It would appear that two of Nigeria`s foremost elder statesman Mr. Olusegun Obasanjo Clark and Mr. Edwin Kiagbodo Clark have bones to pick with Nigeria and the Niger-Delta respectively.
The two men, one in his 90s and the other in his 80s, recently crossed swords, coming at each other with such ferocity as to exhume the ghosts of Nigeria`s thorny tryst with its twisted federalism. At the heart of the verbal duel was oil. With the finger of Nigeria`s Niger Delta region stained by oil, experience has shown that it is impossible for one finger to be stained by oil with the others remaining stain-free.
In 1999, after 28 years of military rule which betrayed the most farcical foibles of military folly, Nigeria triumphantly returned to democracy. If the epochal moment was bittersweet, it was for the fact that the military marching in lockstep with the Peoples Democratic Party packaged one of their own, Mr. Olusegun Obasanjo, a former military president, to govern the country. History records his performance in bold, loud strokes.
For Mr. Edwin Clark, providence pitched a peach at him in 2010 when Mr. Goodluck Jonathan, from his minority Ijaw ethnic group improbably became president of the country. Throughout Mr. Jonathan`s presidency, Mr. Clark who was like a father to the mild-mannered teacher from Otuoke was a vocal presence who had his ears. All who sought an audience with the President knew to go through Mr. Clark or the president `s wife who was said to charge millions of naira for her facilitatory services.
Today, Mr. Olusegun Obasanjo, Mr. Goodluck Jonathan, his wife and Mr. Edwin Clark are knee-deep in political irrelevance, with Mr. Goodluck Jonathan especially having unexpectedly exited the halls of power.
The unfeeling and unflinching ruthlessness of the transience of power is perhaps its most enduring gifts. Operating without any conscience whatsoever, the tables of power are always ever so swift to turn with the eagerness of the shoe to get on the other leg catching the clay of foot unawares.
Thus, with both men having lost their political relevance and perhaps with the familiarly distressing challenges of old age setting in, they have elected to distract Nigerians by pounding decrepit drums which emit jarringly discordant notes.
What have both men contributed so far to the Nigerian project especially as it bothers on dousing the deep-seated tension in the Niger-Delta once and for all? What have both men as elder statesmen done to quell the disturbances convulsing the country?
Apart from the occasional self-serving noise, what have so-called elder statesmen some of whom have complicated the country`s challenges, done to thicken the adhesive holding the country together?
The politics of oil in Nigeria has always provided too many flashpoints for a country that is always on edge. The many flash points all spring from mismanagement – mismanagement of the oil resources and the petrodollars which flow therefrom.
This mismanagement has been at its ugliest in the seeming abandonment of the Niger Delta itself. But abandonment may be too strong a word for that which ails the Niger Delta because what ails the region is as much a product of the dereliction of its own governments as the government of Nigeria.
The region may be in Nigeria and the oil in the region may belong to Nigeria, but the deprivations and depredations the region has suffered are absolutely shocking to put it mildly.
Does Mr. Olusegun Obasanjo hate the Niger Delta as suggested by Mr. Clark? The good people of Odi in Bayelsa State may be better placed to answer this question. Does the oil in the Niger Delta belong to Nigeria? The framers of Nigeria`s twisted constitution, Nigerian presidents past and present and the governors of states in the Niger Delta past and present cannot escape complicity in the epic injustice which has manifested in the shocking neglect of the goose that lays the golden eggs used to fatten Nigeria.
But Nigerians cannot be deceived by the glint and glamour of verbal daggers. Shall the wolf now be considered a wallaby simply because it has lost some of its lupine lethality? The thorny oil question of the Niger Delta has always been one of leadership and in that wise, past and present presidents of Nigeria and past and present governors of states in the Niger Delta have failed the country and the region. Those who worked closely with them also share in their failures.
If they had shown sensitivity and sapience, Nigeria would not have become the wilderness it is today; It would not have been so battered by the wind of acrimony, poverty and insecurity. It would not be drawing the howls of wolves disguised as voices crying in the wilderness.
Oil flows out from the Niger-Delta to oil the rusty wheels of the country, yet, the children of the region drink oil-polluted water and breathe oil-polluted air. Blood has co-mingled with oil many times to leave the country stained in scarlet fashion. The blood of Ken Saro- Wiwa and the slain Ogoni activists will continue to haunt Nigeria.
What the Niger Delta needs is justice. It can do without the drumbeats of distraction coming from worn-out war drums pounded by war mongers who pose as nationalists.
Kene Obiezu,
keneobiezu@gmail.com
