A social activist, Somi Uranta, has said that the only solution to Nigeria’s security and socio-economic problems is restitution and atonement for the mindless evils meted out to Niger Delta people.
Uranta said the problems of insecurity and failing economy bedevilling Nigeria is not unconnected to the injustice meted out to the people of the region.
At a press conference in Lagos on Tuesday, Uranta alleged that the Niger Delta region has generated over $600 billion since 1958 for Nigeria but cannot boast of adequate infrastructure.
He said Nigeria would continue to suffer until the Federal Government compensates the region for producing its major source of foreign exchange.
Uranta likened the Niger Delta to a fertile woman, whose children were taken away while she is raped, continually abused and blocked from enjoying the fruits of her labour.
She said, “The laws of retributive justice, boomerang, karma, cause and effect etc have set in. Things have fallen greatly apart and the centre can no longer hold. Every single step forward results in ten steps backwards. The only panacea, the only solution to resolving the problems confronting the community is to do restitution, an atonement for the mindless evils meted out to this woman and her family.
“The pitiful story of this woman and her family typifies the Nigerian state and the Niger Delta, where over 95 per cent of her export earnings come from since 1958 when oil was discovered in Oloibiri, present day,” he said.
He said the region’s residents have been deprived of their major occupation – fishing, revealing that growing up in Queenstown, Opobo, Rivers State, his mother had always sent him and his brothers to catch any fish of their choice for the day’s meal from the river.
Uranta, however, lamented that he spent a week in his village last December and could not eat fresh fish because the rivers have been polluted by oil spillage.”This is the tyranny of the majority against the minority. This is the tyranny of the many against the few. This is man’s inhumanity to man”, he lamented.