Oil, Blood And Tears
By
FIRST, it was called the Pride of the Nation and later re-christened Glory of all the Lands on earth by the present and first civilian governor. You might say nothing is wrong in expressing such love and pride for one’s homeland, but does Bayelsa State with all its oil and gas really qualify as a land of pride and glory to its own natives? The dream of the founding fathers was clear: a homeland for every Ijawman; a sure refuge where freedom is guaranteed for any Ijaw man (or woman) so diversely scattered along the fringes of the Atlantic coastline and inland waterways.
A land created to serve as a staging post for the development in the true riverine Niger Delta wetlands, Bayelsa is also noted for its rich human resources. People like Ernest Ikoli, the pioneer journalist of West Africa, Isaac Adaka Boro, martyr of the Nigerian Civil War, Gabriel Okara, the renowned poet/writer, Commander Alfred Diete Spiff, the first (military) governor of Rivers State and undisputedly the then most futuristic and youngest of all the post civil war governors. Younger achievers are many: Chief Ebitimi Banigo, Mr. Ben Murray Bruce, Justice Niki Toby, etc. Behind them are younger, highly educated professionals, proud and intensely patriotic and hoping that the glorious land they dream of can be achieved in their life time. Signals emanating from there recently are most unsettling. Fear and intimidation, public executions, wholesale massacre and ethnic-cleansing have all come to be the vogue in Bayelsa State.
No thanks to heavily armed youths, supported and actively sponsored by local warlords who in turn are supported by certain chiefs and local politicians. The rag-tag armies can virtually get away with anything including public executions. And the law? Forget it; it simply does not exist. In Bayelsa, the only law that is in force is the law of the gun; the guns can be seen in every community freely displayed by the youths. The Nigeria Police Force? They only exist in uniform. They are present in most communities across the state, some times in large numbers. In Nembe town, there are over 70 heavily armed Mobile Policemen with a mandate to kill any trouble-maker.
Ordinarily, I would have opposed such crude methods of enforcing the law to keep the peace, but given the rapidly deteriorating genocidal situation in the community, the Mopol are welcome. Twon-Brass is another case. Twon was well known as the only haven of peace in the much-troubled Nembe-Brass Axis of Bayelsa State. It was the undisputed refugee town in the area where the refugee population almost equals that of the natives. Yet in recent times, all that has changed for the worse. As if to say the devil does not want any peace in Nembe land, Twon-Brass is now steadily sliding into another bloody cacophony. The first blood has been drawn.
The Eldorado of peace is no more; fear, intimidation, distortion of known facts, oppression, destruction or outright demolition of properties of perceived enemies. The once bubbling semi-urban centre, probably the only urbanized town second only to the state capital, is now desolate with more than half of its inhabitants now living in exile. All these did not happen in one day. The town’s council of chiefs on October 4, wrote to the Commissioner of Police Bayelsa State with an urgent appeal to the command to check the activities of an alien group in the town. No action was taken. The police contingent on the island was quite sizeable, about 40, but they were mostly unarmed. So, during the youth elections which were postponed for three times this year, all due to the threat of a breakdown of law and order, the less equipped police through its DPO wrote, several signals of impending violence to the Commissioner of Police for urgent assistance. Like other appeals in the past, all these were disregarded. The festering crises eventually reached their climax when what was perceived to be an illegal youth election ended in the death of one Obiye Ikioye and the severe machetting of another who even now lies critically ill at the Nembe General Hospital.
Given the well-documented appeals and warning signals that were repeatedly ignored, even when some came from the DPO himself, one might want to ask; who benefits from these killings? Whose interest do these crises serve? Certainly, the Nembe people of Twon-Brass are the greatest losers. Even the neighbouring Okpoma community which had been blamed for some of the troubles in Twon hardly stands to gain from the public executions and siege in Twon-Brass. The chiefs and local politicians cannot absolve themselves. Some of them are well known sponsors of these rag-tag armies and see the police as willing tools to meet their political and, in some cases, economic ends. But why do we Nembe’s descend so low? We have allowed outsiders that mean no good to us to determine our future. Even the well-educated in high places have compromised their conscience on the altar of greed. We used to be a proud, educated and civilized people, much to the admiration of other groups, not only in Bayelsa, but in the whole of the old Rivers State; not surprising, therefore, that we produced the first governor of that state — a proud legacy open for every one to see in Port-Harcourt metropolis.
Chief Alfred Diete-spiff is the present King of Twon-Brass and Chief Melford Okilo is a well respected senator. I appeal to them and all true Bayelsans to put heads together to rid our beloved land of these violent youths so that peace and development can once again come back to Nembe land. The Bayelsa Police Command has shown in the past and especially now that crime prevention is not in its agenda. Two months after the public killings, the executioners, very well known, still walk free. Facts are being distorted and attempts are being made to reconcile us.
For the parents of Obiye Ikioye, murdered in cold blood on the September 20, 2001, they have two choices to make; they either leave town or stay and shut up. And for the second attempted murder, the parents of Mr. Obuala, they can continue to bear the cost of his hospital treatment and pray that God spare their son. Might is right in Bayelsa State. Is it when an oil worker is killed that the Nigeria Police Force will come running to make arrests? Maybe the Inspector General of Police needs to look critically at the activities of its command in the state. Dr. Young-Dede, a surgeon writes from Lagos.
December 2001