The recent scrapping of the Niger Delta Ministry by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has generated several reactions. Mr. Somi Uranta, the Executive Director of Optimistic Outlook Empowerment Initiative for Niger Delta, speaks with IFEOMA ONONYE on its possible impact on the Niger Delta region
What is the focus of the Optimistic Outlook Empowerment Initiative for Niger Delta?
We are an advocacy group for good governance across Nigeria but especially for the Niger Delta regions, because the Niger Delta is a people, whom Late Ken Saro Wiwa said that Nigeria loves to cheat. Somebody says that the Niger Delta people are people that want to get things for free, sadly, I don’t know any other region that would be able to bear what we are bearing, because over the years, due to the manner in which they have been doing this oil exploration and exploitation.
They on’t follow the laid down procedures, they just do it as they like, leaving a trail of pain and sorrow. We cannot farm, we cannot fish, we cannot even drink water that is from the heavens when it rains because the gas companies have been sending hydrocarbons into the atmosphere.
When it rains it pours down this whole chemical substance for you and drinking it is poisonous, yet there is no pipe bore water. When you see the social implications of oil exploration in the Niger Delta, you will be amazed. You will just see a community in total and absolute darkness, but you will just see a batch that is looking like America or maybe New York city, standing at the side of the sea, everywhere is neat, and the men who are working there, they would invade the community, the women they would do what they like, because Our system have a way of victimizing poverty, after a few months they will leave away , leaving another tales of sorrows and pains.
If you want to go from Uyo to Calabar, you dare not go through the road. The roads are almost eroding, people are now forced to go by sea at the risk of sea pirates attacking them, same thing if you try to move from Benin to Sapele Warri, you will be so shocked, is this Nigeria? The place where the oil is coming from? But I think this is typical of the Nigerian state. That is why there is no meritocracy, we are a people that like to major in the minor and minor in the major. We have continued to force square peg in a round hole and vice versa.
Why are you so cornered about the Niger Delta region?
Why we are so concerned about the Niger Delta is that we don’t want a situation that takes us back to the dark days, because it is imminent.
What are your demands?
Our concern is that the Federal Government did not even consult the people of the Niger Delta region, which shows lack of respect and recognition for the people of Niger Delta, these are the people that have been putting so much to the Nigerian space.
You will realize that the media, for example, is owned by some Niger Delta industrious sons, most of the media both print and electronic is owned by the Niger Delta. Also, most of the banks in Nigeria are owned by the Niger Deltas. What about shipping, even the food we eat, the variety of food that comes from the Niger Delta outweighs that of two regions put together in Nigeria, why are treating those that pay enough sacrifice to the welfare of this country, why are we treating them like this.
Like I said, actions have consequences, unfortunately, inactions too also have consequences. So, we should be able to have a Niger Delta that is interconnected by rail lines, because no state government has built rail infrastructure across the state, except Lagos State, who is doing though with the blue and redline, it is within the state. But there is none in Niger Delta. If we are complaining that the road is bad, let them have rail lines to help the people while they repair the roads.
But the coastal road is going towards that area?
The coastal road is a good project, but in elementary economics we learnt about priorities, scale of preference, which could be short term and long term. You cannot take a short-term solution and put it in place of a long-term solution.
The government needs to fix the road across the nation before you start the long-term project. So if the people cannot move about and they are hungry and they die off, who would be alive to use the coast you want to build. I think the reason for all this is because people are not counting the people they are serving.
In Nigeria, we have more rulers than leaders, people who lord it over you, whether you like it or not, you must take it. And that is not how to lead, Abraham Lincon said that if he wants to make someone do things in his own way of thinking, he would first of all, see the situation from your own way of thinking, reason with you, automatically from your own volution you will now be moved to see things from his own position.
Leaders speak last in any gathering. A good leader is one who has acquired the act of listening and respect for people’s opinion. I am led to believe this reaction is to what the President said recently that he has scrapped the Niger Delta Ministry, since he scrapped that ministry what disadvantage has it caused the people of the region?
I must be frank with you; the Ministry of Niger Delta has not been working. It has not been quite effective. But we were thinking of how to pressure the government to pay attention to them and make it work. But taking it off completely is to start from ground zero. If it could not function well when it was superintending only the Niger Delta, is it now that it is taking care of the entire nation that it will function well?
And my concern is that, if these people are pushed, like when you push a sheep to the wall, and it cannot burst the wall, the sheep will turn around, and that boomerang is what I don’t pray for.
I don’t want the little peace we are having in Niger Delta to be shattered because it will affect everybody. This economy is lying prostrate like this, if we have to go through that kind of string, only God knows what will happen.
It has been said that there are some benefits Niger Delta enjoys in terms of compensations, employment, social developments, but some people are said to have mismanaged some of these opportunities and infrastructures. How true?
Fact remains that Nigeria is plagued with high and massive corruption, but in spite of the corruption and all the looting going on in Nigeria, Lagos got developed, Abuja got developed. So, if there is sincerity of purpose and political will, there is no way the Niger Delta will not develop.
When they create some of these ministries, what they do is to put some people that will do their bidding. What I don’t like is when people look at you and start calling you the minority. Yes you are the minority because of the number of people that come from that region. Been a majority does not give you two heads and I have one. Although we are not minor, economically, we are major, even though they choose to call us minority.
We have to treat everyone equally and fairly because anything that is taken away from the principle of fairness and equity can never work. So, Nigeria seems to be embroidered with one set of rules for one then the other person has another set of rules, and that cannot help any nation that wants to develop.
We have blamed the Federal Government, but what has your state government done, have you people held them accountable?
Thank you very much for this question. I have had it several times in this campaign, but I cannot hold brief for the approach of governance for the office holders in Niger Delta because 2023, the government of Nysom Wike, Udom Emmanuel, and the rest, wrote our NGO Optimistic Outlook Empowerment Initiative for Niger Delta, we did a survey of the problems plaguing the people of Niger Delta, and sent them.
We proposed to train 5,000 youths from every state in Niger Delta, put them through apprenticeship skills, and then we create something that looks like that of Lagos State employment trust funds; then we get some funds with the training we have given them they will now go into establishing their own enterprises. But none of the governors responded to us, except Edo State which, of course, invited us and we spoke, and they said that there is no money for that. That was how that initiative never saw the light of the day.
But we are not resting on our oars. We are producing a magazine and with this magazine we are doing an ex-ray of Governor Similaye Fubara. We want to find out the project they have been doing with the people’s money. Even though we have good reports, his political godfather has been a turn on his flesh. But after doing that of Rivers State we will go to Bayelsa and that is how we would move all-round the Niger Delta.
We demand to know exactly what the office holders are doing with the people’s funds. We are also championing a course to recall all the members of the House of Reps from the Niger Delta, because none of them have responded to what has happened to the Niger Delta with this ministry.
Even though we have the number three man, the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, he is from Niger Delta. When it happens to other regions their people speak up and request for what belongs to them but in Niger Delta the case is different. When Rotimi Chibuike was the minister under Muhammadu Buhari, he canceled the project that was meant for Niger Delta and moved it into Daura and that’s how he built the rail line from Daura. He built road infrastructure, he built a University of Transportation in Dura, that cost about $15 million.
Now Minister Wike, the super minister of Abuja, is also doing the same thing to Rivers State. So, we will demand accountability from them, we would be at the forefront of holding them responsible for accountability in governance.
Calling them out for accountability is that the main agenda of the group?
No, that is an added thing, the main thing we are doing is calling the Nigerian Government to revisit the region. How can we not be able to move from state to state in the Niger Delta freely. The roads are so bad, yet the small areas have military checkpoints everywhere but once you pass Benin to Okada, to Ore to Lagos, no single checkpoint and the roads are fairly okay. I mean why must you treat Niger Delta in such a manner
Are there also other organizations aside from yours that are also in collaboration?
Yes, Pan Niger Delta Forum. They came up with a communique demanding the government to revisit the decision, that they were not consulted. Don’t forget when they created the Ministry of Cattle or Livestock as it is called, they established a committee headed by Professor Jega. Cattle is a private business in Nigeria, yet they could create a committee that would cater for their needs. How come they want to make a decision that is against a region and they do not consult anybody, is it that we don’t matter, is it that they are insensitive to our plight?
You have ministers from Niger Delta in this administration, have you reached out to them or lobby them to see how they can influence the decision?
When we reached out to them, what they do in Nigeria is that once you become a big man you automatically become unreachable. but what we did first is to register our anger over their actions.
