Regular readers of this column will easily see through this article a break in tradition – which is its unusual fixation on one theme back-to-back, this time the Niger Delta region. Today’s piece shall be the third time when matters of the region shall feature on this page within the past one month, after having featured here even last Sunday. The development is not accidental but remains a deliberately targeted response, aimed at highlighting the incipience of a fresh breath of progressive tendencies which promise a reinvention of the region. Such is courtesy of the new paradigm launched by the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP) under its new Coordinator Professor Charles Quaker-Dokubo for changing the Niger Delta story.
It is easily recalled that on assuming office Quaker-Dokubo set up a transition committee of sorts under Professor Ayibaemi Spiff to review the run of the Amnesty programme so far and recommend fresh angles for moving it forward. Pointing out that the Committee was not set up for any probe of his predecessors the Coordinator observed that he received scanty handover notes which comprised briefs by the various heads of department in the Amnesty office. Out of such he needed to build up a work plan, hence the setting up of the Committee which comprised both external experts as well as in-house officials to collect any information and insights that would aid its success.
The Ayebami Spiff Committee eventually submitted its report during the past week in which it made far reaching recommendations that are believed to capture the Coordinator’s vision of facilitating sustainable peace in the region. For instance, while receiving the report Quaker-Dokubo told the Committee that “Your detailed and painstaking report will shape the policy direction of my tenure and your recommendations will be well considered for implementation. We must work hard as a team to actualise President Buhari’s developmental vision for our region”.
Among the Committee’s recommendations are the completion of on-going vocational centre projects, training of outstanding beneficiaries and empowerment of already trained and un-empowered ex-agitators, as well as a review of outstanding contracts. The Coordinator praised the committee pointing out that the country owed them a debt of gratitude given the meticulous work they carried out.
With this development the stage seems to the set for another ambitious shot at the hitherto elusive goal of transforming the Niger Delta region to play its proper role of a prime mover for the country’s economy given its status as not only a wetland but also a most endowed wealthland. All along the potential of the zone has been considered only in terms of its endowment in oil and gas resources which form the bedrock of the Nigerian economy. Yet the Niger Delta like any other wet land in the world is more than just a mere depository of oil and gas resources. Painfully, beyond the oil and gas dedicated export facilities in Port Harcourt, Warri, Bonny, Escravos and other locations, hardly has its maritime potentials been adequately exploited. Added to the foregoing is the case with industrialisation of seafood production, and other areas of agriculture.
While this piece may not adequately address all of the recommendations in one fell swoop, a few remain critically deserving of more than a passing mention. Among such is the Coordinator’s aspiration to hold regular consultation with critical stake-holders in the project. Without much equivocation, this initiative remains the single most important success factor for the project in its entirety. The poignancy associated with the determined engagement of these critical stakeholders, is defined by the failure of several of them to progress from their laid back positions of passive spectators, to their statutorily designated roles as active drivers in the development of the zone.
Given the unchanging pallid picture of the zone over time, each of the stakeholders ranging from the local government councils in the region to the various state governments, development partners, the ministries and parastatals and even multinational oil companies, stands indicted with respect to the failure of development of the region. Given that they all enjoy designated endowments for acting positively towards such an objective, it remains unacceptable that they are failing the nation in this regard.
Another point worthy of mention is the issue of completion of ongoing vocational training centres which would build the capacities and eligibility of the youth for employment in a skill-driven economy. That any of such centre should remain an ongoing project at this stage of the PAP remains a travesty and accounts largely for much of the hangover of dissent still among some of the ex-agitators.
Beyond the fore going it is also another area the negligence of stake-holders accounts for. Even before the vigorous phase of the Niger Delta youth agitation which led to the advent of the PAP the syndrome of wide spread unemployment had remained a major concern of the area. Records of earlier turbulence in the region often mention the reluctance of oil companies in particular to employ the local youth as the latter were considered bereft of the requisite qualifying skills for employment. Granted that the PAP has trained several of the youth of the region in various fields of human endeavor and with promising results, such dividends are proving insufficient due to the scale of the demand for job placements which far outstrips the available jobs. The unemployment crisis in the zone features jobless youths in their millions who cannot even engage in basic agriculture due to serial spoilage of their environment from oil and gas exploitation over the past six decades.
The fore going demands a spike in the commitment of the stakeholders to a renewed charge to transform the Niger Delta, as envisaged by President Muhammadu Buhari. For too long the picture of the zone had been a tale of woe and arrested development courtesy of several factors.
The new dispensation should not be seen as an exclusive burden of the PAP. Already the mainstream opinion of the ex-agitators is the convocation of a stake-holders summit. Given the concurrence of Quaker-Dokubo as the Coordinator with such an initiative on consultation, it remains a welcome venture as the right way to go.
