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Biafra: Ohakim ignorant of Ndigbo problems – APGA
By Adelani Adepegba, Enugu
The All Progressives Grand Alliance has carpeted Governor Ikedi Ohakim of Imo State on his call that Ndigbo
should foget the past and rebrand itself, saying it showed that the governor was ignorant of the problems confronting the ethnic group in the country.
It described as an insult the lecture delivered by the governor recently at the Aka Ikenga leadership lecture in Lagos in which he called on Ndigbo to forget the civil war and its defeatist position.
The National Chairman of APGA, Chief Victor Umeh, who said this at a news conference in Enugu on Tuesday, added that Ohakim exhibited “total ignorance” of the challenges being faced by the Igbo, noting that nearly 40 years after the end of the civil war, the Federal Government was still treating the group like a vanquished people.
He wasparticularly irked by Ohakim’s posturing that the Igbo were better off under President Yar’Adua’s administration, stressing that the Igbo had been reduced to ‘insignificance’ in national affairs under the present government.
Umeh said that the lecture was a tragedy, noting that the Imo State governor failed to see what he called the unwritten policies of the government being carried out over the years against the Igbo and their interests.
The APGA boss said that the Federal Government being the largest spender in the country, had refused to site projects and undertake infrastructures in the South-East geo-political zone as part of plot to punish the Igbo for the civil war, observing that Ndigbo had suffered terrible neglect from successive governments in the country.
He cited the failure of the Federal Government to rehabilitate federal roads in the South-East zone earmarked in the 2007 budget and the refusal of the government to plough back the N9bn appropriated in the budget into the 2008 budget as instances of the injustice being meted to the people of the zone.
He traced Ohakim’s path as the governor to former President Obasanjo’s opposition to Senator Ifeanyi Ararume’s ambition to be the governor of Imo State, noting that he (Ohakim) was ‘smuggled in as the governor two weeks after he lost his party primaries’
“It is therefore surprising that somebody like Governor Ohakim should say that Ndigbo should stop their defeatist posture to rebrand themselves to face the 21st century when he doesn’t understand the plight of Ndigbo in Nigeria.
Source: Punch, 21st May 2008.
Ohakim's "It's Over" Declaration
OPINION
By Ochereome Nnanna
I first listened to him give a lecture in September 2007 in Detroit, Michigan, where that year's World Igbo Congress summit took place.
I also listened to his counterparts from Anambra State, Mr. Peter Obi; and Abia, Dr. Theodore Orji, at the same event. I came back to report that a new leadership had been born in Igboland and things would never be the same. The message was fresh and inspiring.
The size of hope they radiated was only matched by the scope of their visions.
Governor Ikedi Ohakim came back to Lagos on Wednesday, May 14th, 2008, with an amplification of his Detroit epistle to the Igbo and, by extension, the Nigerian nation during this year's Aka Ikenga Lecture on leadership and good governance.
On both occasions, the massage was the same: the Igbo people, one of Africa's largest linguistic and cultural groupings, should put on a new face (re-brand) in order to play a leading role in an emerging new Nigeria and 21st century global community.
A time comes when groups sit down and do some soul searching. The Yoruba nation is currently doing the same, as they search for a new beginning after former President Olusegun Obasanjo's destructive reign.
Even the North, which has dominated the political firmament of Nigeria for most of our post-independence period, has also realised that it has done them little good, since their educational disadvantage and extreme poverty among the lower classes have remained almost where they were when Nigeria became independent.
So, a few moments of self rediscovery for an Igbo nation that suffered the loss of a war against all the nationalities of Nigeria and her foreign allies is inescapable.
Before now, when a lecture of this nature was staged, speakers competed with one another in doing the jeremiad. They hate us.
They have not accepted us back after the war. The war is still going on in their minds; it's only the shooting that stopped. They are cheating us. They are killing us. They have enslaved us. We are marginalised. They have given us inferior ministries. They are doing this to us. They are doing that to us.
It's their fault. Fingers were pointed into the air, at them. But as it happens, when you point one finger at others, three are pointing back at you, telling you to search yourself first and be sure whether the fault is not really yours. Look at the mirror first. Are you sure the main problem is not that person who is staring back at you?
Indeed, after the civil war, the federal side adopted the post-war measures usually put in place by the winners. These measures are usually meant to serve two major purposes: (a) to prevent the defeated enemy from being in a position to pose the kind of threat that triggered the war off, since it led to great costs to both sides, (b) to reward themselves for winning the war.
As Governor Ikedi Ohakim pointed out in his lecture entitled: NDIGBO: Rebranding for a Changing World, the Igbo nation suffered a lot of setbacks as a result of measures put in place by the colonialists and their fellow countrymen after the war.
These measures were meant to contain the spirit of a people who would not be slaves to anyone. If the Igbo were an easy ride, no one would bother to go to the extent that these two forces of history did.
Seven of these twelve historical measures were put in place after the war. They included, and I pick from Ohakim's list: post-war policy of the federal government to pauperise the Igbo people; the Indigenisation Decree of 1972 that nationalised multinational companies at time the Igbo people had neither the means nor the clout in government to benefit from it; the foreign exchange streak of the 1970's extended to the indigenised companies; the oil blocks allocation of the 1980's and beyond; the privatisation programmes of the 1990's and the Obasanjo era - Nigeria for sale; the deliberate neglect of infrastructure in the South East, the theatre of the civil war and, most tellingly, the policy of empowering miscreants to take over power in the South East as a means of blocking the chances of Igbo people seeking power at the centre.
The Igbo people, because of their spirit of enterprise which is envied by all, were able largely to overcome most of the economic measures, with the result that the South East ranks first among the six geopolitical zones in economic affluence per capita.
Rarely does this happen to a people who lost a war. And this is one point that other Nigerians see and laugh when Igbo so-called leaders go on their lamentation binges. Other Nigerians see the quantum of progress the Igbo nation has made after the war.
Even on the political front, they produced the Vice President of Nigeria only nine years after the end of the war!
Had the Buhari coup of 1983 not taken place, the chances of an Igbo man emerging as president of Nigeria only 17 years after losing a civil war seemed imminent, and most Nigerians had adjusted to that possibility. That would have been a world record. It is only the Igbo who do not know how blest they are.
Of the seven-point agenda to contain the Igbo after the war, only two of them actually scored the bull's eye: (a) deliberate neglect of infrastructure and economic possibilities in the South East and (b) the empowering of miscreants as Igbo leaders, the same miscreants who were court jesters, domestic servants or pimps for the ruling presidents.
The neglect of infrastructural repair of a war theatre in spite of the "no victor, no vanquished" declaration bordered on war crime, because it triggered the mass exodus of young, virile and productive Igbo people not only to other parts of Nigeria and Africa but the entire world. The Igbo Diaspora is obviously the largest. This is evident in the composition of year-end homecoming of Nigerians.
The Igbo people are all over Nigeria, Africa and the world. They are investing in and building the economies of their host communities.
But, at the same time, they neglect the economy of their homeland, thus creating suspicion among their hosts, who now see them more as invaders than investors. But this situation would have been different if the Igbo invested in their own economy.
Other Nigerians will then see economic possibilities in Igboland and will want to go there and tap into it too.
This will create the kind of equilibrium that will reduce the problem of the Igbo man being seen as a migratory parasite. Since the federal government has not done much to replace the damaged economic foundations that were destroyed during the war, only the Igbo can do it if it is to be done at all. That is one very important aspect of this re-branding.
Unless the economic foundation of Igboland is rebuilt to make it attractive to both Igbo and other Nigerians, the Igbo people will continue to be targeted.
It is true that successive regimes after the war propped up local agents to subvert Igbo values and emerge as "Igbo leaders".
The worst culprit of this phenomenon was Olusegun Obasanjo, who used the Uba family as his own agents to rule Igboland. Nothing was spared or considered a taboo. A governor was abducted in Anambra State. Public institutions were razed with police and army supervision on national television.
Chris Uba was crowned the godfather of Anambra politics and was given charge of the PDP in South East. Funny enough, there were no shortages of eager and worshipful followers among Igbo politicians in this ploy to ensure that Igboland never rose again to claim their rightful place at the centre.
It can, therefore, be rightly claimed that the
Igbo people collaborated with their enemies to destroy their land and put them in what position they now find themselves in. However, Governor Ohakim represents not just the new face of Imo but the voice of the new generation of Igbo people who are ready to take their destiny in their hands.
This new generation realises that the enemies of Igboland have expired. There is no more president in Aso Rock imposing leaders on Igbo people.
As Ohakim put it: President Yar' Adua is not a man who likes to mind other people's businesses. He has returned Imo and Abia States to the Coastal States scheme.
He has returned 46 seized oil wells to Abia State with more to come. Anambra is being considered as an oil producing state. So many new things are happening. The chains are off. It is all over. The rest is left for the Igbo people to sort out. The ball is in the court of Ndi Igbo.
Of the seven-point agenda to contain the Igbo after the war, only two of them actually scored the bull's eye: (a) deliberate neglect of infrastructure and economic possibilities in the South East and (b) the empowering of miscreants as Igbo leaders, the same miscreants who were court jesters, domestic servants or pimps for the ruling presidents.
The neglect of infrastructural repair of a war theatre in spite of the "no victor, no vanquished" declaration bordered on war crime, because it triggered the mass exodus of young, virile and productive Igbo people not only to other parts of Nigeria and Africa but the entire world. The Igbo Diaspora is obviously the largest. This is evident in the composition of year-end homecoming of Nigerians.
The Igbo people are all over Nigeria, Africa and the world. They are investing in and building the economies of their host communities.
But, at the same time, they neglect the economy of their homeland, thus creating suspicion among their hosts, who now see them more as invaders than investors. But this situation would have been different if the Igbo invested in their own economy.
Other Nigerians will then see economic possibilities in Igboland and will want to go there and tap into it too.
This will create the kind of equilibrium that will reduce the problem of the Igbo man being seen as a migratory parasite. Since the federal government has not done much to replace the damaged economic foundations that were destroyed during the war, only the Igbo can do it if it is to be done at all. That is one very important aspect of this re-branding.
Unless the economic foundation of Igboland is rebuilt to make it attractive to both Igbo and other Nigerians, the Igbo people will continue to be targeted.
It is true that successive regimes after the war propped up local agents to subvert Igbo values and emerge as "Igbo leaders".
The worst culprit of this phenomenon was Olusegun Obasanjo, who used the Uba family as his own agents to rule Igboland. Nothing was spared or considered a taboo. A governor was abducted in Anambra State. Public institutions were razed with police and army supervision on national television.
Chris Uba was crowned the godfather of Anambra politics and was given charge of the PDP in South East. Funny enough, there were no shortages of eager and worshipful followers among Igbo politicians in this ploy to ensure that Igboland never rose again to claim their rightful place at the centre.
It can, therefore, be rightly claimed that the
Igbo people collaborated with their enemies to destroy their land and put them in what position they now find themselves in. However, Governor Ohakim represents not just the new face of Imo but the voice of the new generation of Igbo people who are ready to take their destiny in their hands.
This new generation realises that the enemies of Igboland have expired. There is no more president in Aso Rock imposing leaders on Igbo people.
As Ohakim put it: President Yar' Adua is not a man who likes to mind other people's businesses. He has returned Imo and Abia States to the Coastal States scheme.
He has returned 46 seized oil wells to Abia State with more to come. Anambra is being considered as an oil producing state. So many new things are happening. The chains are off. It is all over. The rest is left for the Igbo people to sort out. The ball is in the court of Ndi Igbo.
Source: Vanguard, 19th May 2008.
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Is the Civil War Over?
OPINION
By Obi Nwakanma
LAST week in Lagos, at the auditorium of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, in an event organized by Aka-Ikenga, the association of the Igbo elite in Lagos, Governor Ikedi Ohakim of Imo State declared that the civil war was over.
Let me refresh the mind of those who may either have forgotten that a war was fought, or who may never know because they were not born, and the civil war is not taught in Nigerian history classes; that is if Nigeria has any programme of history at all in its schools: the Nigerian civil war also known as the Biafran war commenced on July 6, 1967 when Federal forces launched an attack on the Biafrans from Garkem and from Nsukka.
There were two countries. The old federation of Nigeria had passed away, foreclosed by two momentous and terrible events: the January 15, 1966 coup of the "Five Majors," led by Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna (some erroneously say by Nzeogwu) which had toppled the parliament and therefore, the government of Prime minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa.
The picture that emerged had one eerie significance: it seemed, by the lopsided pattern of executions, that this was an Igbo coup, since most of the officers who were at the epicentre of the coup were young Igbo officers in the Army.
And so indeed, there was legitimate anguish and even justified anger by the interests wounded in that coup, which saw it in their own terms as an Igbo coup to "dominate Nigeria," especially with the emergence of General JTU Ironsi as the supreme commander and first military head of state of Nigeria.
The talk of "Igbo domination" was nothing new even then. It was a talk that had began in the 1940s, when the Igbo began to fully and forcefully establish prominence and authority over national life, and were set to play a modernizing and central role in the new republic, when Independence came.
And the Igbo had some of the most prominent and vociferous leaders of the anti-colonial nationalist movement, so much so that in some archive of papers by some of British colonial servants, they referred to the Nationalist movement in their writings, quite remarkably as "the Igbo movement."
The fact was that the Nigerian narrative of heroic resistance up till 1960 was emblematized by that eponymous figure of the 20th century called Nnamdi Azikiwe - the Great Zik. Zikism was the message of political freedom, of economic determinism, of spiritual balance, of the autonomy that inspired the "can-do" spirit of enterprise and invention, and Nigerians heard Zik and listened for at least two generations, particularly through his chain of newspapers that "imagined" Nigeria as an organic nation for the first time. Nigeria was a nation of possibilities.
The great future lay in its great unity; its nationalist enterprise; a Nigerianess without borders; a Nigeria of great dreams and heroic possibilities; a Nigeria where we could build the refuge for the black man in the world, and a great power that would shield it from a long history of vulnerability.
It was a place to build - a new frontier. Many Nigerians listened to Zik, but the Igbo, his kinsmen listen even more closely, and set out, to build a modern nation.
They fanned out from the Igbo heartland, and set out to build a new nation in their own image - of individual freedom, a disdain for hierarchies of monarchical authority; a curiosity for novelty and knowledge; a love of ingenuity and invention; a desire to "catch up with the white man" and to establish a domain of prosperity; and of course a capacity for unnerving competitiveness.
They Igbo brought their great gifts and their great flaws into the mix of their new neighborhoods, and into their upsurge, created eternal rivalries and fears among those with whom they made contact, by this hunger for transcendence. The centrality of the Igbo presence in Nigeria, in both the private and the public spheres of national experience doomed them.
By the early 1960s, people like Ayo Rosiji in Western Nigeria were making the subject of "Igbo domination" a campaign issue. Indeed, the 1963 Hansard of the Northern House of Assembly reports the debate about the Igbo presence in the North, with Bashari Umaru, representing Birnin-Kudu saying "The solution to the (Igbo) problem is to take over all the houses belonging to the Ibos (sic) and revoke all their certificates of occupancy," to which the Northern minister for lands, Alhaji Ibrahim Musa Dagash responded, "Mr Chairman, Sir, I do not like to take much of the time of this House in making explanation.
But I would like to assure members that having heard their demands about Ibos holding land in northern Nigeria, my ministry will do all it can to see that the demands of members are met. How to do this, when to do this should not be disclosed now. In due course you will see what will happen."
This statement would prove ominous, and serves merely as a background, to what happened later, in what has been called the "retaliation coup" of July 1966, led by Gowon, Murtala Muhammed, Theophilus Danjuma and Martin Adamu.
They not only killed the head of state General Ironsi who was on an official visit to Ibadan, they killed his host Fajuyi; and began a systematic massacre of Igbo and Eastern Nigerian military officers in all the military formations. This was followed by a pogrom - the organized and systematic massacre of the Igbo across Nigeria, particularly in the north.
The Igbo fled Nigeria, went home, organized themselves hurriedly, and declared an independent state of Biafra, seceding, first to protect themselves, and secondly to establish the nation to which they would commit their talents and dream of creating "a great Black super power." Biafra was attacked, a painful civil war was fought for three years, in which Igbo land was devastated by warfare.
The war ended in 1970. But the Igbo have not survived the peace. The Igbo returned to Nigeria in 1970, committed themselves to rebuilding the nation, and to renewing the spirit of the land. But it was not long for them to find out that what was won was a fragile peace from Nigeria. Igbo land, and much of the former Eastern Nigeria was now war booty.
The oil was the issue. The very strategic attempts by the "winners" of the war, to appropriate the resources of the East, as their own pay check for fighting the war, has been the basis of corruption in Nigeria.
The alienation which the Igbo have suffered, particularly with deliberate policies that have closed them off in federal employment, education and professional opportunities; the gerrymandering of their population and votes; their group existence at the margins of nation since 1970 remains part of the effects of deliberate federal policies on the Igbo since the war.
The very policy to subdue Igbo energy and enterprise, so it does not rise and threaten Nigeria anymore is central to this policy. So Nigeria's postwar domestic economic and social policies have been mostly framed to reduce Igbo energy, and framed on a fear of Igbo resurgence.
Sam Ogbemudia gave the one example in his memoir, of how he tried to get the Gowon government to bring together the Igbo war scientists to form the backbone of Nigeria's post war industrial program in 1970. His colleagues in the council of state quickly shot this down.
The many deliberate discriminations against the Igbo have also meant that vital creative energy has been lost to the efforts to build Nigeria, and the Igbo really now, do not give a damn. So, it is remarkable that Ikedi Ohakim declared this week that the war is over.
Perhaps indeed, the war has ended. One cannot but note the irony of General Ike Nwachukwu who fought on the Nigerian side of the conflict, and Admiral Allison Madueke, who fought on the Biafran side, sitting side by side of Ohakim, while he made this statement. But there is a lot of Igbo skepticism to contend with. Many Igbo are saying, when did this war end?
We want it to end. But the signs are not there yet. Besides, the Igbo thought the war ended in 1970. But most Nigerians did not think so. If the war were over, perhaps, the discriminations would stop. The broken infrastructure in Igbo land would be rebuilt.
The structural containment of the Igbo would be lifted by the state. But then, an even greater civil war is raging now, and it is not with Nigeria. It's the internal civil war raging in Igbo land: the kidnappings, the high crime, the dismantling of communities. The aftershocks of the war. The war ends when the trauma is healed. Source: Vanguard, 18th May 2008.
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COMMUNIQUÉ - Conference of Ethnic Nationalities of Niger Delta
Author: Prof. Kimise Okoko
Tuesday, 30 December 2008 15:24
COMMUNIQUÉ
The meeting of the Steering Committee of the Conference of Ethnic Nationalities of Niger Delta (CENND) held today Wednesday, December 17, 2008 in Uzere, Delta State. The Apex body of the Conference deliberated extensively on the Report of the Technical Committee on the Niger Delta and some other issues of national importance and issued this Communiqué.
1. The Conference deeply regrets the loss of two outstanding and committed members in the persons of:
- Ukai (Sir) Fred Essien – Ibiobio Leader
- Chief Chris Ghomorai – Vice President, Ijaw National Congress (INC)
The two leaders died in the struggle to actualize the desires of the Ethnic Nationalities of the Niger Delta. Conference prays that their souls and those of all the departed rest in peace.
2. The Report submitted to Government by the Technical Committee on the Niger Delta failed to meet the aspiration of the Ethnic Nationalities of the Niger Delta.
3. It is manifestly clear that the final outcome has been programmed to become another ploy to ensure that business continues as usual and to encourage the perpetuation of social upheavals in the region such as bunkering, vandalisation of pipelines, etc. In such a situation, the region continues to remain poor, backward and insecure as has been the case since 1958.
4. It is to achieve the design that government was careful to nominate persons that would do its bidding with the usual expectation that the new set of Niger Deltans so negatively selected and manipulated and thereafter exposed to the criticism of our people would be further driven into the unfortunate situation of lackeys of government and enemies of their people. The forty-seven (47) members of the Technical Committee of which over thirty (30) are Niger Deltans selected have therefore been manipulated to produce a report that was intended to provoke the Ethnic Nationalities of the Niger Delta.
5. Our people however, have learnt from the Ogoni experience when the Ogoni four were set up against the Ogoni nine and in one fell swoop the leadership of Ogoni was decapitated. We will not fall for the trick. All we want to say to our fellow Niger Deltans who were invited in the past and are likely to be invited in future is that the yoke of colonialism cannot be lifted by begging those who always adopt the strategy of inviting selected persons amongst those they colonize to 'come and eat,' the cake baked in the Niger Delta.
6. As we are opposed to violence, we propose that the case of the Niger Delta must be understood by Niger Deltans and Nigeria and this can be done by courageously presenting our case so that no Niger Deltan should in future succumb to buy offs or the offer of "come and eat" by the internal colonizers.
7. It is however unfortunate that the forty-seven men and women of the Technical Committee over thirty of whom are from the Niger Delta, pretend not to know that the Ethnic Nationalities of the Niger Delta are not only struggling for development but also for basic rights such as the right to choose their own leaders as all civilized people around the world do and control of their resources, when they made themselves available for the unpatroitic assignment.
8. The Conference of Ethnic Nationalities of the Niger Delta [CENND] wishes to intimate our people that there is no distinction between neocolonialism and internal colonialism except that the former is controlled from the outside, such as Nigeria was until 1960 by the British, while the latter comes from within, which is the case at the moment.
9. Since 1958, notwithstanding various Commissions, Committees and Panels, the internal colonizers of the Niger Delta have maintained a policy whereby the Niger Delta would produce the wealth for the benefit of Nigeria except the Niger Delta. This is exploitation.
10. The various federal governments, military or civilian, have pursued the same colonizers' principles of divide and rule and CENND is aware that a lot of manpower and resources are spent to ensure that the Ethnic Nationalities of the Niger Delta do not unite. In the same vein, any effort that is seen as seeking to foster the unity of Niger Deltans is discouraged, targeted and destroyed.
11. Government, we are convinced, is in no doubt fully aware that the Conference of the Ethnic Nationalities of the Niger Delta [CENND] was at the fore front of the rejection of Gambari and the so-called Niger Delta Conference. It is therefore not surprising that in selecting members of the Technical Committee, Government ensured that no member identified with CENND was appointed for obvious reasons so that its original designs of shortchanging the Ethnic Nationalities of the Niger Delta would still be realized.
12. The Technical Report in many regards is in effect therefore, a setback for our people who after the Obasanjo ill-fated Conference resolved that nothing short of allowing them to control their resources and in turn pay appropriate taxes to the Federal Government will assuage their desire.
13. This is the situation which Niger Delta past heroes including Isaac Boro, Ken Saro Wiwa Alfred Rewane and many others tried to promote but ended up by paying the supreme price. It is this position that our youths retired into trenches to demand and after a lot of blood was spilled and other harrowing and dehumanizing methods were employed the internal colonizers could not break their will. It is regrettable that a Committee of persons who are all from the south could therefore allow themselves to be manipulated into a situation whereby they could, as individuals, work against the interest of their people and Nigeria.
14. The Conference of Ethnic Nationalities of the Niger Delta is convinced that the Federal Government is not sincere with our people as is clearly demonstrated by the provision for the Niger Delta in the 2009 Budget before the National Assembly. The sum of Eighty Billion (80 billion) Naira is voted for both the proposed Ministry of the Niger Delta and NDDC.
15. We recall that the Federal Government voted the same amount in this year's (2008) budget for NDDC alone. In effect, nothing has changed except the concomitant waste that would arise in running the two separate agencies and consequential reduction in the actual funds that would accrue to the region.
16. It is also instructive to recall and note that the sum of N400 billion was voted for security alone for the Niger Delta in this year's budget while no provision for this purpose is made for the 2009 budget. It is our belief that the security vote or a substantial part of it should at least have been added to the allocation for the Niger Delta.
17. We discover with a lot of regret that the Technical Committee on the Niger Delta only concerned itself with economic concerns of the Niger Delta albeit dishonestly and displayed an abysmal lack of courage to deal with political issues that leave the region in the sorry state it unfortunately finds itself. We consider this as deliberate and consequently a betrayal of trust by our people in the Technical Committee.
18. CENND further strongly rejects any attempt to redefine the content and nature of our region (Niger Delta Region) and affirm that the Niger Delta for us are the six states of Edo, Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Cross River. The nine states now being craftily designated the Niger Delta therefore do not belong to the terrain of Ethnic Nationalities of the Niger Delta. In this regard, Government intervention agencies like the defunct OMPADEC and the NDDC cannot in any way be taken to represent the Niger Delta region which the Conference of Ethnic Nationalities of the Niger Delta represents.
19. All the Ethnic Nationalities of the Niger Delta demanded the minimum of 50% derivation in the first instance and full control of their resources thereafter by the people who own the wealth. It amounts to a disservice to our people therefore for the Technical Committee on its own to recommend 25% and offer such excuses as would annoy any true patriot of the Niger Delta.
20. We note amongst other factors that the Technical Committee deliberately avoided specific dates for the Federal Government to implement the increase in allocation to the Niger Delta in their so-called COMPACT and instead preferred the non-committal use of "progressive" increase. The Technical Committee also failed to correctly identify the status of existing agencies as demonstrated on page 79 of the report.
21. In the circumstance, the Conference of Ethnic Nationalities of the Niger Delta [CENND] states therefore that:
a. persons, men and women including religious and traditional leaders of the Ethnic Nationalities of the Niger Delta must realize that the destiny of the Niger Delta is in their hands, and this cannot be realized when they create favourable atmosphere for internal colonialism in the region;
b. its demand for a National Conference or the establishment of a Constituent Assembly for the purpose of writing a new Constitution is inevitable because the National Assembly Committee established to review the 1999 Constitution, and the Electoral Reform Committee are mere designs to reduce pressure on government because government knows fully well that the National Assembly cannot review the Constitution which effort started in 1999. The pressure however subsists and would progressively get worse as these ploys only succeed in postponing the evil day.
PREAMBLE
The Ethnic Nationalities of the Niger Delta under the aegis of the Conference of the Ethnic Nationalities of the Niger Delta [CENND] in agreement with a vast majority of other Nigerians agree that the 1999 Constitution cannot be amended because it was not derived from the people as it was foisted on them by the military. They also agreed that the National Assembly does not have the constitutional power to review the Constitution as it is presently, as only a Constituent Assembly of all Ethnic Nationalities where the Ethnic Nationalities themselves nominate their representatives can prepare a new Constitution.
22. We find it most pertinent with the prevailing situation to restate our position as contained in our Position Paper that was submitted to the Presidency, National Assembly, state Governors of the Niger Delta and the Technical Committee on the Niger Delta which include the following:
The Ethnic Nationalities of the Niger Delta therefore in realisation of the need to aggregate their common desires held a series of meetings and after diverse consultations among them, agreed on a common position as follows:
(1) Support for continued existence of Nigeria as a country but one that is fair, just and stable.
(2) Nigeria to be a Federal Union.
(3) The Ethnic Nationalities to be the Federating Units where any member of contiguous Ethnic Nationalities can merge to form such federating units if they so desire.
(4) Each of the federating units to devise and operate its constitution in addition to the Union Constitution.
(5) The Union Government to be broad-based to reflect the diversity of the federating units
(6) The Union shall have a Legislature i.e. a House of States with each federating unit sending an equal number of representatives to the House.
(7) The country shall operate a parliamentary system of government to avoid among others the excessive cost implications of the Presidential System.
(8) There shall be a Union Supreme Court side by side with the Supreme Courts of the Federating units with the latter organised to reflect the peculiarities of the respective Federating units.
(9) The political system shall make provisions for multi-party system and Independent Candidacy.
(10) The Federating Electoral bodies are to conduct all elections within their Units. The Union Electoral body therefore should collate results for Union elections from the results obtained from the Federating Electoral Bodies.
(11) All election petition matters to be concluded before the swearing-in of elected officers from a particular election.
(12) Federating Units shall contribute troops to the Union Army organised in line with the new federal structure.
(13) There shall be Union police and Federating unit police with the Union police having powers over trans-border crimes only. The Federating Units police shall handle internal security within their units.
(14) Ethnic Nationalities to own and control their resources and pay appropriate taxes to the Union Government.
(15) Nigeria being a secular state should not promote any religion as, for example, the sponsoring of pilgrims to holy lands.
(16) Decisions at the House of States i.e. the Union Legislature to be by majority of Ethnic Nationalities.
(17) There should be compulsory military training/service for all Nigerians between the ages of 21 and 30 years.
(18) Laws to check and control environmental pollution such as oil spillage, gas flaring sand and rock excavation etc to be enforced in the states.
(19) In the interim a Marshal Plan to facilitate the rapid transformation of the Niger Delta be initiated and implemented without any further delay by the Federal Government as a public show of good faith.
Our position also outlines the responsibilities of tiers of governments and with respect to Union Government and their functions include:
a. Defence
b. Foreign affairs
c. Customs
d. Currency, coinage and legal tender
e. Immigration
f. Citizenship
g. Banking, bills of exchange and promissory notes
h. Aviation policy and regulations
i. Formulation and regulation of standards in tertiary Educational Institutions
j. Nuclear energy
We listed the following 19 Obnoxious Laws that should be repealed.
(1) Oil Terminal Drill Act
(2) Oil Terminal Act
(3) Associated Gas Re-injection Act 1978
(4) Exclusive Economic Zone Act 1978
(5) Territorial Waters Act (Cap 116) 1990
(6) National Inland Waterways Authority Act 13, 1993
(7) Offshore Oil Revenue 1971
(8) Petroleum Act 1999
(9) Land Use Act 1978
(10) Oil Pipeline and Lands (Title Vesting etc) Act 2, 1993
(11) Land (Title Vesting etc) Act CAP 17 LFN 2004
(12) Minerals and Mining Act CAP M13 LFN 2004
(13) Exclusive Economic Zone Act CAP E17 2004
(14) Territorial Waters Act CAP TS LFN 2004
(15) Oil Pipelines Act CAP 07 LFN 2004
(16) Associated Gas Re-injection Act CAP A2 LFN 2004
(17) National Inland Water Ways Authority Act CAP N4 LFN 2004
(18) Section 44 (3) of the Constitution Act CAP 123 LFN 2004
(19) Oil Terminal Dues Act CAP 08 LFN 2004
We need to add however that before a National Conference can be convened and a new Constitution brought into being, the Federal Government should complete all ongoing projects including the East-West Road. The increase of Revenue Allocation from 13% to 50% if government is sincere can also be accomplished by the Revenue Mobilization and Fiscal Commission. The repeal of the 19 obnoxious laws do not also require constitutional amendment. The Electoral Laws should immediately be amended by National Assembly so that this would provide for free, fair and credible elections.
SIGNED BY:
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