah and Abimbola Adelakun http://www.punchontheweb.com/Article2Print.aspx?theartic=Art201004290263539

One good thing that the Niger Delta issue would have achieved at the end of it all (if it ends, that is) is that it would have contributed largely to scholarship. The growing body of literature on the crisis in that region shows that it is a crisis that is receiving the scholarly attention it deserves. Various writers and critics have written extensively on the crisis. Theories have been postulated, torn apart and other ones established. It has not solved the problem but at least, it has kept the issue on the front burner. If the crisis is not properly solved, the Nigerian government will not blame the academia for not properly studying the issues. Scholars would be absolved of all blames, if nothing else.   There are scholarly works such as Shell, the State and Underdevelopment of the Niger Delta of Nigeria: A Study in Environmental Degradation; Understanding the Armed Croups of the Niger Delta by Charles A. Kupchan; Towards an Integrated Development of the Niger Delta, edited by Kayode Fayemi, Stella Amadi, Ololade Bamidele; Legal Issues in the Niger Delta Struggle by Akpezi Ogbuigwe.   Apart from scholars are those who have written creatively about the issue of the Niger Delta. Poets have done various collections on the subject. Some of them are Blood of Niger Delta by Chidi Anthony Opara, Tears in a Basket by Sophia Obi, The Chants of a Minstrel by Ezenwa Ohaeto; A Memory of Rivers: Poems Out of the Niger Delta, written by Barrett Lindsay and published in 2006; Songs of a Dying Rive written by Ogbowei Ebinyo. There is also We Thought it was Oil but it was Blood by Nnimmo Bassey.   Those are just a few. There are countless works of literature on the Niger Delta. Also, there are works by Professor Ahmed Yerima who wrote and won an award for his play, Hard Ground.   There are prose works such as Ayo Akinfe's Fuelling the fires of the Niger Delta, Kaine Agary's Yellow Yellow; Tanure Ojaide's The activist among many others.   The latest on the Niger Delta written by Dr. Ike Okonta, was presented to the public on Tuesday in Lagos. He is a co-author of Where Vultures Feast: Shell, Human Rights and Oil.   Okonta has studied the Niger Delta issue closely and his latest book, When citizens revolt; Nigeria Elite, Big Oil and the Ogoni Struggle for Self-   Determination, is a product of his doctoral dissertation at the University of Oxford. First, Okonta did not pretend that he was an impartial observer because, according to him, the issues at stake are clearly political. He looks at the roots of the crisis as we know it - the Ogoni were citizens in their own right but colonialism forced denial and alienation on them. Successive governments have not treated the issue better and it has gradually, over the years, snowballed into a crisis of immense proportions which Nigeria has not been able to properly manage.   Among problems created for the country from the region are the incessant cases of vandalisation of oil installations, culminating in revenue losses and shortage of gas, kidnapping and endless violence.   This hydra headed monster has been a cause of many problems in the region and even though some form of reprieve came last year, when the amnesty offer was granted to the militants, the issue is still far from resolved.   Okonta highlighted the issues by first going several years to the past to understand where the rain started beating Nigeria. When a people, who are an ethnic nationality unto themselves are repressed by a larger ethnic group, it cannot but produce serious crisis. Of course, it produces revolutionary leaders like Ken Saro-Wiwa.   One thing stands out in his work: the Ogoni people are a nation unto themselves but grouped within a cluster of nations called Nigeria, they have been subjugated to the point that for them to get their civic rights as citizens of the Nigerian state, they had to devalue themselves to the status of 'tribesmen' to become citizens.   This central point, which Okonta's book raises, says a lot about the Nigerian nation and the many nations it encompasses. United by one foreign tongue, there is a lot of competition among the various 'nations' that only the fittest lives. There is no chance that seven thin cows can swallow seven fat cows. Now, when the stronger entities prey on the smaller ones, what it results in is that neither faction enjoys peace. Using the book option as a way of searching for solution to the Niger Delta debacle, Nigerians may be getting to a stage where they conclude that those in authorities hardly read for if they do, they ought to have been moved by the outpouring of ideas on the causes of the carnage in the region and the best way out of the logjam.   One of those at the book event, poet and critic, Odia Ofeimun did comment about memorialising the social struggle that the Niger Delta crisis is. Writing about the crisis, he suggests, will raise polemical implications and people following the crisis will know the way it will end. Nigeria, to Ofeimun, has never studied any crisis properly and this is one way to do so. His critique of the book that language is not the basis for the Ogoni struggle but polity is, shows that Nigeria does not yet adequately understand that the peoples of Nigeria should be regarded as an entity and not a sub set of another group.   Ofeimun argues that without individual nation within Nigeria given their dues, Nigeria is not yet a proper nation. To make Nigeria a nation, first Nigeria must be democratised. All thumbs, as different as it is, must be recognised individually. The same concept goes for ethnic nations. Nigerians should stop devaluing each nation state under it and relegating them to the status of minorities that can be easily preyed upon by larger ones. Of course, one will do well to remember that each writer postulates according to conclusions he/she makes from empirical studies and biases. However, the fact the Niger delta issue is not left alone but is being studied and documented in books is gratifying. Nigerian government will do well to take these books and begin to study them. They might have the key to the wisdom chest they have been searching for all these while.