place as Mujahid Dokubo Asari': Professor Tam David-West the former
Nigerian Oil Minister and here are his views on Muhammadu Buhari :
Sure I have tremendous sympathy about the plight of the Niger Delta
People and their aspirations for better life conditions:
But this is the sort of news that we don't want to hear :
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1104/S00620/fresh-oil-war-looms-in-niger-delta.htm
Another unwelcome piece of news that should be taken seriously is
this bit here from my Buguma brother Mujahid Dokubo Asari's PRESS
RELEASE BY THE JOINT REVOLUTIONARY COUNCIL (JRC) OF NIGER DELTA AS
SENT To his YAHOOMAIL INBOX.) :
PRESS RELEASE BY THE JOINT REVOLUTIONARY COUNCIL (JRC) OF NIGER DELTA
NOW THAT ELECTIONS ARE OVER
"We suspended our armed campaign for the independence of the Niger
Delta when we discovered that General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida and
his co-travellers in the Northern Political Leaders Forum (NPLF) were
attempting to fund hoodlums in our region to engage in terrorist
activities aimed at painting a picture that the Niger Delta freedom
fighters are against the Presidential ambition of President Goodluck
Jonathan. We saw that the activities of criminal groups funded by the
NPLF to oppose the Nigerian President would taint our genuine struggle
for the independence of Niger Delta. However, we do not have anything
against the Presidential ambition of President Goodluck Jonathan who
happens to be from our region that has been politically marginalized
under the heavy burden of internal colonialism.
Nevertheless, elections have come and gone. It is unfortunate that
those who submitted themselves to the process refused to adhere to the
layed down laws, rules and regulation enshrined in the Nigerian
Electoral Act. Instead they resorted to violence in Northern Nigeria.
The violence has led to the indescribable massacre of 10,000 innocent
civillians of Southern Nigerian origin by miscreats and supporters of
General Muhammadu Buhari and his Congress for Progressive Change (CPC)
which lost in the April 16, 2011 Presidential Election. Also,
thousands of homes, shops and places of religious worship of people
from the south of Nigeria living in the north were burnt and bombed.
It is sad that nothing concrete has been done to bring the masterminds
and perpetrators of these dastardly acts to justice. We all know that
the northern quartet of Mallam Adamu Ciroma, Alhaji Abubakar Atiku,
General Aliyu Gusau and General Ibrahim Babangida promised that hell
will let loose if ruling party (PDP) refused to zone the presidency of
Nigeria to the north, thereby setting the tone for a return to a north/
south political rivalry. As part of their plans to achieve that, they
sponsored terrorist bomb attacks in different part of Nigeria,
including an attempt on the life of President Goodluck Jonathan on
October 1, 2010. Their attempt to intimidate him out of the
Presidential Primaries of PDP failed and he won.
Furthermore, the northern quartet rallied round and joined forces with
General Muhammadu Buhari and his northern-based CPC in a bid to
promote their Northern Regional bias. General Muhammadu Buhari tried
to absolve himself of the massacre and mayhem in the north, but there
are evidence to proove that he and the northern quartet were the
mastermind. Before the beginning of the electoral process he said
severally that Nigeria would become another Somalia. He also promised
an uprising if the PDP prevents him from winning. The biggest of them
all was when he alleged that the ruling party flew millions of ballot
papers to several parts of the country in the previous night before
the election day. In that reckless remark, he rejected the possible
outcome of the election and vowed that he would never challenge the
result of election in court neither will he contest in any election
after 2011. With this comment, he set the tone for the sporadic
violence and massacre of the lives of 10,000 innocent civillians of
southern extraction in the north.
It is sad that when statesmen were patriotically calling for the
arrest and trial of General Muhammadu Buhari, he and his supporters
dared the Nigerian government to arrest him and see the consequence.
This act of arrogance and impunity should not be encouraged. Post
election violence in Kenya that took this form of tribal violence and
massacre led to the investigation of the International Criminal Court
(ICC) and today, people are being tried for 'crimes against humanity'.
Unless this is done in Nigeria, this matter will not be put to rest.
This has been a recurring decimal in our checkered political history
and the Nigerian Civil War was a fallout of the first ethnic cleansing
in Nigeria in 1966 orchestrated by elements from the same Northern
Nigeria who believe that they were born to rule. They are not even
considering the repercussion that would befall Nigeria if we choose to
react violently.
It is on the basis of this, that we make a minimum demand of the
arrest and trial of Generals Muhammadu Buhari, Ibrahim Babangida and
Aliyu Gusau. This should also include, Mallam Adamu Ciroma and Alhaji
Abubakar Atiku. Failing which, we shall mobilize our people to visit
vengance and anger on all Hausa and Fulani people we can find inside
and outside our region. We deliberately waited for the end of
elections to make this well-thought-out declaration as we did not want
to be dragged into the murky water of Nigeria politics.
Ignore this declaration at your own peril!
The Niger Delta Struggle Continues!!
Long Live the Niger Delta!!!
Bakabio Walter
Spokesman, Joint Revolutionary Council (JRC) of Niger Delta "
Exactly what kind of craziness is this?
All said and done, in my humble opinion - and here I'm talking as a
Kalabari Rivers man, one of the things that Goodluck Jonathan has
going for him is that he is from exactly that part of the country and
if anything must be sensitive to the needs of his people and
therefore more familiar with the Niger Delta oil problems which are
twofold: environmental – first of all the ecological disaster that
has been unwittingly, or inadvertently imposed on the Ijaw people for
whom fishing is not not just a pastime but also a livelihood, and
secondly the sad and irrefutable fact that in the 1980s although the
then Rivers State ( excluding the other major oil producing state,
then Benin State, the first to be captured and subsumed into the
proposed Biafra ) Rivers State alone accounted for 56 % of the total
revenue of the whole of the Nigerian Federation and has not been
benefited proportionally ' or as much as one would normality expect,
from the revenue proceeds derived from the of oil which is buried in
their location and the Riverine area of Ijaw land which the rest of
the world has been made familiar with through the plays of John Pepper
Clark and later on by the political activism of Ken Saro-Wira whose
Ogoni people who in the midst of the otherwise beautiful natural
pristine landscapes are now still wallowing in the squalor of
environmental degradation brought upon them by oil spills etc. when
they could be experiencing a standard of living and opulence of the
kind that Kuwait is enjoying.
The late Senator Francis Ellah from the Upland of Rivers State brought
this aspect of the problem to the nation's attention.( Politically and
geographically local consciousness was that the then Rivers State was
divided into the Upland and the Riverine area - and there was much
political rivalry between these two sections of the state. Yet it was
Senator Ellah from the Upland area of Omuko-Ekpeye where he had his
fish farm netting him $8 million annually ) - it was this
conscientious citizen who brought the matter to the forefront by
trying to do the impossible although he did succeed in making his
point felt and that point has not gone away : based on his own
careful mathematical calculation he presented the proposition in the
form of a bill which, for theatrical effect and consciousness- raising
alone, he attempted to pilot through the Rivers State House of
Assembly. The Bill could sound preposterous to some ears – and this
was at a time when Nigeria comprised a total of nineteen States and
Senator Ellah proposed that since Rivers states accounted for 56 % of
the Federal Revenue and only received a nineteenth part of that 56%,
in the name of Justice and fair play, Rivers States should be divided
into 13 more states and each of the thirteen states should get an
equal share of the cake ( the oil revenues) just like the other
nineteen states....
If such a proposal were to be made today, you would expect the North
to maintain silence. A deafening silence.They would not deign to say a
word.
I happen to be extra aware of Senator Ellah's proposal because
Mallah, the Speaker of the House was my Scrabble companion – and
Senator Ellah's younger brother Joe Ellah was my second benefactor in
Nigeria, the first was the former Governor of Rivers State Mr. Diete-
Spiff who invited me to dinner, my first week in Nigeria. The third
was Mr. Efebo, the Commissioner of Police: he was invited to be
military governor of Rivers State after the Muhammadu Buhari - Tunde
Idiagbon coup, but he declined.
My wife and my son and I visited Senator Ellah in November 1981 and he
showed us around the farm and we had a fish course for dinner.
I have never discussed politics with a Nigerian politician, at any
time. But do keep my ears open. I am extrovert, flexible, adaptable
and sociable. I can move around when I want to – in any environment.
In principle, I have always done my best to keep away from
politicians, following Bob Marley's dictum : "Never let a politician
grant you a favour,. he will always want to control you for ever."...
One of my good friends here in Stockholm, an Irishman by the name of
James Flemming was for many years a representative of the Ogoni people
and their awareness raising movement - and this is just a small part
of a world wide concern about the future of the Ogoni people and the
Ijaw people in general in that part of Nigeria.
The Ijaw people now have an Ijaw man as president of Nigeria and
expect some improvement in their life. In this area too it is a
challenge that Goodluck Jonathan faces and with additional local
pressure, it is expected that he must deliver.
--
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