The New Calling

Being Text of the Inaugural Address by the President of the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC), Miabiye Kuromiema - 24th July, 2010

We salute the courage, determination, and inspiration of spirits gone or still with us, of all men and women the world over who have given their lives or are still giving their lives for the enthronement of truth and the liberation of man from man’s oppression: George Washington, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Theresa. We salute not only those but also Aminu Kano, Gani Fawehinmi; also King William Koko of Nembe, King Jaja of Opobo, Harold Dappah-Biriye, Isaac Adaka Boro and Ken Saro-Wiwa.

Today marks yet another milestone on the rough road of our long journey. As I take this baton to run the 5th presidential lap of the IYC, my mind goes back 12 years to the very beginnings when in Kaiama, at that All Ijaw Youths Conference of 1998, in that monumental Declaration document, we wrote these last words, “Finally, Ijaw youths resolve to set up the Ijaw Youth Council to coordinate the struggle of Ijaw peoples for self-determination and justice”. For those of us who were at that conference, we have the benefit of firsthand experience to say this: The Kaiama Declaration was not a call to struggle. Ijaw peoples already had for many years before 1998 been struggling for justice. Isaac Adaka Boro, Harold Dappah-Biriye, and the people of Akassa were some of our champions who had fought some of our wars long before 1998. The Kaiama Declaration could not have been a call to struggle because our people already had real and rising threats and too many experiences of unfair treatment which in themselves were a loud enough call to struggle. Our Kaiama Declaration was rather a call to coordination. The Ijaw Youth Council was set up “to coordinate the struggle of Ijaw peoples for self-determination and justice”.

How we have coordinated this struggle since the Kaiama Declaration has continued to be the subject of much debate. Even long before the Kaiama Declaration, Ijaw people had been struggling with choosing the principles which should guide their struggle. For example, Isaac Boro thought such approaches as those canvassed by the Rivers Chiefs and Peoples Conference of the 1950s were too beggarly. Even negotiated political arrangements, like the alliance between the Niger Delta Congress and the Northern People’s Congress parties, irritated him. He wrote: 'The only success of the Niger Delta Congress was that it was able to send Melford Okilo from Brass Division [in] (Yenagoa Province) to the Federal House, Inevitably, therefore, the day would come for us to fight for our long denied right to self-determination". Boro wanted to fight more and talk less. Harold Dappah-Biriye wanted to talk more and fight less, or maybe even not fight at all! Indeed, the Kaiama Declaration admitted ab initio that the All Ijaw Youth Conference of December 1998 was a meeting “to deliberate on the best way to ensure the continuous survival of the indigenous peoples of the Ijaw ethnic nationality of the Niger Delta within the Nigerian state”. The question even in 1998 was: what way is the best way?

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (also known as Mahatma Gandhi) returned after 21 years to his home country, India, in 1915. Away from India, Gandhi had been a prominent leader of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, leading protests in overt opposition of basic discrimination, abusive labour treatment and suppressive police control. During those protests, Gandhi had perfected a guiding philosophy called satyagraha, a concept prescribing peaceful non-violent resistance in the face of oppressive denial. Gandhi explained that satyagraha was a synthesis of the Sanskrit words satya, meaning "truth" and agraha, meaning "insistence" or "holding firmly to". Satyagraha was about holding firmly to the truth, or insisting on the truth. Gandhi said, “The Satyagrahi’s object is to convert, not to coerce, the wrong-doer”. To convert the wrongdoer, in this case the British colonists, Gandhi introduced a complement to satyagraha called swadeshi, an economic strategy involving boycotting British products and reviving indigenous production and production techniques. Swadeshi meant self-sufficiency (which to my mind, connotes self-reliance and suggests self-determination). As Gandhi explained, "Swadeshi is that spirit in us which requires us to serve our immediate neighbours before others, and to use things produced in our neighbourhood in preference to those more remote”.

The germaneness of the Indian example was not lost on Martin Luther King Jnr when providence thrust upon him the leadership of the Black Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. King entreated his Black brothers to always, like Christ had taught, “turn the other cheek”. King said, “Christ gave us the goals and Mahatma Gandhi [gave us] the tactics”. His message obviously sunk deep; for Blacks in America, taking to Gandhi’s tactics of swadeshi, spun their industry into self-sufficient (or self-reliant) reckoning, with their Michael Jacksons leading in a white-dominated pop scene, their Oprah Winfreys scaling up to the very apex of female achievement, and countless thousand others establishing their independent leaderships in enterprise, sports, the arts, the professions and academics. Gandhi’s message in the mouth of Luther King obviously did yield fruit in timely season; for only 40 years after King, a Black President now sits in the Oval Office. In the day of Martin Luther King, that Black President would have been a victim of a statutory ban from vying for political office and from voting. In just 40 years, they had grown and matured a system that could send anyone of their own anywhere as far as they wished him. As with the Indians, we have living proof with the Blacks in America that non-violent satyagraha and its complementing tactics of resourceful swadeshi can “convert a wrongdoer” without the use of coercion. So, the question again is: is this the best way? Is the non-violent way the divine answer that may have eluded Ijaws since they met in 1998 “to deliberate on the best way to ensure the continuous survival of the indigenous peoples of the Ijaw ethnic nationality of the Niger Delta within the Nigerian state”?

World and American History records the American Revolution as a story of a sequence of events beginning with thirteen colonies of the British Empire joining to reject the authority of the Parliament of Great Britain to govern them from overseas without representation. The injustices which those revolutionaries contended against were spiritual kindred to those which we live under everyday here. Unjust and oppressive tax laws like unjust and oppressive derivation laws here. Non-representation like false representation here, like false federalism here. The American revolutionaries revolted because in their opinion, the Empire was binding them afresh in those spiritual chains with which such evils as feudalism imprison their slaves; such evils from which they had run to the Americas in escape. Here, we live under the feudalism of such evils as an obnoxious Land Use Act of 1978 with no reasonable hope of any judicial escape in sight. When leaders of the thirteen former colonies came to the deciding crossroads on the journey to their self-determination, in the plenary debates of March 23, 1775, some of them spoke in favour of giving the British Empire more time to consent to their petitions. One of them, Patrick Henry, was more courageous. When he spoke he said, “I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House. Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss”.

Indeed, like Henry, we will be guided by the lamp of experience. We will not be deceived by that insidious smile, nor will we be betrayed with the kisses of a so-called Amnesty, or of a promise of “infrastructural upgrading”, or even of the establishment of a “dedicated” Niger Delta Ministry, another introduction in a train of third-party options. We will rather judge the future by the past. We wish to know what has been in the conduct of the politics of this Nigerian state for these last years that justifies any hopes of a response in favour of our more fundamental petitions. We wish to know how this country will give us our economic actualization when it will not give everyone fiscal federalism; how this country will give us our cultural distinction when it will not give everyone ethnic political homogeneity; how this country will give us our environmental integrity when it will not give everyone the right to choose who comes to do business in one’s own father’s backyard; how indeed this country will give us our own political space when it will not guarantee everyone social justice; when it will not guarantee every citizen their God-given inalienable fundamental rights as human beings; when it can but will not give us free, fair and transparent elections. Some things are worth fighting for and these are some of those. The Ijaw Youth Council was set up to coordinate the struggle of Ijaw peoples for self-determination and justice. The lamp of experience has guided us to a sober conclusion that “the best way to ensure the continuous survival of the indigenous peoples of the Ijaw ethnic nationality of the Niger Delta within the Nigerian state” is to engineer change within the Nigerian state. Real change. Fundamental change. If no other ethnic nation will commit to this engineering, we will. If none will find courage enough to spearhead it, we will step forward. We will go to work like Mahatma Gandhi’s Indians and like Martin Luther King’s Blacks, peacefully, non-violently and with resourceful industry, to help bring change to this Nigerian state; but make no mistakes about this: should the lamp of experience guide the other way, we will, like Patrick Henry’s revolutionary Americans, step forward bravely like men, and fight. For some things are truly worth fighting for.

The challenges are myriad; the threats are real and rising. Ours is a story of multiple paradoxes. Ijaw can show more human and natural resources than any other ethnic nation of the Niger Delta but cannot show the most for it. The Niger Delta can show more natural resources than any other geographic region of Nigeria but cannot show the most for it. Nigeria can show more human resources than any other country of Africa and more natural resources than most other countries of Africa but cannot show the most for it. Africa can show more natural resources than most other continents of the world but is the poorest in spite of it. Of all ethnic nations, Ijaws happen to be the ones who take most of the brunt of these paradoxes, for by some strange science, some hidden political machine continues adamantly resolved to keep giving us the short end of the stick. Stranger still, and more sinister, is the scope of this grand alliance: it is not only Nigerian in its constitution; it also conjoins with international conspirators.

Perhaps it is needful to revisit some of those histories which precondition our ever evolving struggle. The British protectorates of the 1800s and 1900s should, in my opinion, have been called British “conquerates”, as should the colonies have been called “monopolies”. When they arrived in the 1800s, the Ijawland the British met was territorially contiguous. It is reasonable to think that if they ever were unaware of this contiguousness, our people would have sufficiently educated them, for some of the very first kings and peoples they made contact and established close relations with were Ijaws. To feign ignorance of a common kinship shared among the Amayanabo of Grand Bonny and the Amayanabo of Nembe and the Amayanabo of Kalabari with whom they dealt closely and did much business, would be naughty. When in 1885 they established a British Protectorate to administer the city states of Bonny, Brass and Opobo, to mention only a few, it was a lesser evil because at least the administrative integrity of our land and peoples was still intact. But when in 1939 they divided the Southern Protectorate into East and West, it was rape, it was felony, it was terrorism. In the Kaiama Declaration, we observed, “That but for the economic interests of the imperialists, the Ijaw ethnic nationality would have evolved as a distinct and separate sovereign nation, enjoying undiluted political, economic, social, and cultural autonomy. That the division of the Southern Protectorate into East and West in 1939 by the British marked the beginning of the balkanisation of a hitherto territorially contiguous and culturally homogeneous Ijaw people into political and administrative units, much to our disadvantage. This trend is continuing in the balkanisation of the Ijaws into six states - Ondo, Edo, Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers and Akwa Ibom States, mostly as minorities who suffer socio-political, economic, cultural and psychological deprivations”. Our struggles since the arrivals of the Europeans, and especially so since 1939, have been struggles essentially for political space; political space that is “territorially contiguous and culturally homogeneous”; political space where we can enjoy “undiluted political, economic, social, and cultural autonomy” within a federal Nigerian state. This we desire, not only for ourselves, but also for every other ethnic nationality within the Nigerian state.

Our Kaiama Declaration was loud on Ijaw peoples’ solidarity with all ethnic nationalities and peoples’ organizations who are struggling for self-determination and justice. Resolutions 5, 6 and 7 of that document read, “Ijaw youths and peoples will promote the principle of peaceful coexistence between all Ijaw communities and with our immediate neighbours, despite the provocative and divisive actions of the Nigerian State, transnational oil companies and their contractors. We offer a hand of friendship and comradeship to our neighbors: the Itsekiri, Ilaje, Urhobo, Isoko, Edo, Ibibio, Ogoni, Ekpeye, Ikwerre etc. We affirm our commitment to joint struggle with the other ethnic nationalities in the Niger Delta area for self-determination. We express our solidarity with all peoples organisations and ethnic nationalities in Nigeria and elsewhere who are struggling for self-determination and justice. In particular we note the struggle of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP), Egi Women’s Movement etc. We extend our hand of solidarity to the Nigerian oil workers (NUPENG and PENGASSAN) and expect that they will see this struggle for freedom as a struggle for humanity”. For us, and for me, joint struggle is the new calling. As God gave the Ijaws a right to self-determination and justice, so also did He give the Yorubas, the Ibos, the Hausas and Fulanis, the Talakawas, the Jukuns, the Tivs, the Ebiras, the Idomas, the Ogonis and every other ethnic nationality in Nigeria and elsewhere. We all are victims under a common Satan and so must struggle not only for ourselves but also for all our human brothers. Like John Donne said in his famous poem, "No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; …any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee". Because we are involved in mankind, Ijaws will join in every people’s struggle. If the bell tolls for the Yoruba, or the Ibo, or the Ogoni, or the Itsekiri, or the Urhobo, or the Ekpeye, or the Ikwerre, or the Ibibio, or the Hausa or the Fulani, whosoever the bell tolls for, Ijaws will join in their struggle because if it tolls for them it tolls for us. For we all are victims under a common Satan.

We do not prescribe new therapies. We prescribe only new administration of old remedies. The answers which Nigeria’s ethnic nationalities seek are somewhere latent in a synergizing of the postulations of Elder Anthony Enahoro articulated in the positions of the Pro-National Conference Organisation (PRONACO), of Professor Wole Soyinka articulated in his strong views on reconstituting federal Nigeria along ethnic lines, of Aminu Kanu articulated in his struggles for emancipation and redemption of his Talakawas from the shackles of the Sarakuna, of Professor Phillip Emeagwali articulated in his coldly personal and deeply emotional recounting of the Nigerian Civil War experiences of his people, of Ken Saro-Wiwa articulated in the Ogoni Bill of Rights, and of many other worthy countrymen articulated in their many other comparably worthy works. The Ijaw Youth Council’s unreserved partnering with movements that champion ethnic nations as the basic constituents of a federal Nigeria predates me. We have always been perhaps the loudest to call for a reversion to administrative delineations along the lines of the city states which the British met us running successfully when they came in the 1800s. The Social Studies I was taught first at Community Primary School, Abuloma Town, and further on at Government Comprehensive Secondary School, Borikiri, Port Harcourt, impacted me deeply with the stories of the ancient Ibo nation, the ancient dynasties and kingdoms of the Yorubas, the ancient Hausa peoples and emirates. I was most enamoured with the originality and uniqueness of each of these peoples and cannot forget the profound regard and respect I felt for all of these great nationalities as I compared and contrasted their respective systems with those of my native Ijaw which though were not taught in schools were told me by my father. I was charmed with the magic of the Ibos incredibly maintaining high-quality leadership without necessarily having kings. I was captivated with the Yorubas’ ingenious system of check-balancing the powers of their Obas without ever reading Montesquieu. I was enchanted with the unbelievable urbanization of the spatial layouts of the city centres of the ancient Hausa without having then yet seen any of the cities of the western world. My young mind juxtaposed my Social Studies lessons against my father’s stories of the heroic exploits of the ancient Bonnys, the ancient Kalabaris, the ancient Nembes, the ancient Okrikas, to mention only some of the ancient city states of my native Ijaw; exploits of their uncanny conquest of the untamed Atlantic, exploits of their strange imagination against the harshest weather and unfriendliest topography of an unwelcoming coastal tray. I could see even then in my young mind that all peoples of the world have their own innate uniqueness planted inside them by Nature’s God. Their growth and development, if left largely to their own original initiative, will see them to God’s Promised Land. The reversions of former USSR and Yugoslavia to the natural grain of Nature even after hundreds of years of statehood are only but two lessons about artificial nationhood. For us, and for me, administrative delineations along the lines of the city states which the British met in the 1800s are the road back to God’s Promised Land for all of Nigeria’s ethnic nationalities. Our prescription is for city states as the natural constituent units of ethnic nations, and for ethnic nations as the natural constituent units of a federal Nigeria. This is not a new prescription. The brand of the drug may vary - the Enahoro brand, the Soyinka brand, the Saro-Wiwa brand, or indeed the Kwame Nkrumah brand. It is still the same medicine. The Ijaw Youth Council will join the struggle of all ethnic nationalities to fight until this medicine is administered not only to ailing Nigeria but also to ailing Africa.

As with most other ethnic nationalities, the Nigerian state has consistently misrepresented our demands. In this regard we own up to some of the blame, for the understanding which many of our very own people have of our plight and cause is inaccurate. We have made this distinction clear and we will make it again here: our non-negotiable God-given right to determine our own development is not the same as the Nigerian state’s non-negotiable constitutional duty to develop all of Nigeria, of which Ijawland and the rest of the Niger Delta is only a sub-space. God gave all peoples the non-negotiable right to determine their own development, but constitutions give governments the non-negotiable duty to develop their constituencies. A people’s drive to help itself is self-determination, but a government’s initiative to help its people is intervention. Intervention must meet self-determination halfway for development to be genuine, concrete and sustainable. Herein lies the answer to why the Niger Delta Basin Development Authority (NDBDA) or the Oil Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission (OMPADEC) or the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) or the Niger Delta Ministry or indeed any other authority, agency or ministry could not and cannot deliver genuine, concrete and sustainable development. Intervention is crass invasion where a people’s God-given right of ownership of their development is outlawed by constitutions.

We own up also to some of the blame for the world’s misunderstanding of our struggle for self-determination (We are indeed one of the world’s most misunderstood people). We admit honestly that such misunderstanding may have been largely by our own self-misrepresentations. Long before the IYC entered this struggle, King William Koko of Nembe in 1895 had had to engage some of our earliest oppressors. George Tubman Goldie of the Royal Niger Company had unilaterally changed the rules of the then flourishing palm oil trade to stop Ijaw middlemen from shipping palm oil directly to firms in Britain while at the same time insisting that he must be given unhindered access into the hinterlands where the palm oil was produced. It was one of the earliest affronts on our economic, entrepreneurial and commercial destinies as a people. Koko assembled a naval fleet of well over 20 canoes bearing cannons and headed for Akassa where Goldman’s Royal Niger Company had its operational base. The place was raided and about 67 white men were taken hostage. Koko’s condition for the release of the white hostages was straight and simple: abrogate the oppressive trade policy. We seem to have learnt well from King Koko how to fight for economic justice but seem not to have learnt anything from King Jaja. Koko taught us how to fight for our economy (and we must fight where we must) but Jaja taught us how to organize an economy. His entrepreneurial prudence and skill, his insightful management of public economics and his unrivalled commercial negotiating prowess incurred the envy even of the Britons. This 5th executive council of the IYC will balance our economic scales between King Koko and King Jaja. Is it not an irony that for all the years of our struggle for economic rights and opportunities we still have not produced a single Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) which universally is a standard prerequisite for soliciting structured partnerships for economic self-actualization? We will balance the spontaneity of King Koko with the structured planning of King Jaja in our Economic Rights and Opportunities Programme.

We will also balance Boro with Dappah-Biriye and Dappah-Biriye with Boro. Dappah-Biriye taught us to jaw-jaw. Boro taught us to war-war. This 5th executive council of the IYC will like Dappah-Biriye, talk and talk and talk in advocacy of our God-given rights to homogenous Ijaw local government wards, homogenous Ijaw local government area councils, homogenous Ijaw states and a homogenous Ijaw region or zone. Should Dappah-Biriye fail in this regard, then maybe the forests of Tontoubau into which Boro led one hundred and fifty-nine of our guerillas will yet again welcome its own.

In our opinion, the Kaiama Declaration is clear on the strategic thrust which any and every leadership of the IYC should adopt. Observation 2 of that document reads, “That but for the economic interests of the imperialists, the Ijaw ethnic nationality would have evolved as a distinct and separate sovereign nation, enjoying undiluted political, economic, social, and cultural AUTONOMY”. We think this 4-pronged thrust base is constitutional, for the IYC was established by a resolution of the All Ijaw Youth Conference of whose communiqué was the Kaiama Declaration. The God-given right of all Ijaws to enjoy political, economic, social and cultural autonomy within a truly federal Nigeria is non-negotiable and not to be compromised. This 5th council will struggle for our political autonomy balancing Harold Dappah-Biriye with Isaac Adaka Boro and Isaac Adaka Boro with Harold Dappah-Biriye; and for our economic rights balancing King Koko with King Jaja and King Jaja with King Koko.
Socially, we are structuring systems for promoting strong family values, for restoring respect and regard for our elders, forbears, chiefs and leaders, for child and gender sensitivity, for friendship and neighbourliness. We are strategizing also on structured approaches to preserving, conserving and managing our own environment. The sad irony of water water everywhere in Ijawland but not a drop good enough to drink is winning much attention of our strategies. The only kind of healthcare plan we consider good enough for Ijawland is one which is guaranteed by medical insurance, one which is very easily accessible to all and one which is customized for communities. Education, of course, is highest priority, and justifiably so. Alarmingly, in spite of all the monies the Nigerian state and her transnational oil companies milk from Ijawland, the education statistics from our communities are still very heartbreaking.

Culturally, amongst other things, we are strategizing to progress on the foundational work of that great white Ijaw, the eminent Professor Kay Williamson, who by offering herself a sacrifice for the development of the study of the Ijaw language, triggered wide academic interest in its dialectic variations. The exotic virgin dances of the Kalabaris and the Atissas; the legendary masquerades (some water-borne) of the Okrikas and the Ibanis are some of the many pieces of our rich indigenous artistry which have compelled our imagination to standardize and internationalize. The NDDC, the Niger Delta Ministry, the Oil and Gas Multinationals, the United Nations Development Programme, the World Bank and the International Development Agencies should have been collaborating with us as equal partners in these economically, socially and culturally germane areas; but the darkness of an evil political system and structure would rather insist that they hand down the goods unilaterally than give us a respectful chance to fend for ourselves.

Nevertheless, we know that even the thickest blanket of darkness never had annihilated even the tiniest streak of light. We will intensify every streak until it gains in strength into a beam, and then into a ray, and then into a sunshine. We have devised new ways to administer the old medicines of the NDDC, the Niger Delta Ministry, Late President Yar’Adua’s policy of 10% joint venture equity ownership by oil producing communities and the Nigerian Content Law, to help bring remedy not only to ourselves, Ijaws, nor only to the ethnic peoples of the Niger Delta, but indeed to every Nigerian, tribe and tongue regardless. Our own Vision 202020 of Nigeria is a nation like the American nation, where Michigan makes the cars that California drives and California makes the movies that Michigan goes to see; where Alaska makes the petroleum that New York is fuelled on and New York makes the world’s one-stop metropolis that Alaska goes to circulate in. By extension, our Vision 202020 of Niger Delta is Alaska, for in Alaska, oil wells are people’s wealth. In the Niger Delta, oil wells are a people’s hell. Only yesterday, Alaska was still struggling with problems much like ours. In 1969, Daniel Henninger, a writer for the New Republic newspaper wrote in the June 28 edition:

“The Natives [of Alaska] live in one- or two-room shacks built of logs, driftwood, sod or plywood when it's available. Arctic winds constantly blow through them. Government inspections of 2,014 Native households found 1,561 without a sanitary water supply. A few villagers have regular flush toilets, some have privies, most use pots or pails indoors and carry them outside to dump on the ground or sea ice. By contrast, federal employees working in village schools or agencies live in well-constructed, functional government housing.

The primitive living conditions afflict the Natives with high incidence of disease: bronchial pneumonia, tuberculosis, influenza. Among Native children earaches become serious ear infections often causing hearing loss because they don't get medical attention. Alcoholism, serious mental disorders and malnutrition are widespread.

Most village children attend either the BIA's 82 village schools or the 62 village schools run by the state. Few schools extend beyond the eighth grade. Between 1955 and 1962, less than 40 percent of the children graduated from grade school and three-quarters of the dropouts were at least five years behind.

Because of a severely limited job market, only one villager in ten holds a full-time job. Commercial fisheries employ Natives for two to four summer months. In the southeast a Native earns $1,000 to $1,500, perhaps as much as $3,000 in a good year; in the southwestern Bristol Bay area, cannery workers make less than $500 for six weeks work. Some Natives find part-time work with the government in school and defense construction or as firefighters and fish and game wardens. During the severe Alaskan winters there is hardly any work at all. If a Native's part-time job does not last a quarter of a benefit year, he cannot get unemployment compensation.

The average Native family with an estimated annual income of $2,000 has one of the country's highest costs of living. A BIA survey found that a Native family may pay $2,000 for necessities that a family in Houston or Washington, D.C., can buy for $1,000”.

Alaska was not much better off than the Niger Delta in 1968, just yesterday. Today, in addition to world-class infrastructure and a very high standard of life, every village of Alaska has a Native Village Corporation where all villagers of all respective villages are equity shareholders and have been drawing dividends since the early 1970s. If it is good for Alaskans, it is good for us too.

Our call therefore goes most particularly to fellow ethnic nationalities of our common Nigeria. The new calling is to joint struggle. A country that will not give us a competent voters’ register will not give us a competent fiscal balance sheet. A country that will not give us press freedom will not give us ethnic freedom. A country that will not give us free, fair and transparent elections cannot give us any other freedoms, any other fairness nor indeed any transparency whatsoever. A political system that canvasses zoning as a machination to exclude targeted persons or ethnic groups from contesting elections rather than as a leeway to help include the weak and especially the disadvantaged, cannot institutionalize any sense of fair competition. We need each other to cast down this common Satan. Often we hear of prison inmates fighting and killing each other; hardly do we imagine how the story can go if they all rather united their forces to go at the jail keeper for the keys.
Victim fighting victim only secures the lock system of our common victimizer. If we unite forces we can break this prison. We offer ourselves to this cause and our commitment to this struggle. We need you, fellow ethnic nations of Nigeria. Find our hand stretched forth in comradeship and take it, for truly truly, you need us too.

Finally, my fellow Ijaws, my last words are to you. It was the Americans who first gave the world the phrase, “manifest destiny”, but it was not them who first gave the world the idea. It was to a sense of manifest destiny that the Greeks were responding when they undertook to pioneer the adoption of the principles of democracy in the political philosophy of the world. It was to a sense of manifest destiny that the Americans were responding when they undertook to champion the adoption of the principles of democracy in the political practice of the world. It was to a sense of destiny that the Indians under Mahatma Gandhi, or the Blacks under Martin Luther King, or the South Africans under Nelson Mandela were responding when they undertook to actualize the principles of democracy in their own backyards. Every race and every people have a role by God to play for the good of all mankind. The spectrum of the utility of the role’s outcome often appears in divine metaphors. A people are held in slavery and so feel compelled to break the chains that hold them bound. Only after they win their liberty do they realize that they have with the same fight won also the freedom of their neighbours. Let us give ourselves to fight to win the liberty of all mankind; first of our nearest neighbours, then of our farther neighbours, then of all Africans, and then of all the world. For we all are but one human family, offspring of but one God. Let us walk that path which God’s great guiding light illuminates our consciences to follow commonly, regardless of the faiths and creeds to which we variously subscribe. Remember who we are. We are Ijaws. The word, our name, “Ijaw” means truth. Truth is truth everywhere, every time and for everyone. Martin Luther King Jnr, a Christian Baptist learnt truth from a Hindu monk, Mahatma Gandhi, whose conscience could find no differences with the truth he found in his Sanskrit writings and the truth which Jesus Christ preached from the Jewish Torah. It was Jesus Christ who said as recorded in the Bible: “You shall know the truth and the truth shall free you”; but it was Mallam Aminu Kano, that sublime Muslim who said that the basis and guiding principle of his struggles for the emancipation and redemption of his Talakawa fellow tribesmen was the Qur’anic doctrine of Fakku-Raqabah, that is, the doctrine of freeing the bondman. Let us hold firmly to the truth and insist on it unyieldingly, for it will free not only us but every other bondman in this common satanic prison. It is our manifest destiny. We can change Nigeria. This is the time. Let us rise to answer the call of destiny. Shakespeare said, “There is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries”. Come bravely with me and us as we take fortune’s tide at its flood. Let us dare these perilous waters as we had dared that wild Atlantic. Let us help berth Nigeria conclusively on the shores of her true destiny.

God bless Nigeria. God bless all the peoples of the world. God bless Ijawland. Welcome to the future. Egberi fa.