Letter to the Coalition of Niger Delta Organizations in the Diaspora

By

Ibok Ekpenyong   

Dear Members of the Coalition

I wish you yuletide greetings as you burn steam in your fight for a better life for the long - denied citizenry of the Niger Delta - a people whose collective psyches had long been battered by the insincerity of successive powers that had pulled the reigns of governance in Nigeria; a people whose honour and collective destiny has been "irredeemably" mortgaged, sacrificed and sold by the greed and personal agrandisement of their very "Representatives" whose only honourable deliberation inside the decision Chambers, is the deliberation about their Swiss - Accounts and juicy oil deals, about the plushness of the interior of the latest designer car in their fleet and the acquisition of other objets-d’art that soothes the vain fantasies of their kind. Honourable men indeed ! Honourable thieves?

But this much I can tell you, there is no grain of honour amongst these brand of thieves, or how else can one explain their pussy- footing with the "Niger Delta issue", whereas thunderbolt propelled the feet of their northern co-squanderers of the fortunes of the Niger Delta, when Ahmed Yerima ignited the fire of Sharia in Zamfara. Even on that, I can’t risk my neck to safely vouch that the fingers of our own very dear ‘honourables’ were not soiled, or how else, pray, can one explain the fact that nothing is heard about the Sharia thing again. Its forgotten, gone with the wind, dead and buried. 

The very Sharia that threatened the continued co-existence of Nigeria, is now accepted as the norm, as a way of life. Such that some depraved souls can get a release from what pent-up manic-fantasies their sick minds could conjure, by hiding under the hazy fog of religion to perpetrate fiendish inhumanity against their fellow men. Such that a nine month old pregnant woman could be flogged eighty strokes of the cane in public shame, for trumped-up charges of fornication, whereas our ‘highly esteemed honourables’ maintain customized suites in Five-Star hotels to frolic with their scores of convenient mistresses-- whores they manage to upkeep with their share of the Niger Delta loot. Such that a poor man who, driven by hunger, nibs a few Kobo, could have his arms amputated, while the honourable rogues who bankrupt the economy would have their breast pockets decorated with Sarakin epaulets or Wazirin turbans and be readily ranka de ded.

As far as I am concerned, the woes of the Niger Delta in this season of quasi-democracy should be blamed to a larger extent, on the ‘sleeping voices’ of the Honourable Representatives from the Niger Delta stock in the apex House of Assembly. The hitherto vibrancy in their voices on assuming their ‘abused’ offices, is now replaced with an incoherent drawl. Their voices no longer carry the reasonings of their brain, as constipation from having bloated their guts with petroleum gravy from the Niger Delta has completely obliterated their senses of socio-moral responsibilities. 

Reminds me of what Alex Ripley wrote in The Time Returns; "... a full stomach suffocates the mind". Well, since the voices of our honourable men have failed us, it seems then that the only voice of the Niger Deltans, is thankfully the voice of your August coalition of Niger Delta Organizations In The Diaspora. Keep up the good work, and that your voices never croaks while singing the Niger Delta songs of agony is my fervent prayer.

I came across an article recently titled  Fire in the Delta The rhythmic flow of the unfolding imageries were quite agonizing and thought-provoking. A poetic montage from the "Theatre of Cruelty". The painted picture of burning and waste was really glossy. One could easily inhale the tragic aroma of plant, animal and human barbeque without even going to the mai suya. One could hear the peculiar echoes from a frying bacon sizzling in the pan as their melting fats drip more oil into the flickering tongues of the raging flame. 

Oil from the roasting bodies of Niger Deltans, mixing with the burning oil from the belly of their earth. This oil that is the blood bank of the breathing entity tagged Nigeria. Ah this oil, this gift from God that is more of a curse than a blessing to the Niger Delta, what with this oil giving good roads, steady electricity, good drinking water and marbled edifices to some distant lands while squalidness, abjectness and general hopelessness remain the lot of the Niger Delta.

This oil whose consequences has polluted the sweet air, impoverished the fertile farmlands and contaminated the many rivers of the Niger Delta, such that cholera, guinea worm, starvation, poverty and other such anti-human social epidemic should suffice as the only dividend of the oil find that is generously bequeathed to the citizenry of the Niger Delta, their children and their children’s children. 

Pray, what do you call this? Is this not cheating? Of course. But methinks this is definitely a notch higher than mere robbing of Peter to pay Paul, this is a subtle way of telling dear Peter with a sneer - "hey you, look, if I had a choice, what becomes the lot of your kin will be of no consequence". But thankfully there is no such devilish choice to be made, and what becomes of Peter is of paramount consequence to Paul, if the continued feasibility and desirability of this brotherhood of colonial convenience must be critically considered.

December 2001