The federal government’s renewed effort to amicably settle issues that have caused violent agitation and hostility towards the oil infrastructure in the Niger Delta should focus on resetting old peace strategies towards all-inclusiveness, writes Vincent Obia
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo used his visit to Delta State last week to emphasise to the Niger Delta people that the federal government acknowledged the paltry developmental benefits that had accrued to the region from its oil resources.
Osinbajo said the government was out to redress the situation, but it needed a stable environment to work. However, not many people appeared to take that reassurance seriously. The federal government has on countless occasions missed out on the chance of a permanent resolution of the Niger Delta question.
So when Osinbajo told stakeholders in Effurun on Monday, “No Nigerian can be proud, with the state of development in the Niger Delta; we are all beneficiaries of resources from the region. However, we cannot have instability and be able to carry out speedy development of the region,” many felt the federal government was up to its old tricks with glib talk, just to facilitate the smooth flow of the oil wealth. It is difficult to escape from such scepticism.
If the federal government wants to be trusted again in the Niger Delta, it should learn to adopt an all-inclusive peace strategy that caters to all interests – armed agitators, peaceful agitators, and even the laidback. This should be the focus of the renewed effort to address the grievances in the oil-rich region.
The new peace move began last week with Osinbajo’s official visit to the Niger Delta. Delta State was his first port of call. Osinbajo’s Niger Delta mission comes against the backdrop of renewed restiveness in the region. The vice president’s office said the visit was, “In further demonstration of President Muhammadu Buhari’s readiness and determination to comprehensively address the Niger Delta situation.”
Such comprehensive strategy was extensively captured in the amnesty programme that was proclaimed by the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua on June 25, 2009. The programme contained broad “Disarmament, Demobilisation, and Reintegration” components meant to create a disincentive for armed struggle. The DDR strategy, tailored largely to the needs of persons who had borne arms and were ready to drop their arms and accept pardon, was initiated to stabilise the security situation in the region.
This was to enable the federal government and support agencies address the issues at the core of the Niger Delta agitation. They include demands for infrastructure, employment creation, soil remediation, and deliberate efforts to halt environmental degradation in the region. There is also the issue of guaranteeing the people a fair ownership and control of the oil resources that Mother Nature has blessed their land with.
The DDR strategy succeeded in bringing a good deal of stability to the Niger Delta. Having achieved that soupcon of success in handling one of the major effects of underdevelopment in the region, the federal and state governments became complacent. They failed to seize the moment to tackle the issues of underdevelopment and justice, which are behind all the restiveness and instability in the Niger Delta.
The amnesty programme was scheduled to end in 2015, but Buhari on assumption of office announced its continuation.
While the federal government has achieved remarkable success with the “Disarmament, Demobilisation, and Reintegration” component of the amnesty programme, it has failed to address the core issues of underdevelopment in the Niger Delta. Both formed the comprehensive amnesty programme that was packaged to achieve lasting peace in the oil-rich region.
The skewed attention to those who had carried arms has proved to be a ghastly error that would never allow a congenial environment for profitable oil production. It has tended to incentivise – rather than disincentivise – arms as a tool of struggle. And it has created room for perpetual overindulgence instead of an environment that enables people to use their hard-work and creativity to their full potential. So rather than building the badly needed lasting peace and stability in the Niger Delta, the lopsided implementation of the amnesty programme actually turned peace on its head. The result is a Niger Delta that is always teetering on the verge of restiveness.
The vice president’s current mission to the region should aim at taking concrete steps to reassure the people that the federal government is determined to address the development needs of the region. The delegation must do away with the anachronistic ambition of a Nigerian state made capable of effectively exploiting and taking oil on its own terms from the delta.
The recent efforts of the Buhari government to tackle the problems of the Niger Delta, such as execution of the Lagos-Calabar railway project and implementation of the United Nations Environment Programme report on the clean-up of Ogoniland, are commendable. But the government needs to do a lot more.
Besides, the Buhari government should ensure that there is a fair deal for the people, especially, the oil producing communities, in the Petroleum Industry Bill. Legislators in the two chambers of the National Assembly have been dragging their feet on passage of this bill. But all stakeholders must appreciate the critical place of the PIB in the effort to achieve permanent peace in the Niger Delta.
The onus is on Osinbajo and his team to show a sincere determination on the part of the federal government to tackle the long-existing problems in the Niger Delta. As the vice president rightly put it, “The issues at stake are very clear, this is not time for negotiation, it is time to act.”
