By Waritobo Soweibo
A major ammunition with political foes of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, which shot down his re-election bid in 2015, was the accusation that he favoured the Niger Delta region over other parts of the country. Specifically, his critics alleged that the choicest appointments he made went to Ijaw people, with Bayelsa, his home state, particularly favoured. This allegation was practically made into a song, one that played loudly and was enjoyed to the hilt by other sections of the country.
However, those of us, who are Ijaw knew this was nothing but fallacy. It was effectively shown up as such before the election, which Jonathan eventually lost to General Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC). The widespread assumption that Jonathan did so much for the Niger Delta, especially the ordinary Bayelsan, was ripped up by the former President himself. Perhaps. Unintended! Unknown to him at the time, he was making a rod for his own back.
The former President, standing on the podium at the Adokiye Amiesimaka Stadium, venue of the presidential campaign rally in Port Harcourt, unwittingly invited what would come to haunt him later. With the trademarked wide grin pasted on his face, he danced and waved enthusiastically to loud cheers from his supporters. While speaking, Jonathan admitted that he had done very little for the Niger Delta, but promised to make amends if re-elected. Perhaps, the admission was made in the hope that other parts of the country would view him as a non-sectional leader, while the people of the Niger Delta would be seduced into longing for four years of intensive development of the zone.
It did not pan out either way. In fact, what happened was that Jonathan, unknowingly, invited Niger Delta activists to come up with a narrative that his five-year presidency amounted to a waste for the ordinary Bayelsan and Niger Deltan.
Jonathan himself delivered a confirmation of this after he lost the re-election bid. It was at a state banquet held in his honour by Governor Henry Seriake Dickson at the Dr. Gabriel Okara Cultural Centre in Yenagoa on May 29, 2015.
The occasion, brimming with Jonathan’s close aides, officials of his government and the crème de la crème of the Ijaw nation, was akin to a stocktaking exercise. Addressing the gathering, Jonathan said he thought Bayelsans would boo him for neglecting them but was amazed by the level of love the governor and the people of the state had shown him. “…When you are in high office and you finished serving, you are afraid of going back home, … At the late hour, it dawns on you that you could have done that, you failed to do this, you failed to do that… You begin to fear whether the people that come to receive you will curse you, hoot at you,” Jonathan thundered.
Clearly stated by the former president was that despite his administration’s neglect of Bayelsa State, Governor Dickson’s support for him never wavered. What, perhaps, went unstated was that Governor Dickson also remained steadfast despite the former president’s wife’s undisguised attempts to humiliate him.
As a matter of fact, Governor Dickson and the former president are the best of friends and strong political allies, which angered me as an Ijaw activist! We believed that such strong affection for a man, whose administration neglected the Ijaw nation, amounted to a betrayal of the Ijaw cause for which Isaac Boro, Melford Okilo, DSP Alamieyeseigha fought and died.
The former president would, again, confirm Governor Dickson as a dependable ally. The confirmation was made during the run-up to the December 2015 Bayelsa State governorship election, which Governor Seriake Dickson won.
On September 8, 2015, while making a strong case for the re-election of Governor Dickson, the former president described the governor as a man of uncommon leadership qualities and a “trusted and dependable person.”
Thus, when the news media erupted with the reports, on May 16, that Governor Dickson accused Dr. Jonathan of neglecting the Niger Delta during his five-year presidency, it came as no surprise to me. Why? Jonathan himself had admitted doing so. The governor made the remark at the annual Isaac Adaka Boro Day celebration at the Izon Warri in Yenagoa.
But after a careful reading of the governor’s speech, I realized – as any reader capable of reflection should – that Dickson’s comments were directed, exclusively, at the political elite, notably ministers and other appointees of the Jonathan administration, who studiously refused to team up with him in his efforts to develop the state. Dickson was simply bemoaning the loss of federal power; he was also angry that the privileged Ijaw wasted the opportunity they had for six years to develop Ijaw land and the ordinary people!
Even then, it would require a mighty effort not to be tempted to interpret Dickson’s remarks, as suggesting that Jonathan wasted the chance by the Ijaw to develop the Niger Delta because he was the leader. The leader, by nature, provides direction to the led. Not the other way.
Ijaw leaders invested significant efforts, time and resources in the quest for true federalism, resource control and an opportunity to have one of them lead the country as president.
The strength of this agitation, arising from decades of minority oppression, led the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, to say: “I look forward to the day, not in the far distant future, when an Ijaw would be president of our republic and a Birom or vice versa.”
Awolowo’s hopes were fulfilled when Dr. Jonathan got the chance. Did he use it well for the Ijaw nation? He has answered the question by himself.
It is important for every Nigerian to understand that there should be adequate collaboration between the government of Bayelsa State and the Federal Government principally because the challenges posed by the environment cannot be surmounted by the state government alone.
The dip in revenues accruing to the states of the federation makes this doubly difficult. The failure of the former President to adequately take care of the Niger Delta has been seized upon by the Buhari administration to reject requests for collaboration from the Bayelsa State government.
The Buhari administration’s default question is: Why did such collaboration not take place when a Bayelsan was president?
While I am not an admirer of Governor Dickson, I am persuaded that his disappointment with the former president is well founded. I think this is the position of well-meaning Ijaw person. It is a fact that oil exploration started in Ijawland, precisely in Oloibiri, Ogbia Local Government Area. Despite prosperity the country has seen from oil, Ijawland remains grim and in the grip of poverty and environmental degradation.
It would have been amusing, were it not for its seriousness, that some people are making an issue of Governor Dickson’s observation, which Jonathan himself publicly admitted.
Even if Jonathan had not admitted, evidence would have declined to support any grand claim he would make. The failure of the Jonathan administration to build the East-West Road, the only highway linking the Niger Delta region with the East and West, and his neglect of the federal road to Bayelsa State and the one to his community in Otuoke would have punctured any confected narrative of good performance.
Dickson, it bears repeating, is not a man I admire. But his courage is an attribute I cannot dismiss. One of the first roads he constructed within his first year in office was the road from Sagbama to Toru-Orua, his community.
So, my advice to those who love Jonathan more than he loves himself is: If they must weep, they should weep for the grotesquely underdeveloped Ijaw nation, not for Jonathan, who frittered an opportunity to correct the wrongs of the past.
For those with little or no knowledge of the Ijaw, they remain one of the world’s most oppressed people. A little background could help put the Ijaw situation in sharper focus. Bayelsa is the only homogeneous Ijaw state. It is the hub of neglect and, therefore, agitation in the Niger Delta region.
By nature, the Ijaw are activists, an attribute imposed on them by their challenging environment. It was this environment that gave rise to Major Jasper Isaac Adaka Boro, a native of Kaiama, Bayelsa State. Boro and his colleagues famously launched the 12-day revolution against the Nigerian state, the foundation for the Niger Delta struggle.
The founding fathers of Bayelsa State wanted the state they were agitating for to be the Jerusalem of all Ijaw scattered across Nigeria. It was against this background that late Governor DSP Alamieyeseigha, nicknamed “Governor – General of the Ijaw nation” gave appointments and scholarships to Ijaw irrespective of whether they were from Bayelsa or not. The pattern has continued under Dickson, who was famously described by Alamieyeseigha as his successor in the Ijaw struggle.
The implication is that a Bayelsa governor must attend to the needs of all Ijaw people, as he is viewed as a governor of the Ijaw nation. Bayelsa State was also conceived to only offer opportunities to only Ijaw.
It also explains why Bayelsans tend to see public funds, as something to be shared among themselves. I can say with authority that before Dickson became governor, public servants in the state were not paying Personal Income Tax. Similarly, citizens were not paying electricity bills, as they were borne by government.
Bayelsa, as stated earlier, sits atop vast oil and gas deposits. Oloibiri in Ogbia Local Government Area of Bayelsa State was where oil was first struck in commercial quantities in Nigeria. This has counted for nothing, with the treacherous terrain serving as impediments to wholesale development by successive state governments. This is made worse by inadequate or half-hearted interventions by the Federal Government, which has also continued to ignore agitation for more accruals. Successive state governments did their best and the current one is doing same, within the limits of its resources. Their efforts, however, have been like a drop in the ocean.
This is why it is important to have a state/Federal Government collaboration on projects such as the Brass LNG, construction of an airport, deep seaport, good road networks to the oil terminals. There is no doubt that these big-ticket projects are way beyond the financial capacity of state government, even if it does nothing else for 10 years.
One cheering news is that Dickson is building an international airport which, when completed, will transform the economy of the state but he must pay off salary arrears being owed public servants or else we boo him!
The Jonathan presidency raised hopes. Jonathan was expected to allot oil wells to interested Ijaw businessmen and hit the Atlantic, where Ijaw people’s wealth lies, on three fronts: Brass, Oporoma- Koluama and Ekeremor- Agger. These fronts host the oil terminals, but are inaccessible to motorists. The prevalent belief in Bayelsa is that the state cannot develop until it has access to the sea. Having access not only entails building roads, but also having a deep seaport and an airport to make the state play an active role in the Gulf of Guinea.
These, sadly, did not happen under Jonathan.
• Comrade Soweibo is a Niger Delta activist based in Yenagoa and wrote in via [email protected].