By Francis Sadhere, Warri
Immediate past Delta State Governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan has said that the Niger Delta crisis can only be resolved if youths in the host communities are engaged in the ownership of the oil companies.
Dr. Uduaghan who said this yesterday while addressing journalists in Warri noted that there will never be peace in the region until the local communities involved are carried along by both the Federal Government and oil companies operating in the region.
He said when he was the governor of Delta State in the hit of the crisis he used to go into the creeks on his own without any security during the day and also during the night, that in spite of all their efforts the crisis seems to be reoccurring once in awhile.
Dr. Uduaghan added that though there were some clashes here and there because of the criminal aspect of the crisis which they tried to manage he was able to manage them properly, adding that governor Okowa is also trying to manage the criminals aspect of the crisis.
He said, “I believe that we have done a lot of engagement process where we have involved a lot of people. The military and the police have been involved and their role is in the form of engagement. We have the NDDC, scholarships have been given and all that, but the crisis keeps reoccurring. I now ask myself, how do we ensure that this issue are dealt with once and for all. I now come to a conclusion that we have to rely on our laws because a society where there is no law and other can never stand.
“For example, I can tell the police, go and arrest so so and so person and put him in detention for two weeks and the will obey me. But the law says I cannot do that. So what I have done was not backed by law. The law is there but I am not following it. But the national assembly can remind the nation that there is such act. The National Assembly can ask why these laws are not followed and they can do one or two things to ensure that these governors follow the laws.
Dr. Uduaghan also stressed the need for the National Assembly to make laws that will deal with criminal activities in the Niger Delta region, saying that once such laws are enforced, nobody will be blamed when the law takes it course.
“This is what is happening in the Niger Delta. There are laws that say you cannot burst a pipeline and so on and so forth, but these laws are not followed. If you abandon a contract, for example there is a law that says you must refund the money. Someone is seizing my equipment for two months and there is nothing I can do. But the law says there is something I can do. So if these laws are implemented nobody will say I am the one dealing with you but the law.
“We have to look at all these issues concerning the Niger Delta. Since this crisis started how many people have been arrested and prosecuted? Some of us were not arresting because these people may be our brothers and sisters. But when it is the law that is arresting people nobody will blame the governor or President because the law does not know brother or sister. The law should ordinarily catch up with anybody that brakes it. So these are the things I think we should do to address the Niger Delta issue,” Uduaghan said.
Continuing Uduaghan said, “We also need to look at laws that increase the influence of the oil bearing communities. Today Shell has divested its interest in OML 30 in Isoko and Ughelli areas and they sold to Seplat and Heritage. When Heritage started they were having problems because they were demanding that they should have jo slots and I thought they will be more interested in deeper things.
“We should have a law that says any oil company coming into the region, the host community should have five percent ownership. You can imagine what five percent can do for the communities in the long run. Whatever comes out can be invested in a trust fund. It is happening all over the world. All these things require proper laws to be put in place. Without all these things put in place, it will be difficult to fight the Niger Delta crisis.
“It is not everybody that will be happy that there is peace in the Niger Delta region because a lot of people are making money from the insecurity in the region. If other regions can support the Niger Delta region everybody still benefit from it because for every crisis that happens in Niger delta, it reduces the amount of crude oil that is produced and this will in turn affects what goes to each state at the end of the day. So it is in our own interests that there is peace in the Niger Delta region.
“I also want to talk about enforcement by the military. Is it possible for the military to curtail the crisis in the Niger delta region? The answer is no. Ask the task forced that had been out w is place by the government have not been able to deal with the criminals issues in the region.
“The only way we can reduce the criminal issues in the Niger delta region is to engaged the local communities. You have to engage the youths and wet have tried it with our water ways security committee. Because they are local boys they have a way of pre-empting crisis. Those planning the attacks have to plan them before they execute them and most of these planning are done in the beer parlours. So if we are able to engage the youths wet will be able to reduce the criminal activities in the region.
“Look at the amnesty programme that is training people yet there are no jobs. The amnesty office is not well coordinated. When they started the programme, some of the governors suggested that the states should be involved so that they can provide jobs for them after their training but the federal government refused. The way they did it is such that because the states were not involved, all the ethnic groups in the Niger Delta region were also not involved,” Uduang added.
