The Delta question

By

Prof. Mike Ikhariale

It has always bothered me that we so easily take for granted the most important aspects of our lives while we energetically and irresponsibly dwell on those aspects that are fundamentally frivolous, if not actually counterproductive. It is relieving to recall that similar set of circumstances also confronted Aristotle when he propounded his exemplary theory on the Human Predicament, which, in summary, is that men have unduly put themselves in great peril by their unwise waste of time and energy pursuing the “limited goods” instead of the “unlimited goods”.

In classical Aristotelian postulation, the “limited goods” are in the nature of power and wealth and by their nature, the more one party has of them, the less the others most necessarily possess of them, because they are scarce and limited in supply. On the other hand, unlimited goods are “knowledge” and “justice”. The possession of any or all of them by one party does not reduce on their supply to others. Instead, the world is richer by it.  It is therefore possible that every member of a family of ten are able to earn the PhD degree and that would not lead to shortages of knowledge elsewhere or create the necessity for its hoarding, as it were. The same goes for justice, as it can never be too much for humanity. 

Nearer home, Nigeria is where she is today because we have chosen to fall into the same trap that has been exemplified by the Aristotelian idea of the human predicament: the nation seems to have parted ways with justice and honour and what we are left with is the resultant misery and endless lamentation in the land. These are manifested in bad roads, corruption, indiscipline, collapsing infrastructure, depressing economy and a general air of immerisation.

It should be obvious to any discerning person that there is nothing sacrosanct about the Nigerian state and any other state, for that matter.  Nigeria as a political entity came into being because some people thought it would be beneficial to bring the erstwhile separate territorial entities together under one sovereignty (which in the context of our history was the British colonial power) and thereafter transfer the responsibility of the welfare of the citizens of the union to the new authorities on the understanding that the emerging relationship would endure only when all the parties to the contract, in Lockean sense, a social contract, are happy with the deal. Within this matrix that has so clearly played itself out in several places like Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union quite recently, it is predictable that this Nigeria we so love to belong to could vanish from the map of the world, if care is not taken.

There is no better illustration of this our predisposition for the mundane and cavalier than the levity with which we have tended to treat what, for lack of better lexicon, I would simply give the short phrase of the “Delta Question”. There are serious problems in the Niger Delta areas of the state of Nigeria and we can only ignore them at our collective peril. And what are these problems?

By accident of geography, the areas of the Niger Delta have beneath their swampy lands, enormous quantity of oil. And since the bounteous discovery of this very rich economic product, the inhabitants of these areas have not known peace and happiness.  It is one of the greatest ironies of our time that the same commodity that has made the Nigerian state so rich and lazy has also brought untold misery for those who own it. If those were all the problems, they would have been manageable. But they are more than that. In addition to losing control over their oil, they have also lost the fertility of their social well being and the life-sustaining resources of their waters with the result that famine and unimaginable want and misery have become the second nature of these people. 

To these unfortunate people of the Delta, the Nigerian system has gradually become a curse and a scourge to be exorcised as soon as possible. These are not new stories but what is certainly newly evident is the awareness that we are creating a generation of frustrated citizenry that could make the Palestinian suicide bombers mere kindergarten concert.

Quite surprisingly, we have been fiddling with questions of resources control and genuine federalism as if they do not matter to the union. We have been dwelling on frivolities of insulting percentages of compensation whether it is 13 percent of three percent, more like favour to these people than as genuine attempts to redress lingering injustices. Even then, we have not addressed the key questions of ownership and control.  They remain no-go-areas in our national politics. But for how long?

In the last several weeks, the Governor of Delta state, Chief James Ibori, has had to assume the obviously arduous task of seeking peace and pacification amongst these people whose deep grievances have been ignored by those who are holding their oil wealth to ransom. Watching the gloomy faces that have been crowding around the ebullient governor in his commendable peace shuttle in the swampy waters of the Delta lately, it is obvious that these people are merely bidding their time: a time bomb is tickling and it is only the federal government that can decisively diffuse it by doing the right thing by heed the yearnings of these communities.

Leaving only Governor Ibori to be tackling this huge mess that he did not create is to present the Federal government as playing the modern Nero. That would just be a modern manifestation of the Aristotelian Human Predicament.