■ Military launches offensive ■ Monarch flees palace
By MURPHY GANAGANA
THE condition of 130-year-old Aramisi Alfred Sokoto, an Ijaw man, brings the plight of the ordinary people of Gbaramatu Kingdom, in Warri South West Local Government Area, Delta State, who have borne the brunt of the military occupation of their area, into sharp relief. These days he can be seen gazing aimlessly at the sky while murmuring some inaudible words. On a recent visit, Sunday Sun reporter found him seated in a makeshift structure at Okerenkoko community in Gbaramatu kingdom. Standing a few meters away from him was his three-year-old grandson, Wisdom Mali, who swiftly took to his heels at the sight of the reporter to seek protection in the bosom of his mother.
Though murmuring all alone, the old man is not demented; he is heavily burdened and helplessly depressed. While he had hoped to have rest and joy awaiting his last day on earth, peace had taken a seemingly permanent flight from him, and uncertainty, sorrow and fear had become his lot.
For Pa Aramisi, the oldest man in Okerenkoko and his folks in Gbaramatu communities, a strange face is an awesome sight they do not wish to encounter since the Nigerian military launched an offensive in search of members of the Niger Delta Avengers mid last month. The group, which has remained largely faceless had claimed responsibility for several devastating attacks on oil and gas facilities in the restive Niger Delta area in the wake of fresh hostilities over the demand for a fair deal for oil producing communities.
“We were living peacefully in our community; we do not engage in crude oil theft or pipeline vandalism. Suddenly, the army started invading our communities; they come today, go tomorrow and then return again. In one of such visits, they berthed at the shoreline in front of my house and started shooting sporadically into the air; the sound of gunshots boomed. The military had been tormenting us, and in their last raid on our communities, I narrowly escaped death while being carried into the forest by my children. I was drenched by rain, bitten by mosquitoes and remained in the bush for two days before they managed to ferry me to Warri where I stayed till I returned to my community three days ago. At present, there is no food and we are dying of hunger,” Pa Aramisi lamented in his native Ijaw language, at Okerenkoko.
Less than two kilometers away, at the opposite side of the Escravos River in Kurutie, another Gbaramatu community, a teenager, Owei-ebuagha Freedom, 13, and 10-year-old Goodluck Alfred, both looking unkempt, loitered the deserted community, bathed in perspiration. While Owei-ebuagha is a JSS1 student of Gbaraun Grammar School, Oporoza, the traditional headquarters of Gbaramatu kingdom, Goodluck is in primary three at Jeijei Primary School, Kurutie, said to have been established and funded by Chief Government Ekpemupolo popularly known as Tompolo, who has been declared wanted by the Nigerian government on corruption-related charges. Though schools are presently in session, the two children, among others in Gbaramatu, have been robbed of their education because the teachers who fled the communities during the recent military invasion have refused to return.
Signs of a massive military raid abound in the Gbaramatu communities as virtually all the streets and surrounding areas have been overtaken by weeds following the mass exodus of the inhabitants to evade further military attacks. At the now contentious Maritime University of Nigeria, Kurutie, Sunday Sun reporter saw massive structures including lecture halls, student hostels, laboratories, swimming pool, the vice chancellor’s lodge, staff quarters, electrification and water projects built and fully equipped during the tenure of former president Goodluck Jonathan. But the premises is pervaded by a graveyard silence except for the presence of a young man who kept watch in an atmosphere of suspense.
A 75-year-old woman, Chief Ewo Siloko said she witnessed raw jackboot terror when soldiers stormed Kurutie community, breaking into homes including that of Tompolo’s father, Chief Thomas Ekpemupolo, which they allegedly ransacked, smashed boxes and made away with some valuables including cash and beads.
“After the military bombardment of Gbaramatu communities in 2009, we had prayed against such an incident, but now see what is happening again to us. Even when the soldiers left after the recent invasion, they have still been arresting our youths indiscriminately; they arrest today, take them away, return them after sometime, and take another set. As at today, the only government project in Kurutie is this uncompleted jetty built and abandoned by the NDDC, and when we complain they talk about crushing us,” she lamented.
His Royal Majesty, William N.S Ogoba, the Oboro II, Agadagba, the paramount ruler of Gbaramatu kingdom, told Sunday Sun at his temporary abode in Warri, Delta State, that he had to flee his palace for fear of molestation by soldiers who, he said, invaded his royal home on May 28, 2016, and dealt him an unkind cut.
“I was kept in total darkness in my palace and couldn’t take my bath for four days. I suffered. You are seeing me here (in exile) because of frustration; they frustrated me, and I don’t expect this from the Federal Government. I think we are not slaves and don’t deserve to be treated this way. The soldiers took over the community; they raided my own guest house and looted everything. The soldiers also stormed my traditional temple and desecrated it, scattered everywhere. Women were crying everywhere because of their missing children,” he recalled in anguish.
Pain, occasioned by abject poverty and deprivation had, indeed, been the lot of inhabitants of Gbaramatu communities where schools, electricity, water and medical services are a luxury. For instance, there is only one cottage hospital in the entire Gbaramatu kingdom, which was built and reportedly abandoned by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), but later utilized for a short period by the Delta State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission (DESOPADEC) for its free medical programme.
Sunday Sun learnt that the hospital was shut and left dilapidated after the military attacked Gbaramatu communities in 2009. Locals said it was abandoned until three years ago when it was renovated, equipped, staffed and funded by Tompolo, who was reportedly moved by the rate of avoidable deaths in the area due to lack of medical services. Sadly, it has been shut again and the premises taken over by reptiles and weeds as a result the ex-warlord’s troubles with the Federal Government, which had frozen all his accounts through the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.
“You see, even before Tompolo re-commissioned the hospital, people were dying from avoidable deaths. But the situation reduced when the hospital started functioning. Now that it has closed down, I have been inundated with calls and gory pictures of our people dying for lack of medical help,” says Dr. Agagha Clarkson, director of health projects at the Tompolo Foundation, who was in charge of the hospital.
Worse still, petrol is a scarce commodity in Gbaramatu communities ironically hosting no fewer than seven oil platforms from which the money spinning crude oil is extracted. These included oil platforms on Jones Creek, Egwa 1 and 2; Otunana, Makaraba, Abiteye and Odidi Flow Stations. A 20-litre jerry can of premium motor spirit, also known as petrol, costs N4, 000 at the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) waterfront from where boats depart for communities in Gbaramatu and others on the Escravos River, and sells for N5,000 within the communities. However, at the government approved price of N145 per litre at filling stations, 20 litres of fuel costs N2,900. At Gbaramatu, there are no fuel stations and petroleum products are only sold in various sizes of jerry cans. Sunday Sun sighted an NNPC floating fuel station at the Okerenkoko waterfront, but the villagers said it was abandoned on arrival some years ago and had never functioned for a day.
The people are compelled to commute from their villages to Warri, the closest urban city, by canoes and speedboats on a turbulent river daily for at least, one hour on a trip that wouldn’t last more than 15 minutes by road. Thus, since majority of them are extremely poor, they face agonizing moments in an emergency as they are unable to afford the minimum of N25, 000 required to hire a speedboat. This is besides the cost of fuelling the boat, which consumes not less than 100 litres for a return trip to Warri.
In the same vein, the communities are neither connected to the national grid nor provided with gas turbines and, therefore, have no light despite massive gas pipelines criss-crossing their homes conveying gas to power plants generating electricity for use by other parts of the country. But around them are oil flow stations that are well illuminated by gas turbines while they remain in darkness. The Beniseide gas turbine that would have powered electricity for Ojobo, its host community in Burutu Local Government Area of Delta State, had allegedly been annually budgeted for by the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) for over two decades, but had not been executed till date. At intervals, electricity is generated in Gbaramatu communities by gigantic generators procured by the people through communal effort or provided by Tompolo, in the case of Kurutie community. It is the same predicament they face with water because the river flowing through their communities is salty, and can neither be consumed nor used for some domestic chores.
Thus, they suffer the hazards of air and water pollution arising from oil exploration and exploitation activities. “Besides the fact that it is an oil environment, it is also a tropical region; one common ailment is malaria occasioned by the tropical aspect; we did a lot of appendectomy, which is operation for an inflamed appendix, and several others. So, appendicitis and fibroid operations as well as respiratory infections arising from gas flaring, were very common. We also treated a lot of skin infections because of the effect of air and water pollution,” Agagha said.
TOP JTF COMMANDERS AWARDED CONTRACTS FOR SUPPLYING FACILITIES TO OIL COMPANIES
The locals alleged that while they die regularly from hazardous environmental conditions and recurring military invasions over agitations for their welfare, the scenario in the Niger Delta might remains a war without end as a result of vested political and pecuniary interests especially within the top brass of the military and security services. They said the crises in the Niger Delta had become a money-spinning venture for commanders of the Joint Military Task Force (JTF) stationed in the region as officers and soldiers lobby frantically for deployment to the formation.
“That is why the military and security chiefs are opposed to dialogue or any measure that could return peace to the Niger Delta,” alleged 57-year-old Ebiasuode Akpoebide, a Gbaramatu resident.
“The cost of hiring a houseboat used to shelter soldiers guarding oil facilities and platforms is US$3,500 daily (about N1million) and there are over a 1000 houseboats on the waterways of oil producing communities in Delta State alone. The houseboats require two drums of diesel daily to power the two generators onboard. The officer in charge of each of the houseboats, usually an army captain, receives a daily allowance of N10,000 while the soldiers are paid N7,000, and the funds are provided by the oil companies while the JTF top commanders take the contracts for supplying the required facilities to the companies. So, you can see why they would not want the crises to end and that is why even if the Federal Government declares a ceasefire to enable dialogue with the aggrieved militants as was done recently, the military will do something to trigger a crisis.”
He further alleged that apart from sometimes, taking actions to instigate violent reactions from inhabitants of the area, the soldiers engage in indiscriminate arrest of innocent people to justify their presence. “I was told that the hooded man the Navy paraded recently as a coordinator of the Niger Delta Avengers is actually an Itsekiri man doing diesel business at Warri waterfront. The DSS was said to have arrested him after he was approached by them under the guise of wanting to buy petroleum products from him; he fell for it and took them to his camp after negotiation for payment of the products was concluded. That may be the reason he was masked while being paraded because if they had left his face open, the Itsekiris would have said he was not a member of the Avengers.”
Akpoebide bemoaned a situation where there is no single police station in the entire Gbaramatu kingdom and other communities in the coastal areas of the Niger Delta, but thousands of soldiers were regularly deployed to protect oil companies and their facilities, which are of interest to the Federal Government. While lamenting that the Federal Government remained unperturbed on the Gbaramatu debacle, which had been on the front-burner since 1996 till date, he said oil companies operating within the area symbolized sorrow to the inhabitants.
RESTIVENESS IN THE NIGER DELTA, THE UNDERLYING ISSUES
Respondents to Sunday Sun enquiries in the creeks of the Niger Delta said reasons for their continued agitation for a fair treatment by the Federal Government were legion. They pointed, for instance, at several reports that had warned against the slow poisoning of the waters, the destruction of vegetation and agricultural land by oil spills in their communities, which had recieved no concerted and effective effort on the part of the government, let alone the oil operators, to control environmental problems associated with their activities
They complain that the Land Use Act promulgated by the military regime of General Olusegun Obasanjo did not help matters, as it was part of the numerous oppressive laws principally aimed at depriving them of their God-given resources by ceding the ownership and authority over the land of oil bearing communities to the Nigerian government.
Similarly, the inhabitants of Gbaramatu and other oil producing communities hold the belief that a compensatory clause in the Petroleum Industry Bill for the provision of 10 per cent proceeds of oil companies for the development of host communities attracted an unimaginable rash of opposition that had stalled the passage of the Bill at the National Assembly as another move in furtherance of the aggression and oppression against the minorities of the Niger Delta.
“The contentious Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) had not only suffered a slash from 10 per cent to 7.5 per cent of the net profit of oil companies recommended for the oil bearing communities at the National Assembly, but had the beneficiaries of the Host Communities Fund expanded to all parts of the “entire country”, notwithstanding whether crude oil existed in such areas or not. We wonder why a move to leverage the sufferings of inhabitants of oil bearing communities who had been neglected and the people facing extinction due to oil exploration and exploitation activities in their areas, should be aborted on grounds of sentiments and a desire by the majority ethnic groups to continually breathe down on the minorities of the Niger Delta”, Timpaul Ukolor, a 35-year-old artist who hails from Kurutie in Gbaramatu kingdom remarked last week.
THERE ARE DISCORDANT TUNES ON HOW TO RESOLVE THE FRESH HOSTILITIES
Also among their grievances is that they are deliberately disenfranchised of the right to their wealth as no person from their communities had over the years, been allocated oil blocks domiciled in their land but owned by some retired military generals, former heads of state, and individuals from other regions of the country.
They contended that aspects of the 2009 Presidential Amnesty Proclamation by the late president Umaru Musa Yar’Adua which dealt with the development of critical infrastructure in the Niger Delta had yet to be implemented, and the Nigerian state has shown no interest in providing the enabling environment for job creation for the teeming unemployed youths in the oil bearing communities. A resident of Okerenkoko, Dauware Kiliki, 28, completed his eight-month underwater welding training course offshore in the Philippines since 2013 under the amnesty programme, but the father of two said he is holed up in the village with no job to fend for his family.
Hear him: “We are suffocated and frustrated, because we have been abandoned and left to die in silence. When we complain, we are visited with brutal force. The 2009 bombardment and recent military invasion of towns and villages in Gbaramatu Kingdom, and the razing of Odi Town in Bayelsa State by security forces are a few instances. Hundreds of souls perished in these attacks just as several thousands were rendered homeless.
“The events that followed the Kaiama Declaration of December 1998 led to a state of emergency in the Niger Delta. It was all blood, tears and rape in Ijaw communities of the Niger Delta as the Nigerian state bombarded the region with her military might. In Opia community, an Ijaw settlement in Warri North Local Government Area of Delta State, for instance, a helicopter said to be owned by American oil giant, Chevron, carrying Nigerian soldiers was said to have landed during a skirmish occasioned by protests over oppressive tendencies and set the entire village ablaze with many locals killed.
“To worsen matters, oil companies operating in the Niger Delta and who are making huge financial gains from our God-given resources are involved in the oppression and criminal exploitation of the people through flagrant disregard and subversion of agreements with host communities guiding their operations, including Memorandum of Understanding (MOUs) and Freedom to Operate (FTOs). One of the companies notorious for such practices is an Italian firm, Saipem Consortium, which had allegedly adopted criminal and under-hand tactics to deprive communities in the Niger Delta of their dues. It had also allegedly created crises in communities where it operated, leading in some instances to violent clashes, in its alleged bid to shortchange the people.
“But the Nigerian government is blind to these developments. Rather, it takes any possible step to deprive us of anything that would uplift our lives. It is unimaginable that the Maritime University of Nigeria which was established and situated at Okerenkoko in the Gbaramatu Kingdom of Delta State by the immediate past administration of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan to better the lives of the Ijaw people and other neigbouring ethnic groups is on the verge of being canceled for no plausible reason other than the fact that a prominent son of the area, Chief Government Ekpemupolo popularly known as Tompolo and believed to have influenced its site, is in the black book of the present Federal Government.”
“Right now, there is confusion among top officials of the Nigerian government as discordant tunes are being sung on how to resolve the fresh hostilities by the Niger Delta Avengers and other militant groups.
The public disagreement between two ministers, Rotimi Amaechi and Dr. Ibe Kachukwu at a recent town hall meeting in Calabar epitomizes the situation. Unlike the late president Yar’Adua who was in full control of the crises in Niger Delta during his tenure, Buhari seems not interested in making peace as he delegates the responsibility to his subordinates.”
Historically, the British colonialists executed their policy of empire building through which the Nigerian nation-state was created with the Niger Delta as the cradle. Britain exploited the Niger Delta to transform herself into a developed country, and this made her to protect the region from eroding as it was the source of the raw materials for its industries.
Governor Arthur Richards regionalized Nigeria into three units – East, West, and North in 1946, without creating a southern region for the Niger Delta people. This reportedly made Britain to appoint the Sir Henry Willink’s Commission of Inquiry in September 1958, to propound solutions to their problems. The Commission declared the Delta a ‘Special Area’ for development, giving rise to the establishment of the Niger Delta Development Board (NDDB), which was aimed at ameliorating the suffering of the Niger Delta people with the inability of the Willink’s Commission to recommend the creation of a Niger Delta State in the Nigerian federation. The NDDB was set up by the Nigerian government in 1960 through the Niger Delta Development Act in the Independence Constitution and reinforced in the 1963 Republican Constitution that guaranteed its existence for 10 years.
Unfortunately, the Board, which was mandated to transform the Niger Delta into a developed region within a specified period, according to reports, used the first five years for developmental survey and the stabilization of the traditional economy of the indigenous people.
It could not go beyond this stage when it was cut short in 1966 by the military intervention that replaced the First Republican Government of Nigeria. Since then, subsequent administrations took a different approach to the development of the Niger Delta area, which the Willinks Commission report described as “poor, backward and neglected.”
Even before the Willink’s Commission, other commissions had been set up to look into the fears and problems of the minorities in Nigeria, such as the Hicks-Phillips Commission of 1951, which recommended 50 per cent derivation to revenue generating areas.
The Chicks Commission of 1953 recommended 100 per cent derivation for resource-bearing areas, just as other commissions including the Riasmen Commission of 1958, Binn Commission of 1964 and the Dina Internal Revenue Allocation Committee of 1968, noted the fact that commensurate and equitable compensation should be given to the resource bearing areas.
Ironically, while each of the British-headed commissions kept derivation principle at between 50 per cent to 100 per cent, the commissions headed by Nigerians such as Professor Ojetunji Aboyede Technical Commission of 1977, and Dr Pius Okigbo, allegedly deepened the agony of the Niger Delta people by recommending the abolition of the derivation principle, even as Decree 13 of 1970, had pegged it at 45 per cent. Subsequent legislations such as the Petroleum Act of 1969 and 1991, Land Use Act of 1978 and 1999 and the National Waterways Decree of 1997 were said to be unfavourable to inhabitants of oil communities who alleged that after suffocating the Niger Delta Development Board (NDDB) to an untimely death in 1966, the authorities reluctantly created the Oil Minerals Producing Areas Development Commission (OMPADEC), which later transformed into the present Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
But in doing this, according to Giniwa Deregbaghan, “they ensured that a good number of non-indigenous persons were appointed as watchdogs into the commission with a mission to frustrate free exercise of its mandate.”
At present, the Federal Government of Nigeria has refused to release over N700 billion statutory funds withheld over the years to the NDDC, just as the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) had also ignored statutory requirements to contribute a percentage of its proceeds to the NDDC for the development of oil communities in furtherance of the age-long repression against the Niger Delta people.
“As long as the people of oil bearing communities in the Niger Delta are forced to endure governments that take them political and economic hostage; as long as they are deprived of their cultural rights, or subjected to iniquitous and obnoxious laws, and as long as they are not provided the right environment for free enterprise to strive, development shall remain elusive in our communities and agitations would not abate,” he emphasized.