IJAWS TO HAVE A RETHINK

BY AMINAT OMOBOLANLE AKINDELE

Isaac Adaka Boro declared the independence of the Niger Delta few years after Nigeria gained her independence from Britain.  Though, the uprising did not last as he and his army was eventually crushed by the Fulani dominated army of Nigeria.  After his defeat, other prominent Ijaw elders queued in the rebuilding process of the contraption called Nigeria.  Notable Ijaw leaders like late Chief Edwin Clark, Ken Saro Wiwa and other leaders from the Niger Delta region joined forces with the Nigerian army to defeat the Biafrans during the ill-fated Nigeria/Biafra war.  These men were used against their fellow brothers.  They were promised juicy positions during and after the 30 month old war.  They were the catalysts used by the Fulani army to crush the resistance of Biafrans.

Fifty five years after the civil war, Ijaw nation and most of the core Niger Delta states have remained backward both in infrastructural and human developments.  Today, Ijaw leaders feed from the crumbs that fall off from the masters table despite being the goose that lays the golden egg.  Resources gotten from Ijaw land have over the years been used to develop Abuja, Lagos and most parts of northern Nigerian.  It is an understatement to say the people are still wallowing in abject poverty and are still suffering from ecological devastation caused by oil spills and gas flaring.

Ken Saro Wiwa and other notable Ogoni 9 were gruesomely murdered in 1996 by the same Nigerian government he fought had to protect and defend,  since the notorious of the Ogoni nine, other notable Niger Delta leaders have also fallen by the sword of the Nigerian government. Today, they have been rendered impotent in their fatherland. They can barely raise their voices.  Federal government of Nigeria has for long adopted the strategy of empowering few and impoverishing the majority.  The region remains backward in the areas of infrastructural development and human development despite the abundance of natural resources being taken from their land on daily basis.  Most Ijaw communities are highly inaccessible by road and unfortunately, government has refused to make available alternative and accessible means of transportation.

The recent open challenge and insult meted on the Ijaw nation by the ever drunken master Nyesom Wike, the Honourable Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja whose honour is deeply rooted in dishonor buttresses the fact that the Ijaws are indeed a conquered nation.  The audacity of the Tinubu administration to remove a democratically elected governor of Rivers State, (an Ijaw man), suspend the House of Assemble in dubious connivance with the conscienceless Supreme Court of Nigeria shows that the government at the centre has something against the Ijaw nations.  This unpopular act has shown that the only the only reason why Ijaw people are tolerated in Nigeria is the oil found in their land which has turned to be a curse to them rather than a blessing.

In the midst of these assaults, Asari Dokubu, the self-acclaimed liberator and the lion of the Niger Delta has kept quiet. He has completely become a faded shadow of his old self.  He has been used and dumped by the Bola Tinubu administration.  He campaigned vigorously for the Tinubu administration, and vowed never to be alive to see an Igbo man become the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.  At the outset of the Tinubu administration, he was almost ubiquitous, he granted interviews, and even at a time sat on the presidential seat. He also used his thugs to disperse peaceful protesters who came out to protest against the unpopular declaration of electoral results by INEC.  Today, he cannot even near the seat of power, not only that, it is believed that he is monitored by the security agencies in the country.  The implications of all these are that the Ijaw nation has been forced to shut and made to eat the humble pie.

It is unfortunate that these calamities have befallen to a nation produced Isaac Adaka Boro. It is even more unfortunate that the so-called lions and tigers in Ijaw land have been tamed and domesticated. The question now remains: will the Ijaws fold their arms and watch the open degradation and depravation of their fatherland? For how shall this open assault and insult continue?

*Aminat Omobolanle Akindele is an Odua political activist and a freedom fighter.