Armistice first in the Niger Delta
By J. P. Clark

MR. President, armistice is the new instrument of policy that you should present to the nation at this critical stage of hostilities in the Niger Delta. Amnesty that you have just offered to militants there fails in several ways to address the Nigerian problem now on the boil in that region. You have put the cart before the horse. Armistice, by simple definition, is a ceasefire, a truce, during which a formal agreement to stop fighting on all sides can be discussed in the right atmosphere to arrive at peace.

Amnesty, on the other hand, is an official offer or order by a government that allows a particular group of prisoners to go free. It is also the period of time required to carry out the exercise. Militants in the Niger Delta do not fit this description. They constitute no group of prisoners so declared by the state, after undergoing due process of law. Only one put on trial in secret, after being courted by you and your Vice all the way to South Africa, is known to the public.

Again, by simple definition, militants are persons or groups who organise to use strong pressure, if necessary by force, to achieve political, social and economic change in a society they believe is unjust to a section or all of its citizens. This is the hard reality on the ground today in Nigeria, although those in control and comfort may not admit you have insurgency on your hands.

Indeed, Niger Delta militants are not the common crowd of criminals running riot today across the country, under influence of drinks, drugs and cults, robbing, raping, kidnapping, maiming and killing innocent citizens for whom the state provides no safety and security. Niger Delta militants, before corruption and division crept among them, came out as a movement of young men and women solely driven to action by their sense of social justice and determination to make Nigeria a better and more equitable country for all its citizens. Their despatches and interviews in the press show the quality of mind and intellect matching their resort to drastic action nobody prayed for, and one that should never happen in a functioning state.

Since no Nigerian administration has ever cared, militants in the Niger Delta, as a matter of history, are only carrying on the struggle begun in the last century by political leaders like Dappa Biriye, Ernest Ikoli and Udo Udoma to win equal rights for their people in our unequal federation where majorities proudly accommodate themselves, while containing minorities, handed over to them, without consent and consultation, by a retreating colonial power. They are following the example of Adaka Boro, Amangala and Nyananyo who died in the Civil War, fighting to perfect the union. It is the spirit of their own Kaiama declaration inspiring them to seek justice for their own people in a land where all people should be free and equal to draw on their individual resources, while respecting the rights and claims of their neighbours. Regrettably, it has all been government of the majority by the majority for the majority.

The military, now an occupation force in the region, know very well this political context, and yet today are pushing ever harder in larger numbers to achieve by sea, land and air the peace of the graveyard even as you are making this offer of amnesty. Nowhere is there any mention of the people for whom the fight is all about. Helpless children, women and men are today displaced people in their own land, not knowing when they will be allowed home to rebuild their lives. Is this a deliberate design to separate a popular movement from its source by denying it is pursuing a legitimate cause? It looks to me more like a wily act than a genuine attempt to arrive at a meaningful settlement, which political leaders and elders of the region have urged upon you to their own peril in endless rounds of talks and pledges, observed only in the breach.

As a matter of fact, the military are now part of the problem they were sent to the region to solve, having been thoroughly spoilt by state governors and the oil companies. But you have now put them in charge of carrying out the amnesty. A retired general serves as head of its panel of eighteen (18). Six (6) other senior officers, not counting members from the Nigeria Police, also part of the problem, are to sit as experts; but most revealing of the hand hidden behind is the presence of the Chief of Defence Staff, the man now directing the attack with tanks, helicopters and gun boats against a defenceless people in the old tradition of a colonial power burning down a whole community as punishment for not producing some suspected offenders among them. That was what happened at Odi on the River Nun, and is now happening in Gbaramatu kingdom on the Escravos. A military, turned upon its own people out of ruffled pride, wages a war it cannot win.

By their own estimate, the amnesty panel has come up with a figure of some 20,000 militants it has to identify, disarm and rehabilitate in the Niger Delta. This by itself is an indictment of the political and economic order that allows for waste of so many of its bright and young generation, some alienated at home, others driven abroad to fulfil their high potential.

Fifty billion naira is the special budget the amnesty panel is asking you to provide for them to do the work in the short time they have set themselves. That is the same magic amount you took from the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) to fund the new ministry you have created as the panacea for the region. In this case, the bill may also be charged to the same agency which you have already denied its due funds. Much of it will probably go down the drain of corruption.

For your offer of amnesty to gain some credibility, the removal and withdrawal of the military from the Niger Delta should form an integral part of its declaration, with provision to investigate and prosecute any crimes or excesses soldiers may have committed against the people they swore to protect and whose stolen wealth maintains their formations. And the alleged role of the military in the illegal bunkering of oil and gas that they claim to be protecting for the upkeep of the nation should not be left out.

For all these reasons, the military, therefore, should not be implementing an amnestywhich directly involves them as the government arm in combat with the militants.

Then there are the predatory oil and gas companies, the root cause of all the troubles in the Niger Delta. Your amnesty is dead silent about them. Are they, like the state which partners them in the industry that has brought tragedy to the Niger Delta, to go blameless? So many issues remain unaddressed by your offer of amnesty, for example, the implementation of the Mitee Report.

It is against this background, I urge you, as a Nigerian living at home in the Niger Delta and one never known to flee the country in time of danger and distress, to step out now, true and bold, to proclaim to the nation nothing less than an armistice. This in other terms is a ceasefire or truce during which a meaningful and final settlement, that we are all yearning for, can be reached as part of the overall effort to restructure the country for the good of all its people with so much promise of greatness.