ijaws spout fire

IJAWS SPOUT FIRE!

A two-day Ijaw National Conference of Eminent persons drawn from some of the brightest and best Ijaws from all over the world met under the aegis of Ijaw National Congress (INC) to consider extensively the Ijaw position on a peoples’ constitution for the Nigerian nation. The Conference had exhaustive deliberations on the following key issues:

(a) The current federal structure and the practice of true federalism.

(b) Devolution of powers – retention of residual powers by the state.

(d) Geopolitical zones – North, South, East and West

(e) Provision for State Constitutions, State Judiciaries and State Police.

(f) Provision for independent candidates in a multi-party system.

(g) Independence of the judiciary and the Electoral body.

(h) Abolition of the land Use Act.

(i) Abolition of all the obnoxious laws governing the oil and gas sector.

(j) Retention of Local Government Councils as the third tier of Government.

(k) Constitutional guarantee of socio-economic rights as fundamental and justiciable rights.

(l) Constitutional guarantee of gender equality at all levels of our national life.

(m) Wanton invasion of Odi.

(n) Rotational presidency.

(o) Presidential and parliamentary systems of government.

(p) Creation of homogenous coastal Ijaw states made up of the present Bayelsa State and 2 others – Oil Rivers (consisting of the Ijaws in the 9 LGA of Rivers and in 2 LGA of Akwa Ibom and Toru Ibe State consisting of the Ijaws of Delta, Edo and Ondo); and

(q) Correction of the anomalous creation of only 8 Local Government Areas for Bayelsa State contrary to the constitutional provisions which prescribe a minimum of ten LGA for a state.

The conference resolved as follows:

(i) That the Ijaw Nation insists on the practice of true federalism wherein the constituent units own and control their material resources with obligation to pay appropriate taxes to the federal government at the centre.

(ii) That the functions of the federal government should be limited to defence, foreign affairs, common currency, customs, immigration and national security.

(iii) That residual powers in a peoples’ constitution must lie with the state.

(iv) That there should be a single five-year term for President, Governors and Chairmen of Local Government Councils on a rotational basis. However, Legislators at all levels should be exempted from this provision.

(v) That the Nigerian Constitution must allow for the various States to have their own Constitutions, judiciaries and Police Forces.

(vi) That the Constitution should provide for independent candidacy in a multiparty democracy.

(vii) That Local Government Councils should be retained as the 3^rd tier of government.

(viii) That socio-economic rights should be guaranteed as fundamental rights that are legally enforceable in a peoples’ Constitution.

(ix) That the LAND USE ACT of 1978, the Petroleum Act, Minerals Act, the Oil Pipeline Act and such other obnoxious Acts and Decrees governing the oil and gas sector of the national economy should be abolished.

(x) That the Ijaw Nation notes with disdain the anomaly of approving only eight (8) local government Areas for Bayelsa State contrary to the relevant constitutional provision which prescribed a minimum of ten (10) Local Government Areas for each State. We urge that this anomaly be redressed immediately in line with the provisions of the constitution.

(xi) That the Ijaw Nations strongly recommends that eight (8) geo-political zones be created in the country as follows: (a) North-East, (b) North-West, (c) North-Central, (d) East, (e) West, (f) South-West comprising Delta, Anioma and Edo States, (g) South-East comprising New Rivers , Akwa Ibom (including Ibeno and Eastern Obolo Local Government Areas and Cross River States, (h) South-South comprising Bayelsa, oil Rivers, Torube and Itsekiri States subject to the proviso that the proposed States within the proposed zones can opt out of any particular zone in preference for another.

(xii) That the Ijaw Nation abhors the continuous criminal and massive flaring of gas which has contributed to the degradation of the Niger Delta environment. This practice which is not permitted elsewhere in the world must stop.

(xiii) That Conference agrees that what is important is to enthrone a truly federal system of government as against the puerile arguments between parliamentary and presidential systems of government.

(xiv) On the immediate problems confront the Ijaw Ethnic Nationality, conference notes with deep regret the various intra-ethinic conflicts in particular as well as inter-ethnic conflicts. We note in particular the raging conflicts in Buguma, Okrika, Tombia, Bakana, Ekeremor, Ataba etc and call on all parties to stop forthwith these self-destructive hostilities. Conference calls on all Ijaw Traditional Rulers living outside their domains to return home immediality to enable them play an effective role in the resolution of conflicts in their various areas of jurisdiction.

(xv) On the seemingly intractable Warri crisis, conference urges the Federal Government to face up to its responsibilities by bringing all parties to the Warri Crisis by implementing the recommendations of the Justice Idoko Commission of Enquiry and such other Commissions of Enquiry and Governor James Ibori’s Road Map to Peace all of which recommend the creation of separate Local Government Areas for the Ijaws, Urhobos and Itsekiris.

(xvi) On oil communities and oil companies, conference notes that the conflicts between Ijaw communities, youths and oil companies have been occasioned largely by the oil companies neglect of these communities for many decades in such areas as economic empowerment, employment, contract awards and the non-implementation of Memoranda of Understanding along with their penchant for divide and rule. Conference equally notes the provocative practice of oil companies allowing their facilities to be used as launching pads for military operations against Ijaw communities. In this regard, conference urges the oil companies to stop these hostile activities against the defenseless Ijaw communities and urges the oil companies to adopt a more inclusive and conciliatory policy options in their deals with the host communities.

(xvii) Conference notes as earlier stated the continued neglect of the people of the Niger delta. While it believes that this country does not need a Commission to develop the Niger Delta, it should adequately fund the NDDC if it must transform the Niger Delta.

(xviii) Conference urges the INC Executive Council to take the Ijaw case to the UN oppressed group forum.

(xix) That Conference rejects the on-going privatization exercise and allocation of marginal oil fields to non-indigenes of the Niger Delta. Conference emphatically demands that marginal oil fields in the Ijaw territory should be allocated as a matter of right to the Ijaw people. Furthermore, all Refineries, the Petrol-chemical complex, Jetties and NAFCON located within Ijaw territories must be offered as of right to the host communities. Thus, Conference mandates the State governments where these facilities are located to purchase them in trust for the host communities. Conference is of the view that the Ijaw people reserve the right to enforce these fundamental rights in the oil and gas sector.

(xx) Conference notes with great consternation that four (4) years after the invasion and destruction of Odi in November 1999 by President Olusegun Obasanjo, the Federal Government has refused to pay any compensation, rebuild Odi or rehabilitate the defenseless people. Conference examined extensively the available evidence and found it sufficient enough for the INC to take Mr. President to the International War Crimes Tribunal. Conference therefore calls on all Human Rights Organizations world-wide and the international community to join hands with INC to prosecute this unconscionable crime against humanity.

(xxi) Finally, conference in general Notes that Nigeria is a failed state derived from a fraudulent contraption of our erstwhile colonial masters by the instrumentality of the force amalgamation of 1914, thus patently unable to provide the barest minimum level of political, social and economic security for its citizens. It is an illegitimate state because the apparatus of Governance has been the so-called three majority tribes that has subverted the sovereignty and will of the people and ruthlessly oppressed and exploited the minority ethnic groups.

(xxii) The Ijaw Nation has been specifically and deliberately

colonized and oppressed paradoxically in the face of the fact that it is the goose that lays the golden eggs, producing about 90% of Nigeria’s revenue from its abundant God-given wealth of Crude Oil and Natural Gas. The Ijaws have been effectively robbed of their petroleum resources as the illegitimate Nigerian state has given the ownership and control of the Ijaw resources to other Nigerians on a platter of gold to the total exclusion of the Ijaws by its evil privatization scheme of the Oil Industry. The continuous destruction of our habitat and traditional means of subsistence by oil prospecting activities results in the ever deteriorating socio-economic conditions of our already uterly impoverished Ijaw people. Consequently, the survival of the Ijaw people is under serious threat especially in the face episodic genocide perpetrated against tour people by the Nigerian state.

(xxii) Furthermore, the centrifugal forces occasioned by irreconcilable differences amongst the key players in the Nigerian polity threatens to dissolve the Nigerian Federation as evidenced by the concerted campaigns for Arewa, Biafran and Odua Republics.

(xxiii) In view of the fact that the Nigeria Federation is ever tightening its strangulating noose around the neck of the Ijaw Nation, the Ijaws must reassert and reclaim their natural sovereignty which they exercised in entering into bilateral treaties with the British and other Eropean powers as co-equal sovereign states during the pre-colonial era.

(xxiv) To re-establish the sovereignty of the Ijaw Nation, an effective strategy must be out in place immediately. The following are the components of the strategy adopted among others:

(a) A Committee be set up to research the historical sovereignty and original territorial limits of the Ijaw Nation and study all pre-colonial treaties with foreign countries and the record of interactions.

(b) Reconstruct all features of our sovereignty, including subsidies that were paid to the Ijaws by the colonial Government of Eastern Nigeria.

(d) Declare that the Nigerian Constitution and indeed the Nigerian state stands illegitimate and rejected by the Ijaws until and unless ratified by a simple majority of the Ijaws in a referendum.

(e) Emphatically dissociate the Ijaw Nation and any Ijaw territory from aligning itself with or being included in the Biafran, Odua or any other Republic. Any Ijaw person found to be betraying this position will be severely sanctioned in an Ijaw manner.

(f) Draft and ratify a Constitution for the Ijaw Nation. A Constitution Drafting Committee should be set up immediately to accomplish this task.

(g) Launch a continuous aggressive Fund Raising Campaign to source the much needed funds to mobilize the Ijaw Nation to assert its sovereignty.

(h) All standing committees of the Ijaw National Congress (INC) should as a matter of urgency made to be operationally functional and effective immediately.

(i) The various structural tiers of the INC (National, Zones, Clans, Units and Satellite Chapters) be made to be visibly functional and effective immediately, such that the Grassroots are readily mobilized to achieve full participation the Sovereign Nationhood of the Ijaws.

(j) Embark on aggressive diplomacy to secure the support and assistance of the World Community through the United Nations. it will be emphasized that countries and Oil Companies that support our Nationhood will be richly rewarded.

(k) The Ijaw National Day, 17 January, as ratified by the NRC must be declared and celebrated annually.

In the extreme case of an emergency, i.e. a breakdown of the Nigerian State, the INC and its

(l) Leadership of Ijaw land.

Chief E. S. Princewill Dr. S. A. Bobo-Jama

National Publicity Secretary, INC National Secretary, INC

Prof. Kimse Okoko

President, INC

COMMUNIQUE ISSUED AT THE END OF THE EMINENT PERSONS CONFERENCE OF IJAW NATIONAL CONGRESS HELD ON 27^TH – 28^TH NOVEMBER, 2003 AT PORT HARCOURT.

Dec 2003