SETTING A NEW AGENDA FOR IJAW NATION IN THE PRESENT FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA.

Given the unwieldy nature of the topic, let me admit ab initio that my submissions shall be guided by my narrow judgment and perspective, which may not meet the expectation of so many. However, I wish to take solace in the fact that what I am attempting to do is merely provoking a debate, which no doubt shall be robust since the topic is a defining discourse to chat a clear direction to ennoble our objectives on this platform as well as reposition the Ijaw nation. I have adopted the approach of cursorily investigating our historical past to draw lessons that could impact our present endeavours in our search for an agenda. I therefore consider it a privilege and honour to lead subject discussion under the following themes:

PRE-INDEPENDENCE STRUGGLE. 

From the elegant strides of the former President of the Nigerian Youth Movement, our iconic Ijaw son and quintessential frontline journalist/activist, Ernest Sisei Ikoli of blessed memory rose the quest to ingrain the Ijaw identity in the Nigerian map of nationalism. Yet, when the colonial administrators decided to create 25 provinces for administrative convenience, it was discovered that there was none for the Rivers Ijaws. The non-creation of an Ijaw/Rivers province triggered the call for a unified voice through the formation of the Ijaw Rivers Peoples League on the 18th November 1941 by our forebears. Their main grouse was that the Ijaws being the first people to sign autonomous trade agreements with the British colonialists, and therefore deserved a province. 

Another sore point was the observed discrimination against the chiefs of southern Nigeria, including the Rivers Ijaws.  Whereas the Emirs and Chiefs of the North were allowed to administer their subjects (the indirect rule system) this privilege was denied the Chiefs of southern Nigeria. 

The formation of the Ijaw Peoples League was therefore to bring all Ijaws and Rivers people together to recognize their status as minorities, who without struggle would perpetually have their voices unheard.  Led by erudite leaders and chiefs, the group engaged the British government strenuously and finally secured approval for the creation of Rivers province in 1947 after the coming into effect of the Richards constitution in 1946.

The Rivers Ijaws never had it rosy in the Eastern Regional government of Sir Michael Okpara.  The lopsided concentration of development mainly in the hinterland of the Igbos to the exclusion of the Ijaw land angered our leaders who do not hide their strong disapproval. By 1953, the Council of Rivers Chiefs was formed to press forward the demand for a region of their own and direct representation at the London Constitutional Conference. The formation of the Council itself was a product of the Rivers Chiefs and Peoples Conference held in 1952, where they noted, “that we as minorities have remained so peripheral in the political calculus of the country. This has been so because of the ease with which we are fragmented into different political associations without due regard to the corporate interest of our people”. 

At the time, the NCNC/Action Group Alliance planned to create states for the North, West and Eastern regions for political convenience. The plan excluded the Rivers Ijaws and showed tendencies of the eastern regional government to further stultify, marginalize, neglect and impoverish them. There was unified position to demand for a separate region since there were plans to create Midwest region. 

More so, the discovery of oil at commercial quantity at Oloibiri in the Ijaw territory in 1956, had all potentials to enrich the Eastern regional government despite its bias in development programmes. Our forebears were thus emboldened to make a case at the 1958 constitutional conference in London for separate region.

 With forceful presentations that lucidly showed the lack of development attention for the minority Rivers Ijaws by the representative of the Rivers Chiefs, late Pa HRH Dr. Harold Dappa Biriye, the Conference approved the setting up of the Sir Henry Willinks Commission of Inquiry in 1959 which primary task was to investigate and recommend ways to “allay the fears of the minorities” since her majesties government wasn’t inclined to accede to the demand for a separate region.

Although as a mitigating strategy, the Niger Delta Development Board (NDDB) was established with a clear mandate to transform the “backward and impoverished” Ijaw territory, the advent of the military rule from 1966, saw a politicized NDDB and the proliferation of development boards to the extent that NDDB today ranks the least in terms of funding.

When late Pa Dappa Biriye and other leaders came to the realization that political associations were the vehicles used to negotiate opportunities, they also needed a homegrown vehicle in the political space to express the Ijaw peoples’ position. 

Consequently, the Niger Delta Congress (NDC) was formed, which, through an alliance with the Northern Peoples Congress (NPC) for national presence (a direct response to the NCNC/AG alliance), succeeded in not only sending late Chief Melford Okilo to the Federal parliament but who also became appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to the then Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. The reasoning, by my conjecture, is that since the NCNC led eastern government was not fair to the development aspirations of the Rivers Ijaw people, a constructive alliance with the NPC became preferred.

CALLING FOR ATTENTION

The Ijaw territory never witnessed any improved development despite the substantial inflow of revenue to the coffers of the eastern regional government on account of proceeds from oil exports.  According to our late iconic hero, Adaka Boro, “bulldozers and excavators” were only seen in Ijaw land during electioneering periods to woo votes. 

 The hypocrisy continued unchallenged and the Ijaw man and woman groaned in suffocating economic and social deprivations. Whereas, the political alliance between the NDC and NPC federal government headed by Abubakar Tafawa Balewa was thought to have potentials to redress some of these challenges, the January 15, 1966 coup that eventually threw up a unitary government under Gen. Aguiyi Ironsi was the straw that broke the camel’s back. As Boro puts it “And I knew the day had dawned on the Niger Delta. If we did not move then, we would throw ourselves into perpetual slavery. The only patron of the Ijaws, Sir Balewa, was gone. He and his party were the only people that had consideration for our presence in Nigeria”.

The “Twelve Day Revolution” was therefore launched by Major Isaac Jasper Adaka Boro and his patriotic colleagues “to call the attention of the world to the fact that the inhabitants of the Niger Delta in Nigeria were feeling very uncomfortable with a certain nail” by declaring the Niger Delta Republic. Part of the grievances of Major Boro and his lieutenants was that the entire administrative structure of the eastern regional government including tax collectors in the Ijaw territory, were headed by predatory ethnic jingoists who were non-Ijaws. 

They feared similar tendencies in the new Gen. Aguiyi Ironsi led federal government with the exit of the Ijaw friendly Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa. Consequent upon his revolution and eventual trial and pardon by the Gen. Gowon military regime, Rivers State was created in 1967, thus fulfilling what the Rivers Ijaw Chiefs and leaders had fought for since 1942. 

Whereas the creation of River state would have been used to build a concentric Ijaw family, we became victims of systemic balkanization across 6 states. We have been numerically weakened to a point where our voices politically are barely heard except in Bayelsa state. 

Seizing the window offered for the creation of states druing the 2nd republic in 1980 there were plethora of demands for different shades of states, ranging from Oil Rivers State, Coast State, Delta State, Niger Delta State, etc.  Along side these state agitations was also the Merger Movement of Ijaws of Bomadi/Burutu LGAs with Rivers state. 

Some of our elders and leaders aligned with the Urhobos, Itsekiris, and other minorities in the Niger Delta to demand for states instead of a holistic Ijaw state. If all Ijaws from Ibeno to Arogbo had come together to demand for homogenous Ijaw states, even though none was created at the time, the records would have commended and vindicated their thoughtfulness.

Nonetheless, our people eventually saw the need for the creation of another state out of Rivers state when it dawned on them that all the twelve states created by Gen. Yakubu Gowon in 1967 had been further split into one or more states by the ruling military hierarchy. The state and local government creation syndrome was further inspired by the politics of revenue allocation. 

Every state and LGA share revenue from oil and gas proceeds and VAT pooled into the consolidated revenue fund for distribution. Therefore every hamlet, with access to the ruling military leadership, which at the time relied more upon hegemonic tendencies of Nigeria’s tripod, was rewarded with a state and LGA so as to earn more from the consolidated fund. 

Primordial considerations took preeminence over economic viability in state creation decisions. It was only in 1996 that God used Gen. Abacha to create Bayelsa state (the only Ijaw homogenous state) of our Rivers state, with the fewest number of LGAs in the country. 

RELATIVE CREATION

The creation of Bayelsa state gave the Ijaws a sense of autonomy and self-rule. Bayelsa state became the melting pot as its being nostalgically described as the Jerusalem (Home) of all Ijaws. Beyond the intrinsic value bestowed on all Ijaws who proudly identify with Bayelsa state as “our own”, it has the unsung task to provide the key to the actualization of the Ijaw agenda, whatever and however the agenda is. Bayelsa state and its leadership shall necessarily take the centre-stage to guide, guard and drive concentric efforts toward actualizing an Ijaw agenda.

LEGAL IMPEDIMENTS 

As a people who have been crudely balkanized into Edo, Akwa Ibom, Delta and Rivers states where they have become minorities except perhaps in Rivers State, the socio-economic and political deprivations imposed on the Ijaws by the laws of Nigeria remain a critical challenge.

It is doubtful if the creation of Rivers and Bayelsa states has provided the Ijaws sustainable development, economic prosperity and fulfillment despite our huge resource endowment?  Because the Nigerian state, through military foisted legislations ranging from the Land Use Act, the Petroleum Act, the Inland Waterways Act, and the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, amongst other obnoxious statues, expropriated our natural resources and denied us the right to ownership and control. 

Beyond the expropriation of our right to resource control and ownership, the 1999 constitution, as amended, now provides for stringent processes for state creation. The balkanized minority Ijaw now face difficult task to secure the approval of 2/3 majority of members of the State House of Assembly for a state of their own. And given the economic status and financial leverage the resources located in the heart of Ijaw people in those states have given to them (e.g. Akwa Ibom), it becomes a daunting task for the Ijaws to secure the 2/3 majority approval, lest their oil producing status be reversed. What this means is that in the foreseeable future, our Ijaw brothers in minority would brace up groaning under the yoke of oppressed rule by majority ethnic groups except something urgent is done. 

 

POST BORO ACTIVISM

The neo-colonialist tendencies of the hegemonic tripod, particularly with the observed expropriation and denial of the Ijaws of their right to control and manage their natural endowments and the deliberate underdevelopment of the Ijaw territory by successive administrators led to the birth of a number of youth bodies in the late 70s. Prominent among them were the Ijaw Youths Action League (IYAL), led by late Pastor P. Z. Aginighan and the National Ijaw Youth Movement led by one Chief Ekiotenne.

 These bodies, particularly IYAL was at the forefront of decrying and condemning the excruciating level of poverty, deprivation, marginalization, and lack of socio-economic amenities for the Ijaws despite the trillions the Nigerian state was milking from the Ijaw land. IYAL also engaged itself in a war of internal cleansing as it repeatedly challenged Ijaw politicians who made themselves agents of darkness through unperformed contracts after collecting huge percentages as mobilization fees.

A noticeable attitude or practice of the ruling hegemony was to give the ijaws handouts whenever the agitating voices become vociferous to a strangulating point, as it was with the promulgation of the Oil Minerals Producing Areas Development Commission decree, in 1992.  When in 1998, close to the inception of the present democratic dispensation the Kaiama Declaration was launched by the Ijaw Youths Council, it raised the ante for the quest of not only resource ownership and control but a new perspective to the Ijaw agenda. 

An ameliorating effort by the incoming President Obasanjo administration was the NDDC Act which was a mere window-dress, with a mere change of title from OMPADEC. Fortunately or so, the Ijaw Youths weren’t deceived. They were resolutely resolved and decided to change their tactics as well.

BRAVE AND DARING

The strategy of economic dislocation employed by our brave generals whereby the operators of oil rigs and flow stations were forcefully sacked brought the Nigerian government to its knee. Oil production plummeted from 2.6mbd to about 700,000bd. And even the cabalistic tripod who feeds fat on our oil and gas, the activities of these brave young men strangulated the economy to the point government was forced to initiate a palliative strategy – Amnesty. 

 It needs mentioning that the commando style operations of our warriors came with its severe consequences as the full might of the federal government was unleashed on some Ijaw communities, resulting in the loss of several lives. Even in this brave attempt by our warrior generals, there was a strategic gap which our leaders (INC) fail to capitalize upon that would have given greater impetus to the quest for an Ijaw agenda. With hindsight, one notes albeit painfully that a structured, well coordinated activities of the warrior generals, who at the time made the forests in the creeks their abode, for the pursuit a concentric properly defined agenda, in the mode and shape of the IRA and Sinn Fein would no doubt have advanced the Ijaw course better than witnessed today.

A GAIN OR A CURSE

The activities of the warrior generals coupled with the marriage between the South South leaders and Elders Forum led by Pa Chief Edwin Clark and the Northern Union, led by late Oloye Olusola Abubakar Saraki played key roles in the emergence of President Goodluck Jonathan, GCFR, as running mate to late President Musa Yar’Adua.  With the rampaging activities of the youths that had crippled the economy, President Yar’Adua was seeking for some solace upon being elected and needed someone who could pacify the “boys”. So many things went under and Jonathan eventually became the choice for running mate.  Providence further played its part and he succeeded President Yar’Adua as President of the Federal Republic.

Was the Ijaw leadership prepared for this glorious opportunity God offered us on a platter of gold? Did we seize the moment when Yar’Adua approached our elders and leaders to nominate his running mate, particularly at the time our gallant warriors held forth to set an agenda for President Yar’Adua to accomplish? Was there a proactive consultation between the generals and the Ijaw leaders to present a unified agenda when Vice President Jonathan visited Camp 5 to negotiate a ceasefire for which we could have held the Nigerian government accountable?  Or as an Ijaw man, what did President Jonathan do to advance our collective course in the about 6 years he presided over Nigeria as President?  Was it a case of the Ijaw leadership going to sleep because all was well or even those who attempted to seek regular interface with the President to discuss “Ijaw” were frustrated?  While not castigating any particular one, the truth was that Ijaws were more like aliens in a government we should have been proud front-runners.

Some may argue that there were too many constitutional obstacles that impeded attempts at solution to our problems, however nobody can argue that we failed in diplomacy, we failed in negotiation, we failed in persuasion, we failed in horse-trading to make others acquiesce to our demands. Indeed, we had nothing close to an agenda. We had resource control firmly in our palms (a Minister Diezani Madueke to processes oil blocs allocation papers and a President Jonathan to approve) and yet became too lily-livered to allocate any.  Today, we parade ourselves as repository of untainted record of selflessness.

THE AGENDA

From the foregoing, the likely question is, has there been an agenda for the Ijaw nation?  My response is a yes and a no. Yes, because from the pre-independent to post-independent era, our forebears had a singular focus, which was to have an autonomous voice within the Nigerian political space through self-rule.

 This was also the focal objective of the Major Isaac Boro’s uprising in 1966, in my view even though the modus of his operations was the use of gun. However, we appear to be speaking in discordant tunes these days: some want self-determination and autonomy, others prefer greater participation in the political space offered by the present Nigerian state and yet also, others are insisting on resource ownership and control.

Whereas the provisions of the 1999 Constitution as amended makes it a treasonable offence for any attempt at self-determination through secession, and more importantly, we do not have the financial wherewithal to prosecute that in the present circumstances.

 The only feasible Agenda for us is to seek greater political space in a political arrangement that permits equity, justice, fairness, egalitarianism and mutual respect. A political voice that would guarantee unfettered participation, a voice that could enthrone sustainability and access to prosperity, economic wellbeing and infrastructural development, a voice that could transform our mangrove islands into urban enclaves. 

Achieving that could serve as a prelude to the realization of economic and social freedom. In other words, Ijaws must at all times align with and be in sync with the demands for a true federation, either on the basis of states or regions. An intrinsic component is that power should devolve from the centre and the rights of ethnic minorities to chose to belong to where they wish to be within Nigerian territorial boundaries be recognized.

On that score, specifically, our collective challenge is to enthrone Ijaw political leadership in states Ijaws have become balkanized minorities. This is doable if we are strategic as a people, who are clothed in humility, sagacious and politically witty. I say Yes! Provided, we are ready to collapse our personal interests for the overall Ijaw interest.

 When we attend cooperation to the guiding reality that only one person can ascend a leadership position at a time and subsume our personal interests to a fellow Ijaw brother with an edge, it is doable. When egocentrism gives room to commonsense and “I” paves way for “we” in our competitive engagement with others who have similar aspirations, it is doable.

With Ijaws sitting atop in Delta, Rivers, Ondo, and Edo states, joining forces with Bayelsa state, our collective voices can drown mountains and make navigable unchartered waters. Let us start dropping the sand and cement to mold the blocks required to set the foundation for the house from today. Building a house takes time, resources and effort. If we are prepared to achieve our agenda, the effort MUST start now.

Thank you.

Chief Ayakeme E. Whisky, PhD

References:

Major Isaac Jasper Adaka Boro (1982).  Twelve-Day Revolution. Idodo Umeh Publishers

Ambily Etekpe, Young M. Ayotamuno, Ugwulor Eugene Nwala, Joseph Kariboro & Martins Jumbo (2003). Harold Dappa-Biriye, His Contributions to Politics in Nigeria. Onyoma Research Publications.