Niger Delta Avengers et al and a misdirected grudge

Another opportunity for the federal government and other stakeholders to review the status of the Niger Delta conundrum was offered recently through the report of the Ministerial Technical Audit Report Committee on Contracts Awarded by the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs, between 2009 and 2015.
 According to the report as much as over N700 billion was spent by the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs alone on 427 contracts while only 8% of expected impact was achieved. The report went further to note that 18% of the contracts were stalled (abandoned), while 70% are still at various stages of execution with only 12% completed.
Simply put, the bulk of resources dedicated to improving life of the ordinary people in these states was simply stolen by the various non performing contractors to whom these compromised projects were awarded. In the exact words of the report “The technical auditing exercise of the projects revealed that the intervention expected in the Niger Delta only commenced at the level of contract awards and practically did not address the yearnings and needs of the region, as clearly captured in the mandate of the Niger Delta Affairs Ministry”.
The failed contracts under consideration were awarded for projects like canalisation, electricity, food processing plants, housing schemes, land reclamation/shoreline protection, rehabilitation and remediation of oil impacted sites, roads, skills acquisition centres and water schemes. Just as well, the affected state are Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo, Imo and Rivers. Considering that these projects were intended to improve life in these states, their non-completion translates to stagnating the progress of the affected areas and the rest of the country.
While the revelations in the report may be disturbing, they nevertheless may only be pointing to the tip of the iceberg in respect of the quantum of resources that flow into the region from several sources comprising state and non-state operators. These include the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), the eight state governments in the region, the local governments and the private sector which includes the oil and gas companies as well as numerous industries. Even as it may be argued that the contributions of these state and non-state actors may not be the focus of this piece, the full panoply of the scope of criminal diversion and misuse of resources in the region cannot be fully appreciated without acknowledging the contributions of these other actors.
It is also of particular significance that the report is coming at a time when the region is enmeshed in a renewed macabre drama of armed militancy with increasing assault on vital national economic assets such as oil and gas facilities.
The effect of such activities has translated into massive loss of revenue from oil exports with the attendant effect of near meltdown of the 2016 budgets for the federal and various state governments. To put it graphically, the nation’s economy is already on its knees in the face of the ongoing crisis. 
A more telling dimension of the problem is that there is an ongoing military situation in the Niger Delta that has pitched the nation’s military against the restive youth of the region who are as Nigerian as the military, resulting in avoidable daily losses of lives, limbs and property on both sides. While the restive youths – under the aegis of several militant groups like the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) claim to be fighting for better life for the region, the military justifies its action to crush them with the alibi that it is protecting the nation’s common patrimony. Yet as the report of the audit committee has revealed, both sides may be barking up at the wrong tree, and thereby fighting for the wrong reasons. Put more succinctly, the warring military and the restive youth may actually be serving as unwitting pawns in an unfortunate tragedy of compatriots fighting fellow compatriots over a resource that yet other unscrupulous compatriots have already stolen. What a pity one would say!
The foregoing therefore provides a fresh impetus for addressing the Niger Delta situation in a more sustainable perspective, the historical challenge of developing the Niger Delta to its full potentials as a world class economic zone that delivers to the country its designated contributions; just like any other progressive delta region of the world. Contrary to the poor reading of the zone as a crisis prone enclave that is only good for extracting oil as well as gas and abandoned, the region holds the ultimate promise for the future of this country as an emerging global economic power.
The economic potentials of the Niger Delta to the country are so strategic to its future that perhaps more than many other parts of the country, without the region this nation will not be truly Nigeria. If in its presently depressed state it can yield oil and gas that provide the country with the bulk of its national wealth, the ultimate value of the region to the country in a developed state is easily imagined. That realisation rightly justifies all efforts aimed at facilitating an accommodation with its various communities by any administration in power right from the colonial times until the present government under President Muhammadu Buhari.
However the strategy for achieving such a goal has always changed with succeeding administrations. Painfully the present Buhari administration is towing the path of military suppression which may only provide enduring bitterness and acrimony rather than a lasting solution to the problem.
Nevertheless, with the advantage of the report under consideration, the Buhari administration and the aggrieved stakeholders in the region now have a new opportunity to settle issues in the region more sustainably through various actions that are intended to reverse the presently ugly power show, and restore a new pace of sustainable development; even if it entails calling the erring kill-joy contractors to order. After all the extant mechanism of the law is always there to take care of them.
It needs to be considered that the grievances of all the restive movements in the Niger Delta are hinged on the factors of negligence, economic exclusion, environmental degradation and lack of infrastructure in the area. Now that the government, through the audit report, has tracked down some of the culprits who by the reason of their nefarious activities aggravated the problem of the region, it should not hesitate to let them bear the burden of their sins by facing the law.
Meanwhile for aggrieved stakeholders in the region, the evidence from the audit report has clearly shown that often the devil is not further than the pillow they are resting upon. Hence the time has come to redirect the huge and costly efforts at securing the future of the region towards proper targets. This is even if such efforts may entail identifying and confronting their culpable, dyed-in-the-wool kith and kin, who are actually ravenous plunderers of the region’s wealth, in the capacity of dubious contractors.