Nigeria: The Quest For Stability

A controversial prediction credited to the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 2006, saw the Nigerian nation trotting on the rim precipice. The agency was reported as warning that if the nation’s leaders fail to get their act together, the country may face total dis-integration before 2015.

As was the case when the Transparency International, a corruption watch non-governmental organization, rated Nigeria as one of the most corrupt nations of the world, the Nigerian government under President Olusegun Obasanjo reacted sharply, dismissing the report as baseless. The government prided itself as having taken measures to guarantee the peaceful coexistence of all Nigerians by ensuring justice and equity.

It repeatedly cited the peaceful conduct of 2003 general election and later the 2007 peaceful civilian to civilian transition as major indicators that the nation was more united than ever and that democratic governance has taken root in Nigeria.

The government took some steps further. It ordered the arrest and prosecution of most of the leaders and members of the troublesome ethnic and militia groups. For instance, the leader of the Movement for the Survival of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), Chief Ralph Uwazuruike was arrested with hundreds of his followers. The leader of the Odua People Congress (OPC), Gani Adams and the leader of the Niger Delta Volunteer Force, Alhaji Asari Dokubo were arrested detained and later released alongside some of their members. Tension was temporarily doused but terrorism was brewing.

Just few months to the end of his administration, former President Obasanjo was forced to deploy troops to the forests and hills of Adamawa State to flush out some Islamic militants who wrecked havoc on residents of the state during a number of unprovoked attacks.

Since then, not a few Nigerians have continued to express misgivings about the structural imbalances and injustices within the Nigerian polity. The media has remained awash with cries of marginalisation and calls for constitution review to correct perceived imbalances. Regional, sectional and ethnic groupings and cleavages have continued to increase in their numbers.

The release of Asari Dokubo from detention and the taking over of Shell Oil facilities in Ogoniland by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) which were calculated to calm frayed nerves in the Niger Delta region, did not achieve much in that direction. While oil exploration activities are yet to resume in Ogoni, more militant groups sprang up in the region resulting in frequent attacks on oil facilities, kidnapping, piracy, gun-running, illegal oil bunkering and other associated criminal activities increased in frequency to the point of undermining the nation’s economy. The activities of a militant group called Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), for several months remained a source of nightmare for the federal government.

An attack on Nigeria’s biggest oil field, the Bonga Oil field believed to have been organised and executed by MEND resulted in a drastic drop in Nigeria’s daily production of crude oil.

The establishment of a Joint Military Task Force (JTF) by the Federal Government to restore peace and security in the area did not deter the groups in their activities. In 2007, the Federal Government took further step by creating a special ministry called Ministry of Niger Delta to take care of development activities in the troubled region as a way of curtailing the raging agitations and criminality.

While the Ministry of Niger Delta was putting its act together, for a smooth take-off, the Federal Government took yet another historic step towards the restoration of peace in the troubled region by announcing a three month amnesty programme for militants who were willing to repent and surrender their arms.

The implementation of the post-amnesty programme has progressed despite the death of President Yar’Adua who initiated it and amidst wide criticism that it was a reward system for socio-economic criminals at the expense of law-abiding youths. Despite the criticism, it can be said that the amnesty programme has so far helped in calming frayed nerves in the Niger Delta resulting in the restoration of oil production activities in the region.

During the 2006 National Constitutional Conference organised by the Obasanjo administration, the regions representatives, especially the South South group had demanded an increase in derivation funds from 13% to 50%.

Their South East counterparts asked for an additional state to be carved out of the present five states as a way of addressing what they called geo-political imbalance in the Nigerian state. While the conference conceded to the demand of the South East for an additional state, translating  to about N4billion then, in revenue allocation to the region annually, it only increased the derivation funds from 13% to 17% which was also said to translate to about N24billion in annual revenue allocation to the region.

However, the conference recommendations were thrown out on the floor of the Nigerian Senate.

When Senator David Mark took the reins of power on June 3, 2007, he promised that his tenure would witness a review of the constitution as a way of assuaging the pains of the marginalised and the oppressed in the Nigerian polity. It was an admittance that there are imbalances which result to injustices in the Nigerian system.

Senate later constituted a special committee headed by the Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, charged with the responsibility of reviewing the constitution.

The Ekweremadu Committee, is still grappling with issues bordering on state and local government creation. A state like Lagos for instance, with a population that is just slightly different from Kano feels cheated in terms of the number of local government areas it is constitutionally permitted to have.

According to the 2006 census figures released by the National Population Commission, Lagos State has a population of 9,013,534 people. The state contested this figure at the subsequent census tribunal.

The state government has put the population of the state at over 15 million; Lagos currently manages with only 20 LGAs as against Kano with 9.383,682 people spread across 44 Local Government Areas.

To counter this imbalance then Lagos State Government under Governor Ahmed Tinubu created additional 37 local government areas. The action was described as arbitrary by the Obasanjo administration and for which reason it withheld the revenue allocation to the local government areas until the end of the administration.

Census figure, being a major determinant in state and local government creations, the census tribunal did not have easy time with states such as Lagos, Imo and others which felt that the head count was not properly done in their areas. Some of the states may have lost their cases at the tribunal, but this only intensified the feeling of marginalisation.

One of the darkest memories in recent Nigerian history is the recurring bloody convulsion in Plateau State where hundreds of people have lost their lives to attack and counter attack by two feuding groups in the state. According to Adam Higazi, a research fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, the state has gained reputation as the centre of ethnic and religious violence in Northern Nigeria. While the Muslim community in the State agitates over what they call political exclusion on the basis of ethnicity and religion, Christians express fears of religious and cultural domination. Various governments have been reluctant to publish reports of various probe panels on the crisis.

The outcome of the April, 2011 presidential election which saw the emergence of President Goodluck Jonathan did not go down well with many youths and their sponsors in the Northern part of the country. The announcement of the result promoted a bloody convulsion which left over 20 youth corps members dead.

The report submitted to the federal government by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) in August 2011, which investigated the extent of environmental pollution and degradation resulting from decades of oil exploration in Ogoni, South South Nigeria, prompted fresh demonstrations in the area calling for the immediate and full implementation of its recommendations. Emergency remedial programmes in the area of social amenities, launched by the Rivers State Government, averted escalation of the protest.

As ethnic and religious conflicts take their toll on human lives in various parts of the country, terrorism seems to be coming like a creeping inferno. First was the rumour that Al-Qaeda has established bases in parts of Africa, then came the alleged Christmas Day attempted bombing of an American passenger plane by Umar Faruk Abdulutallab, a Nigerian youth who on October 12, 2011,pleaded guilty to all the charges leveled against him.

On October 1, 2010, 12 people were killed in multiple bomb blasts in Abuja near the venue of celebrations for the 50th independence anniversary. Implicated in the blasts was MEND factional leader, Henry Okah who is still facing trial in a South African court.

On December 24, 2010 at least 38 people were killed, 74 injured in a series of bomb attacks in the central city of Jos and northeastern Maiduguri

Again on December 31, 2010, four people were killed in a bomb blast at a beer garden of a military barracks  also in Abuja.

Then came the April 8, 2011attack on Suleja which left 11people dead and 38 wounded at an electoral agency office.

Also on Democracy Day (May 29, 2011) a bomb blasts at an open air beer drinking spot in northern Bauchi city and on the outskirts of Abuja, left 18 people dead and 31 injured.

More shocking was June 16, 2011 suicide bomb attack at the Force Headquarters, Abuja which claimed the life of a police officer and seven people  wounded.

Another bomb attack in UN building in Abuja claimed 18 lives.

Four children were killed in a separate attack in the northern town of Damboa, near Maiduguri.

The arrest, trial and imprisonment of a self-proclaimed spokesman of Boko Haram Ali Umar Konduga (aka) Al-Zawahiri as well as the arrest and continuing trial of a serving senator, Muhammed Ndume did not deter the attackers on worshipers at a Catholic Church Madala, Niger State which also claimed 24 lives. Days into the declaration of a state of emergency in 15 local government areas in four states across the North by President Goodluck Jonathan, the terrorists visited a Deeper Life Church at Mubi, Adamawa State massacred 8 faithful just as another gang of terrorists killed 12 people in Gombe.

The declaration of a state of emergency is seen as a bold but desperate effort to contain the spate of terrorism in that area.

Having voted a large chunk of the 2012 budget to address these security concerns, Jonathan’s economic team headed by former World Bank President Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, alerted the nation on what it described as impending economic collapse of the country if urgent steps were not taken to tackle the situation. Subsequently, it came up with a proposition which had earlier been canvassed by the governor’s forum led by Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi on the need to fully deregulate the downstream sector of the petroleum industry.

The team’s argument is that recovering the subsidising money would enable government reinvest it in strategic infrastructure, power, agriculture, ICT, transportation and other sectors that are likely to create employment and boost the Nigerian economy.

This proposition was still being debated when the Petroleum Products Pricing and Marketing Company PPMC, announced petroleum subsidy removal on the eve of New Year (December 31, 2011).

The surprising removal of subsidy has now brought government in direct confrontation with organised labour which has vowed to shut down the economy through a nationwide strike and rallies scheduled to begin today.

Labour has also shunned further requests for dialogue until government reverts to the former price regime of N65 per litre of petrol. Government has already announced some palliative measures to cushion the hardship Nigerians are already facing following the subsidy removal and has also gone to the industrial arbitration court to obtain an injunction restraining organised labour from embarking on strike. Organized labour led by NLC and TUC have dismissed the court order as a fluke since according to them, it runs contrary to the constitutional right of labour to protest unjust polices of government.

Determined to avert the strike which it suspects will further cripple the economy, the two arms of the National Assembly cut short their Christmas break to reconvene yesterday, Sunday January 8, 2012.

Whether  the crisis generated by deregulation and the threat of terrorism from numerous armed bandits operating under the cover of Boko Haram leaves Nigerians as a corporate entity, can only become clearer in the coming days and weeks.

Those who have predicted that Jonathan will be the last President of Nigeria, may see the present scenario as the beginning of the end, but should the nation’s leaders resolve the emerging crisis and push ahead with a faithful implementation of their economic reform programme, the nation may as well be on the way to wearing the crown as an African tiger that can compete favourably with the Asian tigers.

Will Nigeria go the way of the Soviet Union, Checkoslovakia or become as united as the United States of America whose democratic principles Nigeria has been striving to imbibe?

Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu is optimistic that Nigeria will survive. But, “we need a lot of catching up”.  Former Nigeria’s representative to the United Nations, Mairtama Sule says Nigeria will grow out of the woods but we need a character revolution. “We used to be our brothers keepers”.

Expressing similar optimism, former Senate President, Senator Ken Nnamani insists that it is only political reorientation devoid of selfish interest, the one that is popular and carries the majority of the people along, that can uplift Nigeria and save it from collapse.

Desmond Osueke