Niger Delta Crises and The Master Plan

When against all odds, Goodluck Jonathan oneof Nigerians luckiest politicians in recent history became the nation’s No.2 citizen, many saw it as the beginning of the end of hostilities in Niger Delta. But the events of the last few weeks as proved everyone wrong.
Not only has the violence become worse but the area especially Port Harcourt in Rivers State has virtually turned into a Hobbessian State of Nature where life is brutish and short.
It is against this backdrop that the recent state wide launch of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) Master Plan should be examined. Timi Alaibe who is the present Managing Director of the NDDC seems to believe that the vision contained in that document is the panacea of the Niger Delta problems and I agree with him.
Before now, many had thought that if the former Governor of Bayelsa State, Dipreye Alamasiegha and Asari Dokubo were released there will be calm, I hate to tell my friends I told you so but I did tell them that we have 1001 Governor Generals and warlords in the Niger Delta than these two-and I have been proved very right.
Now that Alams has been released and Dokubo has become a bourgeoisie/consultant for the government, have we solved the crises? No.
The crises still rages and has even gone worse because people in position of authority do not seem to understand the dynamics of the area. The problem is much more than individuals.
Anybody who has been to the region or has flown over the area in a low aircraft will appreciate the bile and the hatred that sprouts from the stomachs of a typical Niger Delta youth. The devastation there is terrible. It is nothing more than man’s inhumanity to man. Simple.
As a result of oil exploitation in that area, the indigenes cannot go fishing, because the waters are polluted, the strip of land they are blessed with are no good for farming because again, the oil has damaged the soil. So they do not have a source of livelihood. The children cannot even have a decent walk around their back yard. It is that bad, coupled with lack of electricity and other amenities, being born in the oil-rich Niger Delta has become a great curse.
I am not justifying, the spate of kidnapping going on at the moment, but has anyone stopped to think about the billions that those wells have produced since oil was first found in Oloibiri in 1956, 50 years ago. Some economic hijackers sitting in some fancy office outside of that area had kidnapped those resources and raped the people of their source of livelihood, those billions have been used to develop other areas apart from the Niger Delta. And that is the crux of the matter.
The solution is development and we do not need a rocket scientist to figure this out and this brings us back to the NDDC Master Plan.
The Master Plan as explained by NDDC Managing Director, Timi Alaibe, who interestingly is from Bayelsa State, in the Niger Delta, is an ambitious holistic development plan that ultimately intends to transform its infrastructure and the people. The 50 billion naira project will focus on agriculture, health, education and encourage private local business people. No doubt, the people of the Niger Delta deserve a better life, they deserve decent accommodation, electricity, education, gas fumes-free air and employment. Therefore, I will implore the legislators if they had not done so already to approve this Master Plan and its funds so that the regeneration can begin soonest. This master plan should move from the pages of those papers to becoming a reality. Every second wasted, will only fan the embers of seething anger that has enveloped the area. And not even a million battalions can win this war of attrition that has built over 50 years.