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THE IMPARTIAL OBSERVER

Salvaging Pitakwa

Hank Eso

Sunday 19 August, 2007

“Political crises are moral crises”

There is trouble in paradise. Pitakwa is under siege. Pitakwa and Garden City were in the days of yore, the renowned and endearing sobriquets for Port Harcourt, once the most desirable and livable city in pre-independent and post-independent Nigeria. Pitakwa was a safe haven; a Paradise. Unlike Lagos (Eko) or Onitsha (Osha), Pitakwa was a cultured, cordial, uncluttered and cosmopolitan city. It had a good economic base and an eclectic mix of public and private sector employed inhabitants as well as its fair share of expatriate quota. Its lush green lawns and gardens, especially those at Shell Camp, which were always well manicured and sculpted were remarkably popular. Climatically, its year-round cool weather and sea breezes made it a favored place of sojourn for expatriates. In this regard, it was second only to Jos.

Pitakwa could also boast of having some the best primary and post -secondary schools on south-south Nigeria; Stella Maris College, Government Comprehensive College and Okirika Grammar School ranked among the top ones. But if the city had one unique claim to fame, it was its legendary and awesome night life, which was fuelled mainly by merchant marine crews, peripatetic oil workers, and shipyard hands. Like the Big Easy, Pitakwa had several watering holes, the best of which were Copa Cabana and the Lido night clubs, which were complimented by some of the best highlife musicians in Nigeria, the likes of Cardinal Jim Rex Lawson, Celestine Ukwu, and Erasmus Jenewari.

Pitakwa was the Oil City; the City of Black Gold as well as gas, mined in the environs like Oloibiri, Afam and Egbema and piped to Pitakwa for refining and shipment. It was also an urbane municipality, which took pride in flaunting its low crime rate, and embracing security, just as it did its ancillary and palpable diverse cultures, which were mostly historical and colorful like its festooned regattas. The local inhabitants were a sight of sartorial elegance to behold, especially on festive occasions, when the locals wore distinctive traditional garbs that identified them as being from brass Nembe, Bonny, Opobo, Degema, or Yenegoa, or as being Ogoni, Kalabari, Ijaw, or Okirika.

But like most things in Nigeria, Port Harcourt began to change with the oil boom and eventually lost it soul. It had also acquired the dubious distinction of being the only part of the nation that harbored an unresolved aspect and therefore, a very painful reminder of the Nigerian civil war. It was the city of “Abandoned Properties”. Pitakwa became a cursed city, once its inhabitants, under the pretext of having sided with Nigeria during the civil war, laid claim and coveted Igbo properties, thus disenfranchising and dispossessing the Igbo people, who were once the grounding economic and development force of that bubbling city. Since then, Pitakwa has been a city without true peace and security. Not since the civil war, and in the wake of intermittent coups of July 1975, February 1967, and those of December 1983, July 1985, April 1990 and November 1993, had a curfew ever been imposed on Pitakwa thus dousing its night life and general vibrancy. That happened this week after the city had been under incessant siege for months without end. Governor Celestine Omehia of Rivers State in imposing a one week and indeed long overdue dusk to dawn curfew on Port Harcourt and its outlying environs, noted that it was meant as a containment effort to stem the current spate of violent attacks by ethnic militia groups in the city. Governor Omehia also stated the obvious, by accusing the militants of being involved in kidnapping, hostage taking, and the spate of violence that wrecked public confidence and entrenched a grave sense of fear and discomfiture in the city.

The curfew followed the extended gun battles after the Joint Military Task Force (JTF) clashed with elements of the Soboma George-led Movement for the Emancipation of the Nigeria Delta (MEND) militia group last week. As I write, it remains unconfirmed if Soboma George was killed in that gun battle as the government forces claimed. The government’s claim that the recent crisis was triggered by inter-cult crisis between Soboma George and Ateke Tom's factions of MEND is delusional, as it is laughable. The reality is that the government had allowed ethnic militias to fester uncontained; the militias have since acquired unbridled impetus and force to visit terror and mayhem on innocent people.

Present day Port Harcourt, when compared to Pitakwa of yore –taking into account its history, wealth, size, exposure, outlook, potentialities and resources – is unquestionably the most backward, and underdeveloped capital city of its size in Nigeria. This should not be. As a city, it has become symbolic and also a microcosm of all that is wrong in the Niger Delta and the vexatious neglect which successive Nigerian governments have meted out to the region, while siphoning its natural wealth. Like a sod of tenacious crabgrass or incipient poison, the restiveness in the Niger Delta, have encroached into Pitakwa, increasingly making the city uninhabitable and extremely dangerous to live in. Expatriate workers, whose companies are inclined to pay ransom in hard currency, seem to be at the greatest risk. But if Chinese, Filipino, British and American workers have been kidnapped, so also have relatives of state and local government officials and indeed, anyone who has the resources to pay ransom. Pitakwa is no longer serene; rather it is mimicking and exhibiting all the traits that were once associated with the city of Beirut in war-torn Lebanon or present day Baghdad. Port Harcourt has unquestionably, become in per capita terms, the kidnap capital of the world. This is no good and must stop.

As a 14 August UK government travel advisory noted:

In 17 separate incidents British nationals (including one child) and over 180 foreign national have bee kidnapped in the Niger Delta area and one Briton has been killed that….. High risk kidnapping and other armed attacks in the Niger Delta applies to ships and oil rigs at sea off the coast of the Delta. In 2007 there has been an increase in attacks offshore….There is a general threat from terrorism in Nigeria. Attacks could be indiscriminate, including in places frequented by expatriate and foreign travelers.

NEED FOR SURGICAL REMEDY

The festering crisis in the Niger Delta is like a cancer on the body of Nigeria. It requires a radical surgical remedy. I have previously on this space, advocated and proffered options that could be undertaken through executive and legislative fiats to address the persisting grievances. Those options and others recommended by well-meaning Nigerians have been essentially ignored. It may thus be already too late to undertake palliative measures. What we need now, is to contain the raging violence and mayhem before it consumes and tears Nigeria apart.

If we go by our own national lessons or those of others, history offers us every reason and cause to worry about what is going on in Port Harcourt and its environs. The incremental violence, lawlessness and textured terrorism being unleashed on the city and its people, reflects a dark and ironic imagery of what was once considered a child’s play, but which in time, turned into a divisive and visceral conflagration of consuming proportions. No sensible person can forget the Nigerian civil war so soon.

Also, we cannot overlook the centrality or the historical and cultural context of the politics of the Niger Delta to Nigeria’s wellbeing. Ever before the Biafran secession bid manifested, Nigeria grappled with a lesser known but equally instructive plot hatched in the creeks of Yenegoa, which aimed to excise the Niger Delta from Nigeria. Back then, some of the Niger Delta denizens teamed with Isaac Jasper Adaka Boro, and began mobilizing militia forces with the sole aim of excising the region from present day Nigeria. The grievances that led to that 1960s rally, are wholly undiminished and are the same grievances that drive the restiveness in the Delta region today. As we know, Nigeria no longer own the portion of the Delta region called Bakassi. But that is another issue and topic for another day. With apologies to Octavio Paz, “political crises are moral crises”. So, what we may deem merely as the political crisis of our time, are indeed, the endgame and fallout of the moral bankruptcy of our past leadership. Certainly, no one goes out to slaughter the cow that yields the most milk, or the geese that lays the golden egg. But alas, while we milk the natural resources of the Niger Delta, we have not taken commensurate community development initiatives that should offset the adverse effect of oil and gas exploration on the ecology of the region.

FAILED APPEASEMENT POLICY NO LONGER AN OPTION

The restiveness in the Niger Delta and the increasing dysfunction and violence in Pitakwa have deep roots. The problems are emblematic of the failings of our past governments and leadership to proactively address the core issues. Ordinarily and for public effect, each successive regime had engaged in perceptible constructive measures in the Delta region; but neither as the demanding national security issue it was, nor with any intent to transfer some ownership rights and the derivative assets of the region to the locals. This middle-ground-policy was mainly a form of appeasement; which as a palliative to such an emotive issue has failed woefully. Whilst the government pussyfooted, what was initially a political and socio-economic problem has now gravitated to the realm of criminality and is verging towards anarchy and terrorism. We need to accept that the kid’s glove approach and appeasement has failed woefully. The question now, is how President Umaru Yar’Adua would go about solving and addressing the crisis before it becomes uncontrollable and the attending violent climate irreversible?

By design, and thanks to President Obasanjo’s native intelligence, among those who must now grapple with the Niger Delta conundrum are three eminent citizens of the region, namely, Vice-President Goodluck, Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Andrew Azazi and the Acting Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Mike Okiro. It is well known that after a recent meeting between President Yar’Adua and the nation’s top security brass, which the three attended, the president gave Azazi and Okiro their matching orders to “go to Port Harcourt and bring down the violence immediately and also resolve all the issues precipitating the violence". Reportedly, they were also instructed not to return to Abuja until their mission of quelling the violence and uprising in Port Harcourt had been accomplished.

That was a tall order, which we also take to be a discernible shift in policy. If so, it is a welcome relief and posture. For one thing the buck stops at the president’s desk, on all national security matters, the Niger Delta included. Also, pretend as we may, Niger Delta remains the life line of Nigeria. The Niger Delta crises, which Yar’Adua inherited, will be the defining ethos of his tenure in office. The Niger Delta will also prove to be the overarching leadership and intellectual challenge of his presidency. He will require creativity and courage to solve it. And in this context, he needs to remember Christopher Caldwell’s admonition, that “leadership is intellectually de-legitimizing, and yet, leaders require intellectual legitimacy”. His intellectual legitimacy, unfortunately, will come from the Niger Delta and how he grapples with it, coming as he does from the far-removed northern part of Nigeria.

It is, however, ironical that President Yar’Adua would draft his top military and police officers to address a civilian crisis, which in essence, should have long been addressed with an effective policy of community policing and through a containment deployment that should have both static and dynamic strands. Simply put, no crime is committed in a vacuum, except when law enforcement vacuum has been allowed to prevail. If not, then, those who are involved in the violence in Port Harcourt are from within the communities. If there were outsiders, then the community ought to be able to identify them and help flush them out. Pitakwa needs to be salvaged!

But let us not be fooled. There is clear nexus between the violence in the Niger Delta and the coming to power of PDP in 1999. Today’s kidnappers, hoodlums and spivs, who create fear with their nugosity and deviltry, were as we know, yesterday’s political tugs, who acquired their sophisticated arms and impetus from their association with erstwhile political power brokers. Just like they dominated their environment during the politicking days, today they dominate the same environment by resorting to hostage taking to sustain their acquired lifestyle. That the present situation has become a manifest reality, points to the utter failing of policing and intelligence gathering by the various security agencies. It also speaks to the neglect by the Obasanjo Administration, of what should have been proactively addressed rather than politicized with the so-called poverty alleviation schemes, which have only produced a vicious cycle that in many ways feed the ongoing violence and in some ways, may finance the ongoing militancy.

CONSIDER THE HONEYMOON IS OVER

In a few weeks –on 6 September, to be exact- President Yar’Adua will mark his 100 days in office. Regrettably, the honeymoon period is already over for him. Without being uncharitable, anyone who aspired to rule Nigeria, and indeed, got the chance to do so, ought to have in the first 100 days related his campaign agenda to the realities and challenges on the ground. President Yar’Adua needs to look inwards if he really intend to address the Niger Delta crisis before it becomes his political waterloo.

First point; he should look into the long standing allegation that security operatives in the Delta region charged with interdicting those involved in bunkering are on the take. If true, this certainly creates a vicious cycle, in which the proceeds from bunkering combine with hostage ransoms, to fuel violence. Second, he should make clear to foreign oil companies that paying ransom, which some have done, violates Nigerian laws and fuel the criminality aspect of the problem. Third, he should not allow the present spate of violence, to detract attention from the genuine grievances of the Niger Delta people.

As William James observed in one of his renowned letters, “great emergencies and crises show us how much greater our vital resources are than we had supposed”. This is also true of the Pitakwa crises and our overall appreciation of the value of the Niger Delta in the scheme of things in Nigeria. Hence, President Yar’Adua must decide how to tackle the Niger Delta. Characteristically, his predecessor played a game of cat-and-mouse with his Niger Delta interlocutors; negotiating with them one day, pushing the Niger Delta Development Commission (NNDC) master plan the next, and rounding and locking up his interlocutors the day after. Delta inhabitants, were left no other choice but to distrust government and to take laws into their hands. Criminal elements only capitalized on the situation to unleash mayhem.

No serious government ever allows scofflaws to dictate to it. Yar’Adua’s administration should not. But then, the real stakeholders in the Delta region are not scofflaws or hostage takers, neither are the people they represent. Hence, the government should deal decisively with those involved in hostage taking, even if it means unleashing the entire Nigerian military on them. But it must negotiate in good faith, in order to assuage the aggrieved in the Niger Delta. The government should, as part of the deal, get them to foreswear violence and to repudiate any alliance with those who engage in violence in their name.

With neither anger nor partiality, until next time, keep the law, stay impartial, and observe closely.

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Hank Eso, is a columnist for Kwenu.com. His commentaries on Nigerian politics and global issues have appeared in The New Times (Lagos), African Profile International (New York), The Nigerian And Africa Abroad, (New York), African Market News (New Jersey) and in Gamji.com and Nigeriavillagesquare.com

Email: hankeso@aol.com