The atmosphere in Ogoni turned sky-blue on Monday, February 3. It was a mixture of excitement and nostalgia. Excitement because, the Federal Executive Council, FEC, approved the establishment of a Federal University of Technology on Environment in Ogoni, after decades of brickbats.
Nostalgia because many Ogonis feel that no matter what the government has done or will do in future, it will never bring back the lives of the Ogoni-13 including that of the rights crusader, Ken Saro-Wiwa who were merely asking for a good life for their people commensurate with their God-given economic potentials.
Since 1993 when it came to the global spotlight for a very wrong reason, Ogoni has been a sad cynosure of all eyes. Several governments had come and gone but none has had the political will to pull the chestnut from the fire between the demands of the Ogoni people and the atrocities of Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC, the principal culprits of the environmental disaster that has plagued that part of the country for several decades.
Nevertheless, in just less than two years of his administration, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has received more accolades for his boldness and genuine intentions to confront the challenges of the Ogoni kingdom with the zest and dexterity of a true human rights crusader.
Penultimate week, when Ogoni leaders led by the Rivers state Governor, Siminalayi Fubara paid a visit to the President in the Villa, he instructed that the delegation should return home and carry out a comprehensive and extensive consultation with all the Ogoni people. President Tinubu has proved that diplomacy and lobbying could be the most needed panacea to achieve a targeted goal in any situation, no matter how long and how tense.
Division in Ogoni
The President has left no one in doubt that what the previous administrations could not achieve from 1993 till date by working out acceptable modalities by the concerned parties to allow for oil resumption in Ogoni, is very much possible with the best methodology. Hence, after the meeting in the Villa on January 21, a 4-man committee, with members selected from the five local government areas of Eleme, Tai, Oyingbo, Khana and Gokana, was set up to work out modalities for further consultations and advance a blueprint that would help in removing any grey area in the peace process.
The setting up of that committee which is made of men of unquestionable integrity and character was devoid of politics and party affiliations. But the meeting that later took place in the Government House, Port Harcourt, a few days after the Abuja meeting, was almost scuttled by some individuals from Ogoni whose loyalty to their political leader (name withheld) is unwavering.
Though the Port Harcourt meeting was held successfully with Governor Fubara making a vow that he would be committed to anything that would bring peace and harmony to Ogoni, those from the other political divide deliberately boycotted the meeting with the flimsy excuse that since they were not part of the Fubara government, the venue of the meeting should be relocated to somewhere else other than the Government House.
Tinubu’s joker
Joy resonated everywhere when the President signed into law the bill establishing the Federal University of Technology on Environment on Monday. “This project may not be the ultimate demand put forward by the Ogonis as a bargaining chip for oil resumption in the environmentally impoverished area, but it is a good step forward”, said Franklin Ntekim, former secretary of Obolo Youths Coalition, OYC.
The establishment of the university followed two federal appointments that President Tinubu gave to two Ogoni sons: Senator Magnus Abe, chairman, National Agency for Great Green Wall and the South-South National Deputy Chairman of APC, Chief Victor Giadom as chairman, Nigerian Institute of Educational Planning and Administration. The gesture, though the right of every state of the federation, elicited excitement amongst the Ogonis. President Tinubu’s soothing balm also included the upward review of the contract sum of the age-long Bodo/Bonny 39km road project from N199 billion to about N280 Billion with the completion date set at December, 2025.
MOSOP fumes
The President of movement for the survival of Ogoni people, MOSOP, Fegalo Nsuke however said “We have seen that President Tinubu has the will to right the wrongs of the past but we need not repeat the mistakes of the past, which could further throw Ogoni into crises. I wonder why the entire exercise should exclude the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP). Secondly, there are legacy issues, including the demand to clear the names of the Ogoni 9, the demand for a fair share of the resources to be committed to Ogoni development, and the demand for the creation of a Bori State.
“These are all issues we need to discuss and agree on so that we can smoothly progress in good alignment into implementation”.
No resumption of oil production — Activist
Dr. Fyneface Dumnamene Fyneface of the Youths and Environmental Advocacy Centre (YEAC-Nigeria) argued that “Tinubu’s frontal policy of oil production resumption in Ogoniland is worrisome, decisive and problematic even for the administration and on this footing of putting the cart before the horse”. Fyneface doubted the possibility of achieving this in the next five years.
He said, “One would have expected the President to start this process with a visit to Ogoniland, speak with the people and address some of the issues associated with why oil production was suspended in 1993 and then when these efforts are paying off with acceptance by the people after a considerable number of years, he will then seek to resume oil production”.
He argued that approval of a Federal University was just an added advantage for the consultation process with the Ogoni but “not yet uhuru for oil to start flowing because the issues in the Ogoni Bill of Rights (OBR) as submitted in 1990 have not yet been addressed”.
Oil war claims generation of Ogonis —Ngofa
The former Nigerian Ambassador to The Netherlands, Chief Orji Ngofa while commending the efforts of President Tinubu so far, said whatever this administration has done in recent time to better the lot of Ogoni people, was just a “tokenism”. Ngofa regretted that a generation of Ogonis had been exterminated in the oil war thereby creating an atmosphere of distrust among the people. He added that “there must be a deliberate effort to make the Ogonis to buy-into the Nigerian state again.
Anything short of that will be an exercise in futility”. The former Deputy National Secretary of the APC,
however called on the Ogonis to unite and form a common front to deal with their existential problems and end the double vices of greed and selfish aggrandizement which can only balkanize their dream.
He tasked the President to prove to the world that he has what it takes as an experienced human rights crusader to “write the wrongs of the past”, going forward.
