THE plea bargain deal between embattled former Governor Dipreye Alamieyeseigha of Bayelsa state and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, may not end the Niger Delta crisis as it is only a step towards the resolution, sources that claimed to have made contacts with militants aggrieved over the lack of development of the oil-rich region have said.
Former president of the Ijaw Youth Council, IYC, Mr Oyinfie Jonjon, weekend, corroborated the claim when he said the release of the erstwhile governor would not fully restore peace to the Niger Delta as, according to him, only two of the three conditions necessary for peace to return to the region had been met.
While he listed Alamiayeseigha�s release and the bail secured for the leader of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force, NDPVF, Alhaji Mujahid Asari Dokubo, as the two conditions already met, the youth leader explained that the third condition was for government to withdraw troops deployed in the region.
The two-year jail term slammed on the former governor by a Federal High Court in Lagos after pleading guilty to graft allegations last Thursday had been generally interpreted as a form of reprieve for him.
Alamieyeseigha was released, Friday, having already spent in detention more than the two years jail sentence imposed on him. He was arrested on January 15, 2005.
The terms of the plea bargain deal however included forfeiture of property and shares worth billions of naira. The forfeited property, among others, are Chelsea Hotel in Abuja, V8A Waterfront, Cape Town, South Africa and almost 1.5 million pounds stake by his company, Santolina Investment Corporation, in the United Kingdom.
Despite official denials to the contrary, Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan and the Presidency were believed to be central to the plea bargain deal, and have been pushing forward to gain more foothold among stakeholders from the region that could persuade the �militants� to drop their arms since last weekend when the Alamieyeseigha/EFCC deal was finalised.
In that direction, the vice-president at the weekend temporarily relocated to Yenagoa, the capital of Bayelsa State, for consultations with top level stakeholders from the region. A central issue he was said to be canvassing was how to move the peace process forward following the government�s meeting of two of the initial conditions for the militants to lay down their arms. Among those with Jonathan were members of the National Assembly from the region.
Special adviser on media to the vice-president, Ima Niboro, speaking on telephone, told Sunday Vanguard that his boss did not play any role in the plea bargain deal. According to him, the deal was essentially struck between the former governor and the EFCC which was prosecuting Alamieyeseigha on several counts of embezzlement and other official corruption.
Senator Nimi Barigha-Amange (PDP, Bayelsa East) was, weekend, equivocal on the import of the release of Alamieyeseigha on the peace process even as he lamented that the Niger Delta struggle was being hijacked by those he described as criminal elements. Besides the release of the former governor, representatives of the oil-rich region militants had during a secret meeting with senior Presidency officials in the Presidential Villa, a week ago, demanded the release of several colleagues reportedly held by the State Security Services (SSS) in Abuja .
The militants asked for a general amnesty for their colleagues apprehended by the SSS before they could have the confidence to enter into conclusive negotiations with the Federal Government. SSS spokesman, Ado Muazu, would, however, not confirm the presence of any �militant�� in the agency�s custody after the release of Asari Dokubo. Some indegenes of Bayelsa state who spoke to Sunday Vanguard on the twist in Alamieyeseigha�s case, weekend, described the verdict as a welcome development but called on the Federal Government and the EFCC to also beam their searchlight not only on former governors but also erstwhile ministers and other public officers. They insisted that though the former Bayelsa governor had his weaknesses, he was a victim of power play.
Jonjon, a former president of IYC and close associate of Alamieyeseigha, who claimed to have seen the convicted former governor shortly after the vice president visited him at the EFCC cell, said the court verdict was not necessarily because he pleaded guilty to the charges leveled against him but because of the pressure piled on him to do so as part of the deal struck by the Federal Government which, ac cording to him, had come to realize that Alamieyeseigha�s release was vital to curbing the escalating violence in the Niger Delta. His travails notwithstanding, he said the former governor remained the best thing to have happened to Bayelsa State as virtually all the projects on ground today in the state were executed by him.
On whether Alamieyeseigha�s release would curb militancy and restore peace to the region, Jonjon stated: �People agitate for a reason and when the reason is no longer obtainable, why would you continue to agitate? We have said that for us to sit with the Federal Government to discuss the issue of the Ijaw and the Niger Delta at large, three conditions must be met: The release of Asari Dokubo, the release of Alamieyeseigha and withdrawal of military forces from the region because we are not in a state of war. For soldiers to be permanently stationed in all the streets and creeks of the Niger-Delta and Ijaw nation shows that we are under siege.
�So, for us to sit in a calm atmosphere to discuss the issues involved in the Niger Delta crisis, soldiers should be withdrawn and where they think there is security risk, we will work out modalities to see that police action is taken. Police should be there and then we as Ijaw can also come up with formula to assist the police to see that the Niger Delta is peaceful while we go ahead with the dialogue with government.
�So, to a large extent, two of the issues have been addressed. Alhaji Asari Dokubo has been released; Chief Alamieyeseigha has been released. But if they can give him (Alamieyeseigha) presidential pardon, then they are going in the right direction for us to sit in a round table to discuss the Niger Delta problem�.
President of the Ijaw National Congress (INC), Prof Kimse Okoko, expressed the hope that the court verdict on Alamieyeseigha was fair. His words: , �Though I am yet to read the judgment, if the report reaching us is anything to go by, then we will say the verdict was fair but if it is not, we will not take kindly to it. We sincerely hope it was fair.�
Chief Douye Naingba, former All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP, national vice chairman South South and member of the board of the Governing Council of the Niger Delta University, reacted thus: �I have never supported the EFCC style of fighting corruption. They are selective in their work. If they want to really go against corruption, they should start from the top. So far, the whole exercise is targeted against a group of people, parading the former governors alone amounts to fighting a one-sided battle.�
Also reacting to the court verdict on Alamieyeseigha, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) stalwart, Chief Godwin Daboh-Adzuana, in Abuja, described it as unquestionable, saying it was the discretion of the court to determine the severity of any punishment. Dabo-Adzuana told Sunday Vanguard that he was happy that the former governor had served out his ordeal.
According to him, �He is my very good friend. When he was in Dubai, I went there to see him.�
The party stalwart remarked that if anybody was not satisfied with the verdict, the only place it could be challenged was in the Appeal and Supreme Courts.
He pointed out that in arriving at the verdict, the court took into consideration the length of time he had already spent in jail.
�He has been in jail for more than two years. If the court says they will take into account the number of years he had already spent in prison, who are we to challenge it?” he stated.
Meanwhile top public officials from the Niger Delta are increasingly worried over the spate of attacks on them and their relatives by militants in the region. The attacks on the elite from the region by the militants, Sunday Vanguard learnt, flowed from insinuation that the elite may have abandoned the struggle against the perceived marginalisation of the Niger Delta.
In a move to address that concern, Senator Heineken Lokpobiri (PDP, Bayelsa West), last Wednesday, introduced a motion in the Senate, urging the Federal Government to comply with the funding proposals outlined in the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) Act.
The Federal Government had since the establishment of the NDDC failed to contribute its full obligations to the commission as expected by law. The full funding of the NDDC according to the Act, he argued in the motion, would usher in the needed funds that would help to address the poor infrastructure in the region. Senator David Brigidi, chairman of the Federal Government constituted Niger Delta Peace and Conflict Resolution Committee, had, in an interview, laid down what he said were the terms prescribed by the militants for a ceasefire.
Said he: �The militants are of the view that, fundamentally, for a ceasefire to take place, they want amnesty for those that have been declared wanted so that they can participate in the process of negotiation.��
�Two, there are a lot of militants who have been in detention and they want a situation whereby they would be released so that they will also be part and parcel of the process.
�Three, they have also been making demands for the release of Chief DSP Alamasiyegha. Four, they believe that if the Federal Government can declare emergency in the power sector, they then believe that the Niger Delta question which President Yar�Adua has stated is so critical, then they want the Federal Government to declare an economic emergency in the Niger Delta region. So far in our preliminary chats with them those are the conditions that they have put forward�.