|
Panacea to Warri crisis By
All of those who love this country should indeed be worried about the events in Warri, known to harbour the wealth of this nation. There should be cause for worry about the Warri situation because it carries the explosives that may blow us all to hell if something is not done. Sadly, those who truly love this nation are in the few. Some learned do not like to use cliches and we are not ready to apologize to them for the use of this one: that action and reaction are equal and opposite. When these otherwise docile people saw the order and structure that oil money produced in Abuja and juxtaposed this against their own squalor and the smallness of their lives, the Niger delta has known no peace since then.
Those in certain quarters who should have applied the ordinary principles of equality and some measure of understanding of the plight of the frustrations of these people behaved extraordinarily. They put a scimitar on the things that held the Ijaw, Urhobo and Itsekiri brethren together, and today the place is constantly on the boil. At the beginning , we said that those who really love this country are few indeed. They are the cabals who have held this nation to ransom for as long as their interests are at stake. Did we not have a military president who created states because he needed to please the emotional palate of a woman? Have we not had another military president who created arbitrary local governments on the worn out principles of divide and rule.
The days have gone under when it was postulated that democracy is the government of the people, for and by the people. If those who write exams still say those things, we should understand their need and accommodate their ignorance. True democracy, I tell you, is about you and I talking, agreeing to agree, disagreeing to agree, and even disagreeing to disagree. Democracy is about discussion. It is about criticism; it is about change. And there could never be any time for change to take place in Nigeria than now.
We should put the grammar aside and face the issues squarely as they are. Why are the people in the Delta fighting? When did this fighting start and what can we do to stop this ordeal of brigandage? The first question I think is not a hard nut to crack. The people are frustrated that nobody has as yet taken them any seriously about their social and economic status as Nigerians. They feel cheated, used and dumped and are angry, very angry. Second, when did this fighting start? Again, this should not be a difficult question to answer. As soon as the people came to that point of realisation that they seem secondclass citizens in a nation they feed, there was no turning back. Death and dying becomes a non-issue to the determination of a people who reach a point of no return. What should we do about this scenario? Simple. Let us talk. If Nigeria is a creation of serendipity, let us talk about it. If people feel aggrieved and cheated, let us talk about it. Let us not have a conference that is sovereign or that is constitutional. Please let us just talk.
The warri problem is a metaphor for the frustrations that are felt the world over. The reason Charles Taylor is here as an unwelcome guest in this country is that he is a fitting reminder of the fate that befalls the Idiamins of this world, who kill and encourage their people to kill themselves. We would realise too late that the circumstances that led to Taylor living a life of exile in Nigeria are right here staring us cold and blunt in the face.
There is a great need for certain things to be done concerning the fight going on in the Delta. On several fora we have had reason to argue for the education of the people of this so-called volatile region. We speak of the education of the young people of this region because we feel that it is only the education of these youngsters that could stem the tide of ignorance, injustice and anarchy that is the hallmark of a people. We speak of education of these people because we believe that that is the one way these people may experience a sense of belonging in a seeming ungrateful nation. Almost all of the young people of Bayelsa state who were a thorn in the flesh of the governor now enjoy government funding of their education in several institutions of higher learning anywhere in the world. Selfishly, we may begin to argue that most of them do not have relevant or requisite qualification. That they are not qualified simply is the reason they are fighting to qualify to work in the companies that milk their environment and leave it panting for breath.
Today's government should invest massively in the paraphernalia of the educational sector of the economy. All the computers, the machinery of the production of the crude substance that oils the engine of government is from education. The first world nations of today are all involved in large-scale measures of improving and enhancing the quality of education. When the British people were here, there was only one way for them to improve the exploitation and exploration of the hinterland after the slave business became unfashionable. They provided the barest forms of education for what could promote their interest here.
It could also be argued that our nation may not be able to afford the education of every young person in the Niger Delta. That is not entirely true. Nigeria and Nigerians all over the world are known to be the wealthiest black people on the face of the earth. We produce oil and make money enough to feed the whole of the black race, and we challenge any body to come and refute this. As a result, we propose that instead of just sending the young people of the Niger Delta to school, all of Nigeria's young boys and girls should have this opportunity to attend higher school. That way, we believe that a lot of the frustrations producing the present heat in our country would evaporate.
November 2003
|