Basil Okoh
Bola Tinubu’s abrogation of the Ministry of the Niger Delta Affairs is a direct provocation to the peoples of the Niger Delta: an offensive against the progress of its people.
These are the people whose sacrifices over the decades and the devastation of their environment from the exploitation of crude oil has provided the mainstay of the entire Nigerian economy.
The finite resources of the peoples of the Niger Delta remains the biggest expression of nationalist oblation in the history of Nigeria. Their resources has helped win a civil war to keep Nigeria one and financed the hedonistic predilections of many generations of rapacious and unthinking politicians across the country.
We know that Bola Tinubu is a man of deep mischief and his perverse agenda to rupture and then dominate the economy of the Niger Delta could very well unravel his own deeply unpopular and ethnic based administration. For many years now, his focus for investment has been the Niger Delta and it’s major resource oil. Bola Tinubu’s investment intent is not just to earn profit but to seize control and dominate the economy and politics of the entire region. For a man who has no education and no experience in investment or business, this appears to be a loony order, but he may well succeed if he sees no challenge to his overarching ambitions.
Bola Tinubu did not make the decision for the closure of a federal ministry without the thoughts of personal gain. So this is a first step. The next and more sinister step will be revealed soon enough and it will reveal Tinubu’s gambit to take over the works of the rested ministry. Tinubu’s grotesque ambitions should never be underrated as it usually goes beyond the pale, suffused with an indecent and otherworldly brutality as in Lekki.
Early in his administration, he created the Ministry of the Blue Economy and with nearly 200 km of Nigeria’s coastline and 90% of the nations export income firmly coming from the Niger Delta, Bola Tinubu appointed his cousin and protégé as Minister of the Blue Economy who thereafter went ahead to concentrate all development projects of the ministry in Lagos, a tiny fraction of Nigeria’s coastal territory.
At that time also, Bola Tinubu had contemplated the abrogation of the Ministry of the Niger Delta Affairs and the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) but lost his nerves at the last minute and let these development institutions stay.
We allow for the fact that Bola Tinubu is an uneducated man with an infirm mind and body, but his deep fears and hatred of our people draws public attention to his agenda to seize and dominate the resources of the Niger Delta for himself, just as he did to Lagos state and this desire sits at the root of his cravings for economic and political power.
He has by subterfuge traded off the nations economic interests by ordering the withdrawal from court, the viable case of economic sabotage of the value of billions of dollars against an international oil company while he secretly acquired the same company for himself to become a major investor in the resources of the Niger Delta. He has also leveraged his office as president of Nigeria to acquire a growing list of assets which today stands at 17 oil wells.
We note that Tinubu’s effrontery to unleash his evil agenda for the Niger Delta is not new but follows the pattern of evil actions against the people of the Niger Delta by the Yoruba establishment:
- At the excision of the Midwest Region from the Western Region, the Yoruba establishment refused to share the assets of the region with the new Mid-Western Region. Midwest, the far richer of the two, left the union with only two manual typewriters.
- It was Bola Ajibola, a Yoruba lawyer with the backing of the Yoruba establishment and a Yoruba president that ceded Bakassi, a Niger Delta territory, to Cameroun at the World Court. This was after shaking Nigeria down for over $100 million by the same lawyer. Would he have given up a piece of Yorubaland in the same circumstances? It was strongly rumoured that Bola Ajibola was induced by the French to cede Bakassi to Cameroun.
- It was a Yoruba president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo who instigated the Niger Delta crisis and the war in the Niger Delta that followed. Thousands of Niger Delta Youth were killed and the entire territory was menaced for Nigeria to keep hold of the oil resources of the region. It was president Yaraduah along with his vice-president Jonathan who took actions to bring peace to the region and established the Ministry of the Niger Delta Affairs and the NDDC, which another Yoruba man has come once again to abrogate.
- The Yoruba political establishment have never supported the cause and aspirations of the peoples of the South-South. They have always aspired to exploit the resources of the people while pretending to side with them. In numerous occasions at constitutional conferences and in parliament, the Yoruba have voted to deny the people of the Niger Delta, the control of their own resources while pretending to form voting alliances to win their votes.
The peoples of the Niger Delta must band together this time to confront Bola Tinubu and the unending Yoruba mischief. Bola Tinubu must be denied his growing investments in the Niger Delta as just recompense for the denial and pains he inflicts on the people of the territory. We do know of the plan to divide the people and use one armed side against the helpless people and put them down. The Niger Delta is not Lagos or Yoruba land. We have no quarrel with the Yoruba people. Our struggle is with grasping Yoruba elite and Bola Tinubu’s desire to deny us what duly belong to us while seizing from us what is truly ours.
An ultimatum must be issued to Bola Tinubu to reverse the abrogation of the Ministry of the Niger Delta. If he refuses to oblige, actions should be started to deny him his investments in the Niger Delta. Bola Tinubu is using the office and powers of the president to take control and ownership of the Niger Delta.
@basilokoh.
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