A PRESS RELEASE ON THE ATTACKS IN THE NIGER DELTA AGAINST OILFIELD INSTALLATIONS AND THE CONFUSION ABOUT BIAFRA

PROFESSIONALS OF SOUTH-SOUTH NIGERIA (PSS)

                        EXECUTIVE SUITES, FIRST FLOOR, JEFFERY’S PLAZA, 
                                  AJIWE-AJAH, LEKKI  PENINSULA, LAGOS

TEL: 0803 433 8485, 0803 307 1640,

Email: thepss234nigeria@gmail.com

Oil installations bombed

We have read with shock and concern certain publications in the Media that some disgruntled elements in the Niger Delta have chosen the path of perfidy by blowing up Oilfield Installations in Delta State in order to reject or challenge the Federal Government’s resolve to investigate the corruption and embezzlement of public funds by persons hitherto entrusted with public office. From the photographs accompanying these dastardly acts we have seen clear evidence of Oil Spill and Environmental Degradation surrounding the blown-off of well-heads and pipelines. Clearly, these attacks on infrastructures are acts of war against the people of and ecosystem of the Niger Delta.  This act of wickedness, calumny and sabotage cannot be accepted or tolerated by the Niger Delta people. Nor can we expect, in the least estimate, that such acts can be committed by any Niger Delta patriot.

In a Niger Delta region that has suffered decades of unmitigated ecological damage to its agric and fishery resources due to ignorance, neglect and lack of maintenance, how dare will any person who has the welfare and well-being of the Niger Delta communities deliberately add more pollution to the environment?

It is inconceivable that such an act of deliberate damage can be contemplated, executed or exacerbated by any decent stakeholder in the growth, development and progress of the Niger Delta. Should it turns out that these nefarious acts were carried out because of the arrest or prosecution of any erstwhile public office holder in the current or past administrations in the Federal, State or Local Government of Nigeria, it will amount to multiple jeopardy to the economy, progress and the capital investment sectors in the Niger Delta and such act is directly an act of sabotage by the enemy of the region.

1. We the Professionals of the South-South (PSS) Nigeria cannot fold our arms and let anyone slap the Niger Delta people in the face and get away with it. If the perpetrators are indigenes of the Niger Delta, whether ex-Militants or common criminals, they must be brought to book.
2. What we have in the Niger Delta, or anywhere in the Federal Republic of Nigeria, whether as petroleum or solid mineral deposits, belong to the collective wealth of the people of Nigeria. No single person, community or region has the right to deprive unjustly the accrual of derived revenue from these resources to the collective wealth of the Federation of Nigeria, unless and until the Constitution of the country is amended to reflect any shift in custody and ownership of these mineral deposits. No single individual or community has any constitutional right as a citizen or resident of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to attack public infrastructures just because such an individual or community has a political score to settle or grievance to ventilate. Such calculated acts of sabotage and environmental degradation cannot be tolerated when there are multiple doors in which such political, communal or economic scores and grievances should be settled, how much more the cases that are within the rights of the judiciary to determine? No one has been declared guilty until the case within the court has been determined. Even if guilty at a lower court, our constitution has made provision for the rights of appeal; all the way to the Supreme Court. It is noteworthy that the law has made no exception and has allowed indigenes of the Niger Delta to seek remedy of every nature, including Revenue Allocation from Hydrocarbon deposits, even within competent courts of law in the Federation. We do not need to remind anyone that the Onshore-Offshore Dichotomy disputed between the Federal Government and the Littoral States of Nigeria was resolved in favor of the Littoral States through a judiciary process. How then can anyone blow off Oil Field installations when suspects of corrupt self-enrichment and diversion of public funds are being put on trial in the same Nigerian judiciary that prevented the Federal Government of Nigeria from taking monopoly of the wealth of the Littoral States? Should the Law not be allowed to run its course?

LOSERS.

We are in a democracy and our democracy is working. No single community or gang of criminals is going to be allowed to reverse the gains of the past democratic dispensations. We are calling on the people of the Niger Delta to be vigilant and not allow thugs, criminals and saboteurs deprive the region of peace, stability and progress. We lost too much under the former President Goodluck Jonathan`s administration just because he was one of us and we forfeited the right to criticize or complain against him. For the avoidance of doubt, is it not shameful that OLOIBIRI has been once again neglected and left in the cold by the past administration, even by former president Goodluck Jonathan, an indigene of the Niger Delta, who had his primary education in this same Oloibiri? The Port Harcourt International Airport, hitherto a major gateway for Nigerian airspace in the oil-producing Niger Delta, has never had it so bad. It is an eyesore and we could hardly complain because we the Niger Delta people had the chance to govern Nigeria following our agitation to be given our right as stakeholders of equal standing with other zones of the Federation. How many Federal Industries in the Niger Delta are alive today? ALSCON and TINAPA have remained cobwebbed in spite of our solid presence at the center. Of course, Militants, in the agitation for Resource Control, stole the limelight. They did not contributed more than the South South Peoples Assembly (SSPA), The Professionals of the South South (PSS) or several Youths and Women Organizations in the Niger Delta. But to allow peace and progress to return to the Niger Delta, we all maintained a silence of collaboration while the Militants were being pampered with loads of money and contracts, even though nothing came in from the center to reward the masses of the community who stood with the Federal Republic. There is no regret about that. But the masses of the Niger Delta shall resist every attempt by any group of persons whether as MEND, Ex-Militants, MASSOB or separatist movement of any shade to cause mayhem and deprive the region of its deserved peaceful development. Nor will the Professionals of the South South (PSS) be subjected to any ignominy in seeking the deserved growth and investments in the Niger Delta. We paid the price in Nigeria’s civil war and in the agitation for Resource Control and Political Equity in the Federation, we paid the price. We cannot settle for less.

PRESIDENT GOODLUCK JONATHAN, GCFR.

As an individual, former President Goodluck Jonathan did his best for Nigeria. History is still evaluating his performance. He brought peace, transparency and fair play to Nigeria at the polls and has been recognized for these globally. He had the courage to convene the long dreaded National Confab that pulled Nigeria from the brink of disintegration. If out of his weakness or strength, he entrusted fellow Nigerians to discharge their duties of office freely and responsibly, and they failed the President and People of Nigeria, the Law must be allowed to take its course. It is with this that the people of the Niger Delta to allowing the law to take its course so that Jonathan’s legacies can be preserved. The Ijaw Militants or any group of criminals can therefore not use Jonathan’s acts of simplicity, freedom, tolerance, sincerity of purpose to abuse the trust of other ethnic nationalities and rubbish Jonathan’s legacy. Goodluck Jonathan can never ever support the destruction of infrastructures, bombings and kidnappings in Ijaw Land and no one should associate these crimes with his person.

JUSTICE AND ACCOUNTABILITY.

3. We the Professionals of the South South (PSS) call on President Buhari to use the Federal might granted under the law to defend and protect the communities and good people of the Niger Delta against these vandals and saboteurs. There must be law and order and justice must prevail in the Niger Delta to pave ways for progress and sustainable development. The Niger Delta ecosystem remains fragile and needs Federal Protection and Accountability in Governance no matter whose axe is gored.

PROPSAL TO HOLD LOCAL GOVERNMENTS ACCOUNTABLE.

4. We hereby propose that in view of the collective will and desire of the good people of Nigeria, and in view of the fact that any sabotage against the communal infrastructures installed with hard money in the Federal Republic of Nigeria is a crime against the people, and whereas the Local Government Administrations are the first grassroots custodians and protectors of these infrastructures, and managers of the citizens in these communities, that every Local Government be made to take responsibility in defending and protecting these infrastructures. To this extent, we recommend that a Law be enacted or an Executive directive be issued that in the event of vandalization of Federal Infrastructures, or damage caused to Petroleum Pipelines, Electricity Grid, Railway lines or Roads and Bridges  as acts of theft, crime, or sabotage, the Local Government Area in which the crime occurred forfeit its Federal Revenue Allocation from that time onwards until the perpetrators of the crime are produced by the Local Government in which these assets have been destroyed. Where, for the purpose of public good and expediency, the Federal or State Government undertakes remedial action or repairs of the damage, the Federal Government shall deduct that cost of repairs and remediation from the Federal Revenue Allocation, the equivalent amount that should have accrued to that Local Government.

States and Local Governments must begin to take responsibility in protecting the common assets of the people within their areas and territories of governance. In the diversity of our population in which political grievances can never be lacking, it is an onus on the Local Governments to take on more responsibility and earn their due. 

IMPLEMENTING THE OUTCOME OF THE 2014 NATIONAL CONFAB

5. Equally, we strongly recommend that the Federal Executive and the National Assembly work harmoniously and expeditiously to implement the conclusions and recommendations of the National Confab 2014 as a way of moving the country forward in our common interest. This should be a major yardstick in asserting the credibility of that exercise and calibrating the loyalty of the Buhari Administration to the collective will of the people of Nigeria. The money spent on that Confab must not be allowed to be a waste.

When Nigeria Wins, We All Win.

God Bless Nigeria

                                                                                                                                                            

Prince Emmanuel Usanga                                                                   Arc Austin Ilenre Emuan            

Coordinator                                                                                                                    Deputy Coordinator