By Chimennma Okolo Esq.
I have long espoused an egalitarian realistic Nigerian structure in which all peoples of Nigeria will feel secure.
The current realities on ground as regards our union as a nation has made it imperative for a restructured system of engagement amongst the peoples of Nigeria. The current dubious structure has never worked and is not sustainable no matter how cleverly we hide the truth.
Nigeria has postponed the evil day long enough!
Let me use the sad experience of my people (for which I am eminently conversant with as a former youth president) on why the current structure brings constant agitations.
I am from an ethnic nationality recognised as Ukwuani but more often referred to as Ndokwa. My people are predominantly in Delta and Rivers States.
The area is blessed with abundant and prolific oil fields and has probably the largest reserves of non associated gas in Africa but definitely the largest in West Africa.
The major oil company operating in the area is the Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC) which started oil extraction operations in the area in 1962. Other oil companies in the area include Midwestern Oil, Platform Petroleum, Energia, Sterling Global, Pillar Oil etc.
The area as a result of its huge gas reserve plays host to two gas plant; the Okpai Gas Plant commissioned by the Gen. Ibrahim Babangida administration in 1989 and the Independent Power Plant (IPP) commissioned in 2005 by President Olusegun Obasanjo.
The IPP generates current 480 megawatts of electricity of which 450 megawatts is evacuated to the national grid. The IPP has the capacity for expansion to 1 giga watts ( for which plans are under way).
The NAOC approved 2005 IPP Environmental Impact Assessment Report had recommended the step down of power for host communities within fifty (50) km radius. This means NAOC knows the right things to be done.
This is 11 years after the commissioning but as yet the NAOC/ FG has deliberately failed to fulfil their own recommendations freely undertaken. The step down was done in Obosi, Anambra state; so why they benefit from the electricity generated in our land we wallow in darkness. Not a megawatt of electricity is given to our people.
All attempts to get the FG/NAOC has been fiercely resisted. All agitations had been brutally suppressed with the marshaling of the state security apparatchik. Still we protest.
My people are predominantly fishermen and farmers.
Thus while our lands have been taken over for oil extraction activities and to build the IPP, our rivers polluted from oil spills and our atmosphere damaged from gas flaring we are DELIBERATELY left out from the benefits accruing therefrom.
The lands are destroyed, the waters polluted and the environment damaged and our people can no longer farm or fish, thus while we bear the unrelenting brunt of the oil and gas extraction activities we enjoy nothing. We suffer shore erosion occasioned by their activities but we lack basic infrastructure; no clean water, impassable roads, ill equipped hospitals (that's when you find them), etc
For the past eleven (11) years we have been agitating for the NAOC/FG and each time they give us the holy run around. The area is now heavily militarised.
Is it not curious that whilst our lands are taken for oil and gas extraction activities and the people have no alternative economic activities they have been left In the dark? It is this type of attitude of the FG/NAOC that has encouraged and still encourages armed agitation in the Niger Delta.
The above is true of all ethnic nationalities where oil and gas is found. The government's attitude has always been cavalier; as long as the oil keeps being pumped from the bowels of the Niger Delta they are satisfied. Our people have been preyed on by a predator ruling elite.
The above Illustration would not have arisen if we are allowed to own our resources. It would have been impossible for such a project to be cited in our land without us enjoying benefits therefrom. NAOC would not have been hiding under some flimsy technicalities. The FG wouldn't have been indifferent to the suffering of our people.
The entity called Nigeria needs to be restructured so that people can enjoy the benefits of their God given resources. The people must have a say in such projects as the above.
We need to restructure this country as the present structure is not working working and can never work no matter how long we keep papering over the cracks and cleavages inherent in our skewed union.
We should ask ourselves how come there was more development and lasting legacies before the advent of the civil war? It's simple, the regional governments had total control over their resources, this current feeding bottle federalism has not advanced our nations because we have decided to limit ourselves to easy oil revenue.
I therefore is of the opinion that we need to restructure this nation on the basis of:
a) Resources ownership/ Control
b) political leaadership
c) social engagements
The Nigerian people must be allowed to sit down together without any fear of intimidation and harassment to determine whether the various peoples desire to remain as a united Nigeria and what manner of union they desire and ready to commit to. Those who desire to leave the union should either be convinced that their interest will be better protected by a new negotiated union or a referendum called to determine their fate as enshrined under the UN Charter on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the African Charter on Peoples rights.
It is the failure of the Nigerian peoples to be allowed to determine the manner of their union that has made us a land of perpetual unending agitations.
We must not be afraid of any outcome.
God bless us all
Chimennm Okolo is a Lawyer, Youth Activist and environmental Rights Campaigner.
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