Niger Delta Region is an international household name. It is one of the most popular appellations with which the country, Nigeria is readily remembered world-over.
Abduction, gas flaring, oil spillage, struggle for resource control etc are words that accentuate the description of the unfortunate situation in this region.
Militants, of different factions and with different allegiances to ‘local’ as well as ‘expatriate’ god-fathers have shown themselves as agitating for the development of this region. They have blown up pipelines, kidnapped oil-workers, exchanged fire with security operatives and have caused serious unrest in this oil-rich area and across the country.
Well, their song; ‘we want total control of the resources from our region’.
They have engaged in all of these hideous acts basically to get the Nigerian government to have a round-table talk with them. Negotiations, if you like, on how the region will be developed and a large chunk of the revenues being realized from the region will be ploughed back into the region.
The Nigerian government has been dragging its foot and using all manners of side-stepping strategies to avoid proactively engaging these agitators. Recently it became evident that the ‘boys’ meant more than business and will stop at nothing in making their concerns count.
They caused a record drop in the country's daily oil production, touched the Atlas Cove in Lagos and threatened that Abuja, the Capital City, will also be visited. It really didn’t sound like an empty threat and this I think expedited talks with the militants under the Amnesty arrangement.
The Nigerian government talked with the boys and surprisingly, the boys yielded and down their ammunitions for the amnesty deal. Leaders of the various factions of the militant groups were seen mobilizing the hand-over of ‘machines’ and various high-powered war equipments to the Nigerian Army.
It was a landmark achievement although opinions have differed at different quarters on the veracity of the claims and authenticity of the deal. The arrangement was a charade and the gesture of the militants, a facade many have adduced.
Particularly to the big media institutions of the west (you know them), the talks will not hold water and they are merely a sham.
Well, whatever it looked like, the boys now have an understanding with the Nigerian government and there is relative peace in the region.
Again, much to the dismay of the western ‘prophets and preachers of doom’ who wants to help by daytime and siphon the country’s resources by night, the Nigerian government was able to talk with its own people by itself.
As I reflect on this situation, I am inclined to think that maybe most of the challenges that countries and communities face across the world can be solved by people living in those countries and communities themselves without really receiving lectures from ‘overseas pundits.’ Maybe inhabitants of the so-tagged catching-up countries also have their own brains and minds who have acquired invaluable expertise in their own rights to deal with issues in such countries.
Maybe, there is enough build up of local knowledge and capacities to address local challenges. Maybe some of the readily doled-out, international hand-outs are the reasons some problems are continuously handed down from generations to generations. Maybe those who have problems in their own countries and communities but who would rather go about portraying themselves as the solver of the world’s problem should desist from doing so.
Maybe there is a lesson from the Niger Delta region of Nigeria that the rest of the world can learn from.
Abduction, gas flaring, oil spillage, struggle for resource control etc are words that accentuate the description of the unfortunate situation in this region.
Militants, of different factions and with different allegiances to ‘local’ as well as ‘expatriate’ god-fathers have shown themselves as agitating for the development of this region. They have blown up pipelines, kidnapped oil-workers, exchanged fire with security operatives and have caused serious unrest in this oil-rich area and across the country.
Well, their song; ‘we want total control of the resources from our region’.
They have engaged in all of these hideous acts basically to get the Nigerian government to have a round-table talk with them. Negotiations, if you like, on how the region will be developed and a large chunk of the revenues being realized from the region will be ploughed back into the region.
The Nigerian government has been dragging its foot and using all manners of side-stepping strategies to avoid proactively engaging these agitators. Recently it became evident that the ‘boys’ meant more than business and will stop at nothing in making their concerns count.
They caused a record drop in the country's daily oil production, touched the Atlas Cove in Lagos and threatened that Abuja, the Capital City, will also be visited. It really didn’t sound like an empty threat and this I think expedited talks with the militants under the Amnesty arrangement.
The Nigerian government talked with the boys and surprisingly, the boys yielded and down their ammunitions for the amnesty deal. Leaders of the various factions of the militant groups were seen mobilizing the hand-over of ‘machines’ and various high-powered war equipments to the Nigerian Army.
It was a landmark achievement although opinions have differed at different quarters on the veracity of the claims and authenticity of the deal. The arrangement was a charade and the gesture of the militants, a facade many have adduced.
Particularly to the big media institutions of the west (you know them), the talks will not hold water and they are merely a sham.
Well, whatever it looked like, the boys now have an understanding with the Nigerian government and there is relative peace in the region.
Again, much to the dismay of the western ‘prophets and preachers of doom’ who wants to help by daytime and siphon the country’s resources by night, the Nigerian government was able to talk with its own people by itself.
As I reflect on this situation, I am inclined to think that maybe most of the challenges that countries and communities face across the world can be solved by people living in those countries and communities themselves without really receiving lectures from ‘overseas pundits.’ Maybe inhabitants of the so-tagged catching-up countries also have their own brains and minds who have acquired invaluable expertise in their own rights to deal with issues in such countries.
Maybe, there is enough build up of local knowledge and capacities to address local challenges. Maybe some of the readily doled-out, international hand-outs are the reasons some problems are continuously handed down from generations to generations. Maybe those who have problems in their own countries and communities but who would rather go about portraying themselves as the solver of the world’s problem should desist from doing so.
Maybe there is a lesson from the Niger Delta region of Nigeria that the rest of the world can learn from.
