The sudden upsurge in militant activities in the oil-rich Niger Delta region of the country just before and after the April general election has been described as a reflection of the deep sense of dissatisfaction with government�s efforts, especially at the federal level, to develop the region in a meaningful way.
This was the submission of a number of opinion leaders across the region who spoke to Saturday Independent on Thursday. In the last four weeks, the activities of militants resulting in the kidnapping of expatriates have risen astronomically just as reports have it that the militants have vowed to disgrace President Olusegun Obasanjo out of office.
Speaking to Saturday Independent, constitutional lawyer, Professor Itse Sagay submitted that only a deep sense of dissatisfaction with all the interventionist efforts of the federal government, which have not taken into consideration the need to involve the stakeholders in the region in the exploitation of the region�s natural endowment, that could have driven the youths to such a desperate level.
“I think very strongly that what is happening is a reflection of not just the rejection of the efforts of government as far as tackling the gross and unbearable underdevelopment of the region but a measure of the dissatisfaction with policies which do not recognise the stakeholders as important in the whole process”.
He emphasised that though the resort to hostage-taking and kidnapping of foreign oil workers is a condemnable decision, the militants are only drawing international and national attention to the plight of the inhabitants of the region.
Sagay agreed with suggestions that only a restructuring of the polity to give more autonomy to the components bodies in the federation.
“We have said it all during the National Political Reforms Conference in 2005 that the stakeholders must be involved. How do you call outsiders to come and bid for the plantation at the back of my grandfather�s house because there is crude there and you don�t ever consider the interest of my grandfather and his children? So the system has to change but nobody is calling for arms struggle, no”, he stated.
Former Chairman of National Electoral Commission and Professor of History at the University of Calabar, Okon Uya said what has happened these few weeks is not unexpected. He argued that because of the imminence of a handover to a new administration, the militants are drawing attention to themselves.
“What we are witnessing is not unexpected. It is just to drawn attention to self because the baton is about to change and so they want to be sure he would give the Niger Delta question priority. The underdevelopment of the Niger Delta is endemic but underdevelopment is not peculiar to Niger Delta alone, there are pockets of underdevelopment across the country. The case in the Niger Delta only shows that the agitating youths are fed up with the interventionist programmes of the government and want something more pragmatic and participatory. But then I must stress that taking up arms is not the solution to all this because if other sections of the country should take up arms too, there will be chaos everywhere. But I think they want to secure a better deal from the in coming government now before it is inaugurated”, he reasoned.