Today 23rd Feb. 2015 marks the 49th anniversary of the first declaration of the Niger Delta struggle

in the words of

Major Isaac Adaka Boro

“Today is a great day, not only in your lives, but also in the history of the Niger Delta. Perhaps, it will be the greatest day for a very long time. This is not because we are going to bring the heavens down, but because we are going to demonstrate to the world what and how we feel about oppression… Remember your 70-year-old grandmother who still farms before she eats; remember also your poverty-stricken people; remember, too, your petroleum which is being pumped out daily from your veins; and then fight for your freedom.”




the question is how far ........ so far

http://kayodeogundamisi..com/2008/02/issac-adaka-boro-seven-dat-revolution.html

With these electrifying words, 27-year-old Isaac Adaka Boro, general commanding, the Niger Delta Volunteer Service, DVS, declared an independent Niger Delta Peoples Republic, NDPR, February 23, 1966, 40 days after the historic January 15 coup. It was 3 pm and the three divisions of the DVS, made up of 159 troops, were going into action at 5 pm with the objective of dislodging the federal police and taking over Yenagoa at 12 midnight. It was code-named “Operation Zero”. It marked the beginning of the “12-Day Revolution” during which Boro, an ex-police inspector, former president of Students’ Union Government of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and a fresh graduate of Chemistry, called “the attention of the world to the fact that the inhabitants of the Niger Delta were feeling very uncomfortable” with their fate in Nigeria.That was an understatement for some of the observers of the time. It was the culmination of the injustice, political frustration and suffocation that the Ijaw and other Niger Delta people suffered in an independent Nigeria. As a bubbling, brilliant young secondary school leaver, Boro, after a three-month stint as a teacher, joined the Nigeria Police as a cadet in 1958 with a lot of fire in him to bring about change. But he received a shock when he found that he was alone in a police force that was already corrupt and was subsequently dismissed due to ill luck, maybe, the call of destiny. Heartbroken, he dusted up his certificate and went to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where he suffered various degrees of injustice as a student politician. He came to the realisation that the Ijaw were heading for extinction if the tide of the national politics being controlled by the big three — the Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo — did not change.

Boro arrested
Boro and other Ijaw students watched with bewilderment as the Ijaw politicians failed to break into the top echelons of Nigerian politics. “We discovered that most of the youths were so frustrated with the general neglect that they were ready for any action led by an outstanding leader to gain liberty,” noted Boro in 1963. “Year after year, we were clenched in tyrannical chains and led through a dark alley of perpetual political and social deprivation. Strangers in our own country! Inevitably, therefore, the day would have to come for us to fight for our long-denied right to self-determination,” he prophesied.Excluded and alienated from power, the Ijaw withered in bitterness and regret. For a then estimated two million people, there were no adequate educational opportunities, no infrastructure, no empowerment, no openings. “Economic development of the area is certainly the most appalling aspect. There is not even a single industry. The only fishery industry which ought to be situated in a properly riverine area is sited about 80 miles inland at Aba. The boatyard at Opobo had its headquarters at Enugu … Personnel in these industries and also in the oil stations are predominantly non-Ijaw,” he lamented.In 1959, Harold Dappa Biriye, after whom the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, headquarters in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, is named, began the journey to give the Niger Delta a voice in national politics by the formation of the Niger Delta Congress, NDC, with fish as its symbol. The hope was that, as the fourth largest ethnic nationality, the party would bring the Ijaw at par with other ethnic nationalities that had their own parties. In the 1959 elections, NDC disappointingly won only one seat in the Federal House through Melford Okilo from Brass Division, Yenagoa Province. NDC leaders had promised during the campaign that a state would be created for the Niger Delta and appointments given to people of the area at the federal level. Understandably, these promises could not be fulfilled. In the 1962 Eastern Region elections and 1964 federal elections, NDC, lost all grounds to the Igbo-dominated National Council of Nigerian Citizens, NCNC, to the frustration of Ijaw nationalists.The political scenario that confronted the Ijaw was very gloomy. The NCNC which ruled the East was not interested in the creation of Niger Delta State for obvious reasons. NDC could not do much as out of the nine representatives of the area, eight were from NCNC. And in the Eastern Region House of Assembly, the Niger Delta had only four against 110 other representatives. In the Midwestern House of Assembly, Niger Delta had two representatives against 58 others.“Given these prevailing circumstances,” lamented Boro, “an Ijaw nationalist finds that a state for his people is more of a necessity than a mere desire… Such a demand becomes all the more compelling when the area is so viable yet people are blatantly denied development and the common necessities of life.” But to have a state, an agitating area had to get the approval of the regional government or governments within which it falls, one other regional government and also the federal government. That meant that the East and Midwest regions must accede and they were not willing. The North and the federal government could not override them because the North was afraid of NCNC, which controlled the East, and Midwest retaliating by supporting the creation of Middle Belt State. What irked the Ijaw more was that during the plebiscite campaign for the creation of the Midwest Region, they were promised that in the event of the creation of a state in the Niger Delta, the Ijaw in Midwest would be allowed to join their kith and kin in the East. So, the Ijaw found themselves hedged in, like the Shakespearean stag tied at the stakes and bayed about by many enemies.

so far how far with the struggle............

is the aim of the struggle been realized

the interview with Chief (Captain) Samuel Timinipre Owonaru from Kaiama, Bayelsa State, the only surviving member of Boro’s fiery force.(2011)


We are honoured to have you, only surviving member of Boro’s intrepid squad and thereby the oldest militant, in our midst, to witness the amnesty programme.
That I’m still alive is the Lord’s making.
Who is Owonaru?

I am from Kaiama, Bayelsa State. I’m the only surviving member of Isaac Boro’s guerrilla army.
How has it been like for you in the struggle for Niger Delta’s emancipation, especially since you were one of those who started it?
To be candid, what we fought for in the past hasn’t really been achieved, in the sense that we’re still in subjugation in the hands of the powers-that-be,. So, in that sense, the struggle is still on. We’re hoping that better things will still come. On the other hand, to say that we haven’t achieved anything at all won’t be true, because things have changed somehow. At least, today, we have a Niger Deltan as the president, which would have been inconceivable some years back. But having said that much, I’d still maintain that the tenets which have us in a stranglehold, that deny us our right to be able to control and manage our resources, are still in place. And until those laws are either reviewed or abrogated outright from our statute book, the struggle continues. There’re still flash points here and there, which must be resolved once and for all. The situation is just like what obtains in a football game; it’s not over until it’s over.

What is your own input into the amnesty programme, especially if we remember that you were one of those who started the struggle?
Nobody, I must confess, has consulted me on the amnesty programme or anything, for that matter. I should say that wasn’t fundamentally correct since Dr. Goodluck Jonathan met me when he was the governor here and reached out to me. Apart from him there’s nobody who cares whether I live or die.

* Timinipre Owonaru
Could you elaborate on the flashpoints you talked about earlier, those associated with the regime of President Yar’Adua?

What I mean by flashpoints were the grievances that precipitated militancy in the first place: lack of infrastructure, environmental degradation, the insensitivity of the oil companies, etc.

As to whether the Amnesty Programme has taken care of our grievances or problems, that’s a different matter altogether. And to be frank, we’ve only scratched at the surface of our problems. We would need a holistic approach to do a good job. So, really, the amnesty programme hasn’t resolved our problems. The laws that hold us captive, that deny us our most basic rights, are still in place.
Was the abrogation of those laws you’ve just made mention of the agitation of Isaac Boro?
The inability to control and manage our resources was the reason our agitation took place and even now we’re still not controlling our resources, and that’s a big tragedy.
Was that why you, Boro and the others formed the Niger Delta Volunteer Force declared a Niger Delta Republic to protest those restrictive laws?

We felt short-changed, kind of, in the scheme of things. I mean we had oil which was being exploited to better other parts of the country when our own area remained underdeveloped and backward. And to share another region or state created for us, which would attract infrastructure, was almost impossible, going by the Nigerian constitution which was the reason the local government could not be created.
All that has been created has been through military fiat. Since the days of Yakubu Gowon to Abacha, no state or local government has been created constitutionally in this country other than the old Midwest. These were the stark realities of our days; so we felt that if we did not do anything about them, they would continue and posterity wouldn’t forgive us.

Realising that virtually all the resources were from our area, we felt the solution was armed struggle, even though we did not have enough resources when we adopted that military option. It’s now history that we were put down easily by the federal might and, for that, we were arrested, tried for treason and condemned to death in 1966 by the Ironsi regime. Somewhere along the line, Ironsi was toppled and the death sentences commuted to life imprisonment. We remained in prison for a short while before Gowon granted us clemency and released us from jail.

But what we heard was that Isaac Boro was trying to create his own republic.
That was what we were screaming; we proclaimed the Niger Delta Republic.

What was your position then?
I was Boro’s second-in-command.
Was there any support from anywhere in the Niger Delta?
Of course not! Not even any material support from them. The only support then came from our people was from (Ijaws) Ghana. They contributed money to assist our leaders since they incurred expenses. They were very firm then. They were the people that really had sympathy for us.

What was the name of the organization then?
The Niger Delta Volunteer Force.
How was it started?
Boro was the leader, but we started it together. We went through all the rigours of setting the organization up. It ended in the claws of the federal might.

Where did the organization hold her meetings?
We used Lagos and Kaiama. By the time we were ready to strike, we had to come to Kaiama as we could not undertake the struggle in Lagos.
Boko Haram is into a rebellion like the one you had. What is your take on this?
What they are fighting against is western education, so let them be. I respect them. But for us who appreciate western education and lifestyle, they should let us be too. Some people are saying that they should negotiate with them on amnesty. I don’t see the reason for that however, since they have no resources being misused.

Since you’ve fought for so long, have you been rewarded in any way in this amnesty programme?
No, I haven’t. The federal and state governments, do they recognise my contributions? They don’t even consult me on anything concerning the programme. It’s only in the papers I see whatever they are doing. I am probably a prophet who has no honour in his town.

has the niger delta struggle brought any change 49 year after

whats your take

robosky02:

has the niger delta struggle brought any change 49 year after

whats your take

^^^I feel it's been more of 'motion without movement'! Though i wish you guys success in actualising your dreams!

By the way, which and which places made up the Niger Delta Republic of Boros' dreams.....anyone?

IGBOSON1:


^^^I feel it's been more of 'motion without movement'! Though i wish you guys success in actualising your dreams!

By the way, which and which places made up the Niger Delta Republic of Boros' dreams.....anyone?

thanks

what is now considerd as niger delta states were all part of the Niger Delta Republic.

the declaration been made in kaiama present day bayelsa state.

before ojukwus biafra was born

ken saro continued the struggle..............

In 1990, Ken wrote the Ogoni Bill of Rights, which catalogued the Ogoni people’s demands for environmental, socio-economic and political justice. It was presented to the Nigerian Government in the early 1990s, but there has yet to be any response to the document. Despite this, it has functioned as the bible of the Ogoni struggle and became an organizing document to orientate our struggle.. It eventually inspired other ethnic nationalities in the Niger Delta to produce similar charters as a peaceful way of pressuring the Nigerian Government into dialogue and action.