Good morning Nigeria Delta
He who is out naked, in an attempt to apprehend a mad person is a mad person also.
———An African proverb
In a recent conversation, a co-locutor asked me: "Is it the Niger that is fighting the Delta or the Delta, the Niger?" This question elicited a silly laughter from all of us. It also evoked another question: "Is it président Yarad that should grant amnesty to the armed associations, or the armed associations, prèsident Yarad?"
Not sure of what the Nigeria Delta "rebels" were up to, I de-emphasized the question.
The Nigeria Delta men were just about waking up from a century-long slumber.
Good morning, Nigeria Delta.
The stuff the people fratricidally threw away more than 42 years ago is what they struggle to pick up now. It has become more definite, but more difficult too.
But at least, they are confirming what have been affirmed.
The Nigeria state is:
►misosophic (cleverly idiotic)
►imbecile
►injust
►irresponsible
►lazy
►carnivorous
*▼Industrially advanced nations would condone, even participate in, anything for oil
The citizens are not important to the governments of Nigeria.
Just before flag-independence, the areas collectively called Niger Delta (excluding some westward extensions now) were vaguely groomed for a separate political existence (Eso panel report). But that way was not followed…
Shortly after the independence, Mr. Isaac Boro, a man of fiery temperament and insight, with some colleagues, rose up in revolt against foreigner-exploitation of indigenes and environmental inhumanity. They were arrested and detained, and sentenced to death. At the time, environmental concern was not in vogue.
The government that sentenced them got ovethrown. The political rowdiness of the time congealed into a massive pogrom, in fact, genocide, against the people of certain ethnic nativity in the southern region in most parts of the country. Trained and untrained murderers were equipped and detailed to search out an annihilate the Igbo, or any ones resembling them. In the barracks, in the marts, in the homes, in other (work) places; armies of killers were in action against a people who were fully armless and defenseless.
An old tailor in Gombe (Bauchi) who witnessed the massacring told me that at the time he did not think any Igbo could be left alive. There were massive slaughtering in towns, and over fifty thousand 'Yamrin! butchered and dumped in the Benoue River alone, at the bridge-head, as they were fleeing!
He later participated in the war. He said that he did never shoot (at) anyone. He added that the war did something good: thousands of men receiving pensions now would be receiving nothing had Ajukwu not made war.
An old meat dealer said that he was nearly lynched in Maiduguri. Because he resembled 'Yamrin! "At the time," he said, "there was no ima'ani (God-motivated kindness). Armed men (murderous Igbo-phobes) came to our village and grabbed me. They said I was Igbo tenant. I kept assuring them I was not Igbo. I pronounced some words correctly, unlike those Igbo. That was why they did not kill me immediately. So they took me to Sariki's palace. The Sariki queried me." His takardan haraji (tax invoice) saved him. At the palace, he also saw several people on inquisition for attempting to hide away, or for failing to report the presence of 'Yamrin in their compound.
'Yamrin is a northerners' derogatory designation of Ndi-Igbo, or anyones who resemble them, or any who speak Igbo. "Fair complected Black" (or something of the stature and texture of African-Americans).
It is a mal-reproduction of the Igbo sentence: " Nye m mmiri "
An old Itsekiri man said that in Bini (Benin city), he and his friends filled four shallow wells with Igbo corpses, people they slaughtered...
When I asked him how he thought the war wasn't forced on Ojukwu, he realized that my sympathies were pro-Biafrans. That instantly rendered me persona non gratis to him.
This forced Mr. Odumegwu Ojukwu, an ambitious military man and political sub-chief, and also one of few who supremely believed in Nigeria at the time, to announce, "We are no longer safe in Nigeria."
Then the Aburi Accord failed. Being the political chief of the Eastern Region then, Mr. Ojukwu declared an Independent sovereignty, Republique of Biafra; to be the national home and place of refuge for the targets of the genocide. Biafra then included the creek-ful Delta.
An unprecedented bloodshed on African soil officially ensued: "To keep Nigeria one". July 6, 1967 to January 12, 1970. They call it Civil War. But nothing's civil in it; it's Evil War; it was an unsurpassed barbarism. It, in actuality, started before the declaration of the independent sovereignty of Biafra. The new nation was born in a crucible.
Mr. Boro chose to fight for his adversary, Nigeria. He didn't see the need for free people and unpolluted environment in Biafra. So he pulled the numeric and strategic strength of the creeks together against Biafra...
He lost his head. A martyr who died against his course. That was even before opportunistic foreign powers (Alexei Kosygyn of USSR, et cetera) crushed Biafra for Nigeria.
The effects of that war still diehardly defines Nigeria. It is boldest reference point so far in any expression about Nigeria.
The good man, Mr. Yakub Gowon, with his large-heartedness, could not do much for the desecrated, devastated, post-war Biafrans. Abandoned Property edict and Twenty-Pound edict were enacted and implemented.
But the exploitation continued, and widened out.
Kenule Saro-Wiwa stood up against the same or similar things that necessitated Biafra: devaluation of human life by the very government that should proserve it. But although Saro-Wiwa wanted free people to survive and thrive... he's also one of those who did not mind the destruction of more than three million (>3000,000) human souls, a third of whom were babes, just for the fake unity of an unnationable nation.
I am not particularly interested in a Biafra. But in that situation, as is still largely now, a Biafra was not an unwise recourse.
He (Saro-Wiwa) too lost his head at the hands of his "friends", taking several others along; some of whom (Matthew Ukaete...etc.) were more faithful to the sanctity and dignity of human life and unpollutedness of environment than he.
Although news-media sensationally beatified him, a little probing deeper than the sensational surface brings up the Saro-Wiwa: a very intelligent man who is loyal only to his ego; an indirect engineer of the forces against what he's defending. His media image is different from himself. Were he in Abacha's position, he wouldn't have done better; would have done worse...
Dokubo Asari, like all sentient beings with faculties of justness and dignity, could not continue to tolerate the brazen injustice, economic and political, in the Delta. He assembled his People's Volunteer Force, a civil militia, to stand for the preservation of the people and their environment. He was abducted by the Nigerian state. Was it narrowly that he escaped being given the fate of Saro-Wiwa?
This one is perhaps the sincerest of the prominent agitators...
International oilo-olics poured finances into these things. They strongly desired the removal of any obstacle in their way; any thorn in their flesh, even if that would also remove their skin, or those thorns are millions of human families.
And the MEND (movement for the emancipation of the niger delter) came. Nigerian apartheidist state, instead of seeking for essential redress, labelled MEND militant and criminal…
Like all carnivorous parasites, the Nigerian state is actively lazy. All the huge incomes from the sale of petroleum are never results of it organizational or motivational proficiency; and never engendered improved administration of equity and justice to the Naija-area people or peoples. And apart from intricate bureaucracies, it has no part in the structures or infrastructure used in petroleum extraction. Besides, it does strive to master the art of "cooking the raw thing into the use-able constituents..." Nigerian state functionaries do not see beyond their nose.
As some individuals make or get wealth and squander it on frivolities so do some nations-states. The Nigerian state is typical...It is one of the greatest corporate squandermaniacs on the surface of the earth.
Unfortunately, the Emancipation Rebels of the Delta of river Niger are yet a lot similar to their adversary.
→Is an ordinary denizen of the riverine area safer with them than with the imbecile government of Mr. Umar Yarad? For instance, Hamas. Hamas is militantly opposed to Israel with all the zeal it musters up. Yet inspite of its militancy and dis-repute, Hamas is, by itself, a guardian of Palestinian life, property and dignity.
→Since development is highly financialized in Nigeria, why is it that, with all the money appropriated through sundry means and ways, not a single village has been uplifted from the abyss of squalor to better standard in the concerned area, by the noe-Rebels? All are still waiting for panels of thieves from Abuja to come make a paradise of the areas?
→How is it that some individuals from the zone (Odili, Ibori...) are richer individually than entire nations in West Africa? No accounting of their amassed material assets…
And they are still freely, brazenly, cavorting with Abuja in all immoral contacts and contracts...
→How is it that, apart from Mr. Attah, no other ex-governor from the area was not a thief? Mr. D. Duke is merely a hazy, unconfirmed exception.
Suppose Nigeria yields...to the rebels, will it be for true development in the region, and reasonable independence; or a continuation on rentage as Abuja is wont to do?
As for Nigeria, she was born blind; blind and dumb. But the midwives, the elites who first raised the flag, were even blinder and dumber. The flag turned out to be the symbol of a new strategy of the colonialists.
Typical Nigerians go to Harvard, Cambridge, Khartoum, Malaysia and other prestigious places...only to come back home to make a career of organizing assassinations, robbing elections, and embezzling funds meant for the electrification of their villages. These are many of the educated Nigerians. I am still looking for what elses are the opposites of educatedness. The trot the globe in search of foreigner-investment with hundreds of times the amount resources any foreigner, corporate or individual would ever invest in her…The best they achieve are the arrivals of crooks (Lebanese, Chinese…) who give them millions of euro…for freedom to exploit and pollute the country.
How many Americans’, Germans’, British… companies, whose home-laws… are in Nigeria ?
Many Niger-Deltas
A tour of remote parts of Taraba, Sakkwato (Sokoto), Adamawa, Bornu, and most other states reveals that there are many Niger Deltas. That is if "Niger-Delta" is defined as 'a zone exceedingly resourceful but exceedingly deprived by a caste or castes of interior hegemons exceedingly hollow and criminal in their ways and actions.'
The prevalent assumption among southerners that the North is a parasitic dependency is wrong, even stupid.
While the crude-ful Delta is the life-source of the state, The other Niger-Deltas are sources of nourishment for people, the peoples. Many table staples neither produced nor imported into... come from these areas.
The exploited Delta has a case or a cause. And the Nigerian state cannot survive beyond six months if disconnected from the petroleum. And were the petroleum transferable to ...Kano...there would be no more Nigeria (as we know it) the next day. Of course, we know that the unique unity (unprogressive unity) of Nigeria is on two premises: common kleptomania and immorality of its governors, from the federation level to the village level, and the income from the sale of crude oil. Other things are technicalities and extensions of these two.
But as much as the Niger Delta elites are compradors, members of the clique of belligerent, elitist exploiters, they are yet to distinguish their assets from their liabilities.
War often determines who is left, not who is right. But the Nigerian state loves weapons and the use of them; and has forced otherwise peaceful people to become weapons lovers too.
Obstinate love of weapon is the beginning of war. This is the order of the day: love of weapons.
I wish the "rebels" make definite their aim so as to understand when they failed or succeeded. If possible, aim at ending this fraudulent togetherness. This is a cruel hoax of a unity. May peoples come out of this fancifully dishonest, wolf-and-lamb romance to the reality of themselves. A thousand peaceable neighbours are better than a couple of peace-less room-mates.
If not, may the guns stop; a full-scale anarchy may still be worse than the near-anarchy state of Nigeria now...
Good morning, Nigeria Delta.
