BELLO, CLAPPERTON-1824, YARADUA’S AMNESTY, AND THE NIGER DELTA

COMMENTARY ARCHIVES, 12 Nov 2009

Rev. Olufemi Oluniyi, Ph.D. - Centre for Values and Social Change, Nigeria

In 1823 Hugh Clapperton, a British adventurer, set out to unravel the Niger waterway.  He arrived in the Bornu in the Lake Chad region late that year and went westward to Kano in 1824, and later to Sokoto in the same year.  Sultan Bello, the ruler of the Muslim empire founded by his predecessor, Uthman dan Fodio, was eager to sign a trade treaty with the British, with access to the sea as one of his demands, but there was mutual suspicion between the two, and the agreement was not signed.  Furthermore, Bello prevented Clapperton from continuing with his exploration southwards when he was just 150 miles north of his destination. Clapperton traced his way back to Britain through the Sahara.

Two years later, 1826, Clapperton reappeared in Sokoto, this time after documenting the Niger waterway at Busa.  Unlike his first journey, Clapperton came through the Atlantic Ocean, docked at Badagry, journeyed north to Oyo, and documented the Niger waterway at Busa; then went 150 miles northward and reappeared at Sokoto on the same year.

Access to the sea was one of Frederich Lugard’s priority projects, after smashing the Sokoto army, 1902, and the establishment of colonial rule.  He created a port at Baro along the Niger while Baro was served by the Northern Railway for evacuation of raw materials to the sea for onward conveyance to the UK.  As long as it lasted the port met British economic interests as well as the caliphate’s aspirations.

However, Baro port and its rail link were later decommissioned in favour of Nigerian Railway Corporation, in anticipation of amalgamation of the Southern and Northern Protectorates.  And this arrangement worked satisfactorily, if absence of clamour for change is a credible index of satisfaction, since the colonial era until recent decades, when there were renewed calls from northern quarters for a separate access to the sea.

Why a renewed call for access to the sea from the north?  The fleet of trucks that plied the North-South highways, following the vandalisation of the railways during Ibrahim Dasuki’s chairmanship of the Nigerian Railway Corporation, are mostly in a state of disrepair.  The highways are full of potholes and are littered with accidents since the majority of truck drivers have no valid driving license due to endemic corruption.

What more, fleet owners cannot buy new trucks because the value of the naira has depreciated and because tokunboh (second-hand trucks) from Holland, England and Germany have since taken over the market.  This scenario began in the days of General Sani Abacha, when the violation of human rights was at its peak and agitations for self-determination began in some southern quarters.  There were genuine fears that Nigeria could break up; and this fear has not been lost on the northern establishment.  Admittedly, civilian rule has been restored since 1999, but civilian rule is not ipso facto democratic rule.  Therefore, the idea that Nigeria may break up lingers.  Nevertheless, it is a topic that most people would not mention – let alone admit in public.

The northern problem will escalate, should Nigeria break up, for several reasons.

First, the fundamental reason that Lugard amalgamated the two protectorates in order to use the resources of the south to develop the north remains.  Northern leaders wasted all the years of opportunity to develop northern resources especially human resources.  According to a UN study last year, Northern Nigeria tops the least of countries where illiteracy is highest (worse than war ravaged Sudan, Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo).  

Secondly, Yoruba is capable of erecting its tollgate in Ibadan thereby barring access to Lagos, whereas Badagry is not viable.  Port Harcourt would be a no-go area because Igbo country lies in between, and the north has a genuine reason where their plea for access may fall on deaf ears.  Ditto for Calabar.  Indeed, the only option seems to be through the Niger River via the Delta region.

That is why President Yaradua is doing everything to dredge the River, in his first term in office.  To accomplish this objective he had first of all to disregard the well considered advice on the environmental impact the dredging is most likely to have on the already polluted water, soil and vegetation of the region following decades of oil spills, gas flaring and other forms of degradation.  

Secondly, he had to revoke the contract for a standard rail project that his predecessor awarded to a Chinese consortium in favour of the dredging project.  He had to appease the unrest in the Niger Delta with what is currently orchestrated as an unconditional amnesty to the Niger Delta militants.  That is why Yaradua is apparently more committed to the dredging project than to fixing the energy sector, which is ostensibly the priority area of his administration.

If you ask me to decode the ongoing amnesty offered by President Yaradua, I can tell you that:

1.    The amnesty has little to do with the plight of the peoples of the Niger Delta region.

2.    It is largely, almost exclusively, about the northern quest for access to the sea

3.    It is about buying sufficient time for the contractors to complete the dredging project on an 18-month timeframe

4.    The basic structure and pattern of exploitation in Nigeria has not changed.  The forms and extent of the relationships of oppression do change from time to time; but the basic structure is intact.

5.    There is no political will to address the fundamental demand of the Niger Delta, and indeed the struggle of principled Nigerians: true federalism.

We must ask, how long is the Niger-Delta conundrum going to last if the Federal Government does not address the fundamental and legitimate aspiration of the region?  With the ongoing dredging and an amnesty in Yaradua’s kitty, is the offer of a polytechnic (for Bayelsa State) to the Niger Delta a fair exchange?  Is this not a way of stoking up for another spiral of violence in the Niger-Delta?

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Rev. Olufemi Oluniyi, Ph.D., Executive Director, Centre for Values and Social Change, Lagos, Nigeria.

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 12 Nov 2009.

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