TOWARDS A NEW DAWN

COMMUNIQUE OF THE INAUGURAL MEETING OF THE BAYELSA CIVIL SOCIETY ASSEMBLY

INTRODUCTION

AT a one-day meeting held on Wednesday, July 17, 2002 in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, over 50 representatives of NGOs, community-based organisations, faith-based groups, social movements, journalists and other civil society associations examined the place and challenges of civil society in Bayelsa State, Nigeria.

The meeting was convened by the environmental human rights lawyer Oronto Douglas and facilitated by the Ijaw Council for Human Rights, Our Niger Delta and the Human Rights Committee of the Yenagoa Bar Association. The Ogoni nationalist Dr Owens Wiwa delivered the keynote address while several eminent Ijaw nationalists, including Dr Emmanuel Isukul, Chief Chris Youdowei and Oronto Douglas addressed the meeting.

Participants commended the organisers of the forum and expressed themselves frankly.

OBSERVATIONS

Participants observed that:

1) there is the urgent need for civil society groups to work together in order to monitor governance at all levels and empower the local people;

2) the mass poverty in the midst of our vast natural resources is unacceptable;

3) the poverty in the land is traceable to official negligence by successive local, state and central governments as well as the activities of the transnational oil corporations like Shell, Agip, Texaco, Chevron and others;

4) the transnational oil corporations must accept responsibility for destroying the environment of the people of Bayelsa State and other parts of the Niger Delta;

5) there is need for civil society organisations to reach out to the people at the grassroots level for empowerment education;

6) the struggle of the Ijaw for resource control, self determination and political autonomy as contained in the Kaiama Declaration is legitimate remains our cardinal focus;

7) mainstream political leaders, traditional rulers, youths and the transnational oil corporations have acted as agents of conflicts in our communities;

8) there is the need to expand the democratic space in the state to accommodate new visions, new programmes and new players;

9) the people of Bayelsa State have the right to the basic amenities of life, including potable water, electricity, housing, transportation, health and education at all levels;

10) the high level of corruption and underdevelopment in Bayelsa State is unacceptable;

11) the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) is factionalised and this has affected the Ijaw struggle

12) the Supreme Court judgement on derivation is unjust, unfair and objectionable and therefore unacceptable.

RECOMMENDATIONS

At the end of the deliberations, participants resolved as follows:

1) to work together for good governance in Bayelsa State;

2) to establish the Bayelsa Civil Society Assembly as a permanent institution of civil society organisations in the state with the mandate of monitoring all levels of government and liberating our people;

3) to appeal to political parties and their leaders and others to put a halt to the violence that has gripped the electoral process, particularly the recent incidents at Nembe, Yenagoa and Twon-Brass;

4) to hold the transnational oil corporations to global environmental human rights standards, especially Shell which is currently operating in Gabaran, Bayelsa State, without an Environmental Impact Assessment Study;

5) to call on the government, the people and organisations in the state to invest in human capital - the greatest asset in any society;

6) to appeal to all the factions in the IYC to reunite and reinvent the organisation in order to actualise all the demands contained in the Kaiama Declaration;

7) to urge the press to take a greater interest in reporting the Niger Delta environment;

8) to call upon the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to ensure that all eligible Ijaw sons and daughters of voting age are registered in their places of abode, including the fishing settlements and hinterlands;

9) to ensure that public office holders at all levels no longer dip their hands into the public till as they may please;

10) to work towards preventing the transnational oil corporations from further acts of extra-judicial murders and polluting of our environment;

11) to call on the transnational oil corporations to clean-up our environment which they have polluted;

12) to work in collaboration with other organisations of the people for the convoking of a Sovereign National Conference (SNC) where Nigeria would be restructured to meet the objective interests of all the federating units.

CONCLUSION

The motion for the adoption of the communique was moved by Miss Viktoria Egbuson of the Izon Emancipation Group and seconded by Prince John D. Egbe of the Health, Education and Environmental Crusaders Incorporated. The following persons emerged as officers of the Bayelsa Civil Society

Assembly - Engr Bubaraye DAKOLO (Coordinator); Mr Youpele BANIGO (Secretary); Mr Ben TANTUA (Director of Training); Miss Viktoria EGBUSON (Director of Gender); Mr Famous DAKOLO (Director of Information and Mobilisation); Mr Sam IGRUBIA(Director of Finance) and Mr Fidelis SORIWEI (Director of Research, Documentation and Statistics). They are to hold office for six months.

ORONTO DOUGLAS

Convener

Yenagoa, July 17, 2002

August 2004