Like I will suggest for any part of the country, the government must do everything possible to return order to the creeks of Ijaw land.
Crime has festered for long in the creeks and miscreants were allowed for a long time to arm themselves so much that there is no way federal might will crush them without them also causing serious damage. So be cautious!
Government should work with well-meaning leaders in the theatre and track these criminals who are on this new wave of terrorism. They are known to government. I insist that these criminals are known to the security top brass.
In the last administration, they ate with them, drank with them, signed contracts with them, flew with them, did business with them. I say they know them, they have their dossiers, they know how to get them and they must get them!
I support the current militarization of the creeks. Yes, let the creeks remain militarized until there is order again in the creeks then we can begin to de-militarize.
Now let me move on from that. The next point is that, Nigerians must know that this is not a battle between Niger Delta and Nigeria. It is a battle between the Ijaw (Izon) people and Nigeria.
Call it MEND, call it NDA or call it any other name, it is strictly a war between the Ijaw people and the Nigerian nation.
The geographical region called Niger Delta has 9 states namely Bayelsa, Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Edo, Delta, Ondo, Imo, and Abia.
Within this region alone, there are more than 100 ethnic nationalities including the Ijaw, Urhobo, Isoko, Ikwere, Ibibio, Anang, Efiks, Isan, Benin, Ejagham, Itsekiri, Yoruba, Ibo, etc.
Since I started hearing about the struggle, the battles, and benefits of the Niger Delta debacle, I have never heard anything or theatre outside the Ijaw people.
Almost all (if not more than 95 percent) of the gun trotting militants, the beneficiaries of the amnesty program or Niger Delta scholarships, are Ijaw people.
Even when they decide to allow those ‘goodies’ get to other states outside Bayelsa (Gloryland) which is the major Ijaw homeland, they will still locate Ijaw people in those states.
The example of the immediate past coordinator of the amnesty program, Mr. Kingsley Kuku who though from Ondo state, is still an Ijaw man, comes to mind.
Obubra local government in my state, Cross River hosted many of these Ijaw militants who ate the amnesty money for over a year, yet our only benefit was robberies, rapes, unwanted pregnancies, and other bitter memories and lifelong scars that they left behind.
Having said this, I think it is unfair to continue to term or classify the ongoing criminality in the creeks of Ijaw land as a Niger Delta struggle.
There is no Niger Delta Avengers. What we have is Ijaw Avengers and the Movement for the Emancipation of Ijaw land.
These criminals who call themselves emancipators say there are fighting foreigners, pointedly northerners, who they accuse of exploiting “our resources” and not developing the region.
But in the recent past, Boyloaf, Asari, Tompolo, Ateke Tom, Africa and several of them got billions of US Dollars from government in compensation for bearing arms, yet none of them can boast of an industry that has employed 5 persons in the region. What is the difference between mai-guardi and gate man?
These same criminals are today destroying an already traumatized environment, polluting and increasing the suffering of their people in the name of emancipation, perhaps the end again is to go and negotiate for more Dollars but certainly not development.
But I want to beg them to please leave the name of the Niger Delta out of their stock in trade. The battle is an Ijaw battle against Nigeria.
When the Niger Delta is prepared to fight for their rights, which they deserve to and should do, I am not sure that there is a consensus that we will begin by committing economic sabotage and increasing the suffering of our people.