Will Can Change Face Of Niger Delta’

what we do with our derivation money. Wike’s success story will reduce the abuse we are getting from other parts of the country.

The money in question accumulated over the years, because former administrations held unto it even though it is statutory. As one of President Buhari’s critics, has the release of the money changed your perception of his administration?

Now, another drama is playing out in the region. Wike came out personally to tell the whole world that his administration received the money and invested it in projects across the state. But some other governors are using their political aides to give their own account of the money. We say no; they should come out personally and give us statistics and also show us what they have done. You cannot use your commissioners to come and be telling us what you have done with the money.

Well, I commend the president despite all our criticisms. I am one of those who are always criticising Buhari. Even when the flood came and ravaged communities, I came out to ask what the president was doing. I said he didn’t release Ecological Fund. But I now know that if the president could release 13 per cent derivation funds to the Niger

Delta area, owed since 1999, then ecological fund release is also going on.

We saw the massive destruction in Kwara, Kogi, Niger, Bauchi, Kebbi and Bayelsa states. A lot of people died in the flood disaster. Bridges were cut off. In fact, there was no movement between the South and the North as a result of the flood. The flood was worse that the 2012 flood. In the 2012 flood, we saw the former Minister of Aviation, Stella Oduah, paddling canoe to go and see her destroyed mansion in Anambra State. I still have the photograph. This year, we also saw former president Jonathan paddling canoe to his house in Bayelsa State. My parents’ graves were submerged. Thousands were displaced and I had to mobilise food to our communities where people were crying of starvation. Now, I’m begging Wike to come out again and tell us how much was released to each of these states from the ecological fund. We expected these governors to come out and explain how they expended the ecological fund while the flood was ravaging but they didn’t do that. Even if the problem is beyond ecological fund, how did they spend the ones that have been released to them?

So, I’m praying to God that Wike should also come out and tell us the amount of money that was distributed to states as ecological fund, because I now believe that Buhari must have done that just like the 13 per cent derivation funds, which no governor is denying. Some of the governors’ aides have come out to say, ‘ yes, we were given, but we had used the money to borrow money’ and they are confusing themselves. It’s so childish. They never told us that such money was released to them until Wike blew the whistle. It’s very funny. They should still come out and explain or else in the next 100 years when their grandchildren will come out to seek elective offices, they will be reminded how their grandfathers managed money that accrued to their states over the years and was released by the Federal Government. So, they should document what they have done for history.

Oil exploration in the northern part of the country has become a reality with the inauguration of commercial production of crude oil and gas from the $ 3 billion Kolmani Integrated Development Project located along the fields of Gombe and Bauchi states by the President last Tuesday. What’s your take on the development?

We congratulate our brothers in the North. It is not the first time oil was found outside the Niger Delta. We even have oil in Lagos. But you know that Yorubas are sophisticated, because Awolowo’s leadership trained their minds. Folawiyo Petroleum is in charge of the oil in Lagos State. What I am trying to tell you is that having seen the mess in the Niger Delta, Yoruba people don’t want that in their land. And even President Buhari told Bauchi people to learn from the Niger Delta experience and know how to manage the oil in their land. I don’t think the people will keep quiet if the company exploiting the oil there flares gas the way Shell and other companies are flaring gas in the Niger Delta. Gas flaring is still going on in the Niger Delta today, because we lack political leaders who are supposed to stand firm and ensure that it’s stopped.

You remember a former General and retired Chief of Army Staff who told us that he didn’t know what to do with oil money. He owns oil blocs in the Niger Delta. This retired General is not even of the generation of first military governor of Rivers State, Alfred Diete- Spiff. Diete- Spiff was in power before that General came to power but Diete- Spiff doesn’t have the type of oil blocs that this General who doesn’t know the colour of crude is enjoying. He told us that the oil money was so much that he didn’t know what to do with it. It was a big insult to the Niger Delta. The northerners will not allow it; they will make sure there is indigenous participation. They will be very firm.

I will also advise them to learn from our pathetic situation, where people who flare gas in our environment enjoy the oil money in Abuja while the indigenes are suffering under poverty and any president that emerges will come up with one political manipulation or the other.

Look at the Niger Delta Development Commission ( NDDC) they gave us. It was established through parliamentary legislation, but the president, on his own, because some fake Niger Delta leaders go and deceive him, will say that the head of the commission is interim administrator. The constitution says there should be a board, chairman and managing director, now they have abolished that for about three or four years. And they were manufacturing all kinds of designations to suit their purpose. In fact, the nomenclatures were so numerous that there was a time I suggested to the president to call the head of the commission general overseer and rename the commission itself to Niger Delta Gambling Centre since they didn’t know how to insult us again.

So what do you have to say now that the president has sent the list of a fully constituted board of the commission to the Senate for consideration?

We saw that on Wednesday, but we don’t have faith in the process until it becomes a reality. We have been deceived several times. There was a board that was sent to the National Assembly, which was approved. But some manipulators went to the president and they said they were coming up with forensic audit. They used that forensic audit to deceive us for more than two years, but they told us it would last for six months. Where is the result? Where are the people that were involved in the looting of the commission’s funds?

Now, why did the president not inaugurate the former board approved by the National Assembly? You can’t see it in any sane society. You, as the president, were the one that sent the names to the National Assembly for approval only to turn round later to jettison the board and appoint somebody from within that same board as the sole administrator. Where were all those confusions coming from?

So, we are watching. We cannot clap and dance because someone can go and tell the president to change the members, because somebody among the nominees is pregnant and we will see another drama. That is how we have been managing Nigeria; that is the fact. We are watching whether the names we are seeing now will come out alive and the board inaugurated.

Back to the issue of oil exploration in Bauchi/ Gombe states, do you envisage the problem of oil theft in the Niger Delta that made the Federal Government to hire a private firm to secure the pipelines in the area?

I doubt it, because the political class in the North is different from the political class in the Niger Delta. I gave you the example of oil exploration in Lagos State. The political class is solid; the political class is not petty. For instance, if we have a strong political class like the South West, what has been happening in NDDC will not happen. They will not allow the president to toy with commission; they will not allow some cowboy politicians to go and manipulate the president.

Northern politicians have been receiving a lot of abuse from Niger Delta people, who say they are parasites and this and that. Now that they have oil, they will be so wise to handle it.

However, I want to thank the president for bringing state police to secure the pipelines. And I want to thank Tompolo for what he is doing. Yes, he has even restored confidence in the international community that if they invest in oil business in Nigeria, their investment is safe because there is a well- organised leader in the Niger Delta who does not believe in the destruction of the environment.

Tompolo did not take this assignment out of selfish reasons. People who are not from Niger Delta are the ones coming to do the policing; they are the ones that connive with oil thieves to sabotage the economy and destroy the environment. Tompolo’s father was buried in the Niger Delta; he too will be buried there and he wouldn’t want to be buried in a polluted environment. So, he accepted the assignment out of patriotism; he had to take the challenge on behalf of the whole Niger Delta.

What Tompolo’s firm is doing is state police. We are not saying that the national security outfits like the Army and Navy are not working. But many of them are not interested in our environment. They will not be buried in the Niger Delta, so they don’t care. If you look at all the illegal pipelines that are being discovered, as you can see on the social media, can any Ijaw illiterate go and do that? Those who do that are trained and technically sound; people who are working in the oil firms. While they are doing that, corrupt security operatives posted there give them cover. That is what Tompolo wants to stop. So, the government is so wise to have given Tompolo’s firm the contract to help it to curb oil theft.

When I was young, tapping of ogogoro

( local gin) was a thriving business. Fishing was a thriving business. Just throw your net into the water in front of your house and you will have fish to cook. Oil pollution has destroyed all that. So, the people of Bauchi and Gombe states are learning now; they are seeing it. It will never happen in Bauchi, Gombe or anywhere in the North.

Look at the way they are running the North East Development Commission ( NEDC), an interventionist agency like the NDDC. Look at the way they operate. You will never hear of sabotage. If you sabotage anything in NEDC, it is not the police that will declare you wanted but the people themselves.

They are learning from all the mistakes of the Niger Delta.

Finally, you spoke about the flood that ravaged communities barely two months ago and the management of the ecological fund. What do you think could be done to avert a future flood disaster?

It is the dams. We have done our investigation and Cameroun did not deny it. But the political will to engage the Camerounian president is not there. We have states that share boundaries with Cameroun, where water from the dams are coming from. We have the Chad Basin Development Commission, which Nigeria is a member.

Now, the Federal Government told us two weeks ago that next year’s flood will be more than what we saw this year. But they didn’t tell us that the President Buhari would engage presidents of countries that are releasing water from their dams. The President of Nigeria should sit down with our neighbours, the countries bordering us that are releasing water from their dams and discuss this problem with them. I expect to see this type of discussion and it should be televised to give hope to Nigerians that our leaders are talking over this flood matter so that the situation next year will not be more than this year’s.

So, we want a political solution. We want the president of Nigeria to move to Chad, Cameroun and other countries that are operating dams and engage their governments. Even if they say we should be compensating them and we know that lives and property are destroyed here, why don’t we do that?

On the ecological fund, I’m still begging Wike to come out and blow the whistle. If he does that, it will help the affected states to put their governor’s on their toes.