EXPECT MORE BOMBINGS IN NIGER DELTA – Joseph Evah

PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari has been advised to embrace dia­logue to resolve renewed insurgency in the Niger Delta which has led to attacks on oil pipelines and facilities by militants.

While urging the President not to listen to bad advisers and hawks in his cabinet who are allegedly urg­ing him to use force to subdue the militants, Evah said military option would exacerbate the situation.

In this interview with SATUR­DAY SUN, Evah also spoke on other national issues including the role of South-south governors in the crisis, the region’s relationship with the North, Amnesty Programme and a host of others. It was conducted by TUNDE THOMAS. Excerpts:

What is your view about the resurgence of militancy in the Niger-Delta because many Nigerians believed that with the Amnesty Pro­gramme initiated in 2009, that lasting peace had re­turned to the region?

It is unfortunate that many Nige­rians didn’t know that all along, we have been sitting on a keg of gun powder in the Niger-Delta.

What you have in the Niger-Delta has been a peace of the graveyard. Although it is true that Amnesty Pro­gramme is in place, but how many people will that programme benefit out of millions of our people whose daily lives and means of livelihood are being destroyed by oil explora­tion?

Niger-Delta people have been re­silient – the suffering have been too much, and unfortunately oil compa­nies operating in the region have little or no feelings at all for the people.

Unfortunately those people that are inhabitants of Niger-Delta would have looked up to for succour, that is the state governors are cowards. They can’t face the oil companies and tell them the bitter truth that the people are suffering as a result of ecological damage to their environ­ment and businesses. It is unfortu­nate that these people we elected to represent our interests are the same set of people that have compromised.

The oil companies have little or no respect at all for these south-south governors because even some of them use to go and beg for money from the oil companies, and in turn the oil companies treat our governors as house boys.

What happens when you have no­body to do your battle, you then re­sort to self-help, that is exactly what is responsible for the renewed mili­tancy in the Niger-Delta.

The people of Niger-Delta, both the young and the old, most espe­cially the youths had expected the governors of the south-south to mobilize the people to demand for improvement in their environment. Most of these youths have been to Lagos, Abuja, Kano and other cities, and having realized that most of the developments you have in this places were carried out with proceeds from sale of crude oil got from the Niger- Delta, they become angry that the region which produce this wealth has been neglected.

Our people in Niger-Delta live in abject neglect. Our angry youths who are now involved in this renewed militancy want Niger-Delta region to be developed – they want the oil rich region to look like Dubai, New York, Paris and host of other beautiful cit­ies across the world. Although as el­ders, we have been advising them to shun violence and embrace dialogue in channeling their grievances to the appropriate authorities.

Are you saying that the state governors in the Niger- Delta should have confront­ed the oil companies …?

Cuts in … No. We are not saying that. Do they need to confront any­body to demand for the rights of their people? No. The demands of the Ni­ger-Delta people are legitimate ones. Is it not the greatest of man’s inhu­manity to fellow human beings that your operations in my environment is causing a lot of damage, and you are not making any moves to amelio­rate the situation?

Go to the Niger-Delta today, see people are living in squalor, and yet this is an oil-rich region. Even oil ex­ploration has destroyed farming and fishing which used to be major occu­pation of the people.

There are some obvious insults which we don’t expect the governors to take from the oil companies. For instance, while these oil companies pay tenement rates to the federal gov­ernment, they neglect the land own­ers from whose land they get the oil. There are other instances, and some of these people have built up anger in our youths.