One of the questions that were trending just before the presidential polls of February 25, 2023 and the election of Bola Tinubu as President of Nigeria, was whether the economic and socio-political fortunes of the Niger Delta region will enjoy a mark-up under his administration, if he won at the polls. Given the tradition whereby every presidential candidate in an election offered mouth-watering promises to the region, and which are mostly fulfilled in the breach when such comes into office, Tinubu followed suit. Among such instances is an easily recalled, much publicised November 2022 visit to Gbaramatu Kingdom in Delta State, where he made one bland promise of accelerating development of the Niger Delta. Just as well, in other locations across the region which he visited, it was the same story of one bland promise after another, and nothing beyond such.
Coming back to the question of the fortunes of the region under Tinubu, an answer now seems to be congealing on a daily basis from various acts of commission and omission by the administration in respect of the concerns of the Niger Delta. And the emerging scenario is that of subtle, predatory hijack of the resources of the region, by his camp working in tandem with vested interests in the country’s ‘deep state’.
As a tell-tale start of this suspect strategy of the Tinubu agenda for the Niger Delta, was the sudden, early in the day unjustified renaming of the region’s main air traffic hub—the Port Harcourt International Airport as Obafemi Awolowo Airport. This is even as the late Yoruba leader hardly paraded any political credentials that qualified him for such a commemoration, even on cross-over political grounds. With all due respect, even with this author’s intention of saving the reader from undue distraction through even the most rudimentary recourse to the country’s political history, it needs to be stated unequivocally that whereas the late Obafemi Awolowo was a frontline politician during the country’s independence struggle, the highpoint of his political sojourn was unabashedly the advocacy for his Western Region. How he suddenly qualified as a hero of the non-Yoruba ethnic Niger Delta, and to have a most strategic public institution located outside his enclave named after him, remains a mystery which only the Tinubu camp which launched this assault on the sensitivities of the Niger Delta, can explain.
Secondly, was the appointment into second fiddle positions among the ministerial offices, with a condescending gesture, two Niger Delta indigenes namely Heineken Lokpobiri and Ekperikpe Ekpo, as ministers of state in the Ministry of Petroleum Resources – as Minister of State for Oil and the other for Gas respectively. This is as if no indigene of the region is qualified to serve as the statutory head of the full complement of the now bifurcated Ministry of Petroleum Resources.
However, the latest and perhaps of most potent significance is the currently raging protest by a coalition of ex Niger Delta agitators against the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL), over their exclusion from contracts for the maintenance of oil and gas pipelines, and to the benefit of contractors who are not indigenous to the region. According to a recent statement jointly signed by the quartet of Gershom Gbobo – Coordinator, Chief David Tonye Banigo, – Spokesperson, Johnson Akpobari – National Secretary and Goodluck Warikere National Director of Mobilisation, these agitated Nigerians, have threatened to disrupt the country’s oil and gas operations, except the perceived outrage is resolved.
Seen from the perspectives of statute, history and common sense, this situation is one that needs not be allowed to fester to the point of enjoying national attention. It is a matter in which the NNPCL needs to demonstrate enough discretion towards fostering equity in the award of contracts in the region, given the dicey nature of the issue. In one vein, the NNPCL may be disposed to argue that it is under no obligation to favour only contractors in the Niger Delta in the award of pipeline maintenance contracts, as all Nigerians are entitled to benefit from contract awards from it.
In the other vein lies the testy issue of a groundswell of age-long resentment across the region which successive governments have failed to resolve by accelerating development in the region. In the circumstances, it is the complement of such pipeline contracts that constitute the few opportunities that not only define the choice between basic living and grinding penury for many of the indigenes, but also provide the only guarantee for inclusion in the Nigerian economy.
For one, it is still within easy recall, what transpired over the award of an omnibus pipeline surveillance contract across the entire Niger Delta to one individual firm – Tantita Security Services which is owned by Chief Government Ekpemupolo alias Tompolo, when protests forced the NNPCL to redistribute the job to other stake holders.
In the present circumstances there are at least three reasons for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to demonstrate more than casual interest in the protest by these agitated Nigerians of Niger Delta extraction. Firstly is that as the substantive Minister of Petroleum Resources, not only does the buck stop on his table, to resolve the matter with urgency. The aggrieved are justified to hold him accountable for this perceived marginalisation and deepening of their woes.
Secondly, whereas the President may be swayed by the effusiveness with which some Niger Delta voices may be chanting his praises sky-high, the state of affairs on the ground is still excruciatingly challenging to the vast majority of the indigenes. Given that no new and sustainable initiative has come from the Tinubu administration, there is a gnawing feeling that his tenure may also be another four or possibly eighth years of business as usual which is the continued mindless exploitation of the zone for the benefit of the country’s elite and elements of the deep state from which the minority Niger Delta is largely excluded.
Thirdly is that the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), has accentuated the primacy of the host communities to oil and gas operations. This provides a statutory impetus for the Niger Delta agitators—both ex and still active to assert themselves—especially in a matter as sensitive as pipeline maintenance contracts.
On a final note, against the backdrop of the deluge of challenges facing both the country and President Bola Tinubu as a person, this is hardly a time to allow for new battle fronts. Nothing short of a clear cut reinvention agenda for the Niger Delta region, is required of him now.
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