So much effort is being made in the international media and (sadly) in the Nigerian media as well to cast the issues and problems of the Niger-Delta in a special categorty. They characterize the people of the Niger-Delta as a separate, oppressed minority suffering under the jackboot of the rest of Nigeria. In some cases (particularly in the Nigerian media) they imply or bluntly statee that the jackboot in question is worn by only a section of the country.
In truth the problems of the Niger-Delta, and (more importantly) the solutions to those problems, are linked to the broader problems and solutions of the entire federal republic.
Take environmental degradation.
Nigeria, all of Nigeria, for DECADES paid no attention at all to environmental degradation, not just in the Niger-Delta but EVERYWHERE in the country. Gulley erosion ate some states, the Atlantic ocean ate other states, and desertification ate other states. Industrial and household waste was dumped anywhere, in rivers, drainage channels, fields, anywhere.
The problem of oil pollution in the Niger-Delta did not arise because successive Nigerian government did not care about the Niger-Delta. It arose because these governments did not care about the environment of Nigeria, of any part of Nigeria.
But why blame the government? Environmental protection is one of those things that all we Nigerians agree on in principle, honourable things that nevertheless have so much less impact on our practical politics than senseless things like ethnic and religious fault-lines. It is not for nothing that even the pollution in the Niger-Delta is given a regionalist, divisionist interpretation -- it is "marginalization" and "discrimination", not simple failure in policy-making, policy enforcement, governance and prioritization.
Indeed, this is why we never solve any problem. The moment the problem is raised, it is given divisionist colouration, and instantly large sections of the citizenry disengage themselves, because the agitation is seen as being directly (and belligerently) aimed at them, even when the problem in question is shared by all.
We often discuss the issue of almajiri begging on the streets of northern cities as if it were some sort of ethno-religious issue. The fact that some of these young people turn to robbery (disguised as "religious riot") to feed themselves is also given an ethno-religious interpretation.
I don't understand it. Do we care about our children? Or is that another thing we ostensibly agree on, but do little about?
It isn't an "almajiri" issue to begin with.
Poverty makes parents do strange things.
We have children, all over the country, who are given out as househelps at a very young age, when they should be with their families and in school. A lot of laws in Nigeria are either not enforced, or are enforced so selectively and/or rarely as to be practically unenforced, and these children who work as maids and manservants have little or no protection under the law, not even from sexual abuse by the men (father and sons) of the respective families they work for. In other parts of the world, this sort of work (maid, cook, babysitter, butler, manservant) are paying jobs that adults use to feed their children; in Nigeria it is the children doing these jobs to feed their parents. Other children risk their health digging through rubbish dumps, looking for odds and ends that could be sold to buy their daily bread. Some kids risk their lives on busy expressways selling consumer goods to drivers. Children (and "youths") pour sand into pot-holes on major roads and set up road blocks to collect extra-legal tolls from passing vehicles. And famously in Akwa Ibom, some children were brutalized and abandoned by their families because some pastor claimed they were witches (a convenient excuse for getting rid of an extra mouth if you cannot afford to feed the child anyway).
I don't want to go into the whole laundry list of children's issues that we all think about, we all talk about, we all agree on, but which are not as interesting to us in a active sense as ethno-religious quarelling. What is more important to note is that even though we as a people are religiously, traditionally and culturally inclined to care about our fellow citizens, in practice we allow a lot of things to happen on a daily basis that run contrary to everything we profess to believe. Sometimes (and this is the shocker) we actually argue in defence of these things.
Certain state governments have promulgated Sharia Law. Fine, no problem. Now what would be wrong with these states providing food to Islamic schools, so the children do not have to go out into the streets to beg and/or steal? If the state does not have enough money in the budget to do this, perhaps they should cut some of their many unnecessary expenses, and move to increase tax-generating economic activity in their states. Increasing economic activity would increase employment (a beneficial side-effect), make it easier for parents to afford to feed their children (another beneficial side-effect), and thus lower the governments' bill for feeding children in Islamic (and General Knowledge) schools. But rather than do this, these leaders spend their time explaining to anyone who would listen why it is okay for them to show no concern whatsoever for the welfare of the children of their states.
Which brings me back to my point.
There are a lot of things we profess to care about in Nigeria. But in practical terms nothing is actually done to improve those things.
Much of the "neglect" of the Niger-Delta is the same "neglect" that every part of Nigeria suffers. The children are neglected. All seven ethno-cultural regions of the country have suffered neglect. All major cities, with the exception of Abuja, have suffered neglect.
I have made blog posts in the past about the weaknesses in our system of healthcare. It too is neglected.
I have posted about our weak infrastructure. It too is neglected.
These things are neglected EVERYWHERE in Nigeria.
And then there is the absence of substantive democracy and of a restructured administrative map. These two are the most important missing ingredients, because without them, we the people have no avenue to force OUR priorities on the government, and even if we could, without a more fiscally sensible administrative map (7 states, 84 districts) there would be little effective our federating administrative units could do.
The Niger-Delta (like the rest of Nigeria) has not been able to use its votes to be heard, through elections. They have not been able to create regional/state governments staffed by leaders who have the ability to tackle area problems. They have not been able to make Abuja listen for 50 years. The Fourth Republic is no different, as the rigging done in the Niger-Delta over the last ten years is worse than in the rest of the country (bar Anambra). A party the people of the Niger-Delta hate (the Peoples Democratic Party), somehow manages to win huge majorities come election time. I mean, the people have made it crystal clear they do not think the PDP governments are doing the right thing in the Delta region,, yet the Independent National Electoral Commission would have us believe the people are returning local and national PDP governments by large majorities?
Still, as stated earlier, this is not so much a "Niger-Delta" problem, as it is a national problem. The problem cannot be solved in the Delta alone; if there is cancer in the body and you cut out only a small part of it, the whole body remains at risk. It is simply not humanly possible to create a functioning, responsive-to-the-people democracy in one corner of Nigeria while the rest of country remains undemocratic.
And please don't give me any bull about secession. Gabon is a small, oil-rich country of about a million and a half people, and it is as undemocratic and corrupt as Nigeria. Oil-rich Congo-Brazzaville is even worse, and Equatorial Guinea (land of the bloody purges, monarchic/dynastic family rule and mega-corruption) makes Nigeria seem like a textbook democracy by comparison. Somalia, a country made up of people from one ethnic group and one religion, makes Equatorial Guinea look like a textbook republic. Yes, Botswana is doing well, but with all due respect, the politicians of the Niger-Delta are no different from their rest-of-Nigeria counterparts (or of their counterparts in the other Gulf of Guinea oil states).
We have to tackle this problem directly, rather than deceiving ourselves with divisionist rhetoric. We Nigerians have to tackle this problem together, because if we are apart, the politicians, militicians and plutocrats will continue to win. You can crush a small group of people agitating for something, provided everyone else stands off and looks the other way. What you cannot do is crush EVERYBODY. It just isn't possible.
The people whose decisions have a disproportionately large impact on the rest of us in Nigeria, are in fact a tiny micro-minority. They appear to be powerful because they act without opposition. We the people are too busy quarreling with each other, and at times lining up behind the decision-makers like sheep while they claim to be shepherds protecting us from each other.
Casting the Niger-Delta issue as if it was a unique situation, or as if they were an oppressed minority suffering abuse from the rest of the country, plays into the hands of the very political system that ignored the Delta region for so long in the first place.
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