₦airaland Forum

Militancy: The Voice of the Poor or A Canopy For The Selfish

I grew up to know one name, "Asari Dokubo";always in the news for his endless battles with Olusegun Obasanjo, with his people hailing him to high heavens and he, as a mark of happy leadership, starts doling out English Language to his expectant followers like a man showing the beauty of his diction after the Queen's visit. He seemed a very influential person to me then, I wasn't aware of militancy, I only wanted to know why his people stood behind him firmly.
Ralph Nwazuruike is not a militant but a strong Igbo man that has soaked the heats of pressure and has had his fair share of troubles. The MASSOB leader was said to be fighting for the secession of Biafra, a battle Nnamdi Kanu has also taken up but under entirely an different atmosphere yet with the same striking altruism. Sometimes methinks some people are just comfortable siphoning the rewards of their people and later instigating them against the government, other times, it seems entirely like a cause just beyond any reasonable iota of doubt.


We understand there was a deal in place to add grease to the pockets of MEND leaders, Tompolo and Mujahid Asari Dokubo as frontrunners. These are no news. The only feasible way to peace here is through negotiation but in a situation where the conditions are too expensive and undeserving, the books have to be reevaluated and core decisions must be made, hence, the cancellation of the Amnesty deal and the consequent birth of Niger Delta Avengers. Please, what are they avenging? That their leaders are good images of immense corruption or that selfishness has been the watchword in Niger Delta for quite sometime now? Of course yes, the Niger Delta Avengers are not wrong to dissipate their "vexed" energies but when you blow up pipes and sink a drowning economy further, then questions must be asked.
Nature is one beautiful thing we all can't do without and the more we see its pulchritude magnanimity, we get concerned about ourselves as a people especially when we lose it for no prior compensatory mechanisms adequately put in place. Oil spillage has been an endless trouble to Niger Deltans. With a destroyed ecosystem and what they could call their source of living gasping for breath, then the streets come calling. The boys go to the streets, guns in hands and disturb the nation's peace too. If that's their megaphone, so be it! The sounds of a blown oil pipe are never faint, these problems are not sultry. The feeling of a cheated man is rife!


Ken Saro Wiwa was killed alongside those 9 uncommon Nigerians for standing up for their people peacefully, it is also "welcoming" to see some selfish people try to mimic such with flamboyance here, the Niger Delta Avengers don't care who gets hurt, they sake for attention and they rightfully got one. Now it's the Bakassi Strike Force!
If people are strangers on their lands, visitors to their country and landlords of refugee camps on their own lands, then such strike forces is imminent. The Bakassi Peninsula was ceded to Cameroon after a judgement by the International Court of Justice. The histrionics of the Bakassi Peninsula going to Cameroon is borne out of some serious, selfish politicking. The people of Bakassi were perhaps slumbering before now but it's obvious this is the finest moment to make some noise and the world will listen to you.


Militancy is a way that some poor voices can get to the upper echelons of power but when induced by selfishness and destruction of the nation's economical foothold, militarism may also be used to check it yet the Yorubas will say, "A spoilt banana shouldn't be wasted while cutting while the bad child should not be beaten mercilessly too". In a country where there are 90 people going frustrated out of a possible hundred, militancy may just be a way to tell the world their aches but while the poor are truly aggrieved, this militancy seems like an arranged movie directed and produced by the same selfish heads who collect their people's rights and make the wrong calls.
Today, the Niger Delta Avengers have grown much more popular than when they started, whoever is championing the cause will soon be exposed and their calls to be heard will be listened to but like every case of militancy, heads will roll!