As I followed with keen interest the Federal Government-organized Town Hall Meeting to sample diverse views on the efforts of the President Buhari-led administration which was beamed live on the Nigerian Television Authority in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, one of the states that make up the South-South geo-political zone and rightly termed the Niger Delta region, I saw the frenzy with which each speaker tried to advance and convince the audience and tele-spectators regarding certain issues germane to the overall development of the region.
Much more, I listened with measured curiosity at the seemingly diametrically opposing views canvassed by the Minister for Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi and the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, regarding the propriety, necessity and exigency of continuing and retaining the hugely controversial Nigeria Maritime University, NMU, Warri South-West Local Government Area, a project that is clearly garbed more in political patronage than in concrete and altruistic balance of needs assessment.
Whilst the Honourable Minister for Transportation, Rt. Hon. Rotimi Amaechi shared his view on the more realistic option of upgrading the over two-decades old Maritime Academy, Oron in Akwa Ibom State (like I stated earlier on, one of the Niger Delta states) to a world class institution in that field, the Honourable Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu would hear none of that. To the former, the dubious acquisition of the land alone for the NMU which is situated at Okerenghigho, (a legally allodia Itsekiri territory by first occupation and ancestry which case was duly decided decades back in favour of Omadino by the Nation’s highest court, the Supreme Court) but now corrupted as Okerenkoko by the Ijaws of Gbaramatu, in Warri South West Local Government Area of Delta State, which is in the region of N19 billion (N13 billion for fraudulent land acquisition and N6 billion for heavily inflated and skeletal projects) before talking of infrastructural development, gives no further reasonable prodding as to what next to expect from a nation daily buffeted by the same mindless economic vermin and politically sponsored saboteurs that want to eat their cake and have it. But above all else, the transportation helmsman was of the view that this university is more of a political settlement dividend whose time is not as desperate as those who place it on the front burner would have us believe.
According to Mr. Amaechi, if the land for the university located in a riverside axis costs this stupendous much, how much more then will it cost to complete this almighty institution at a time the government is cutting cost and redirecting its wide array of priorities to rejig the economy?
However, as far as his counterpart in the Petroleum ministry is concerned, the university must stand and stay, notwithstanding the standing down of the bill sponsored by Senator James Manager to give legal teeth for the establishment of the University by the Senate of the National Assembly a few weeks back. The amount of money lavishly doled out for the purchase of land and sundry matters is, according to Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, “insignificant to me”. Curious!
While the narrative was going on, I quickly put on my introspective binoculars and saw in Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, the voice of Jacob and the hand of Esau play out. And this is where the Buhari Presidency must be doubly circumspect about this new façade of dubious partisanship, especially when we all know that his appointment was initially as a technocrat purely based on his rich depth of the oil and gas industry. For one, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu comes from Delta State that does not share the same political ideology with the central government. This point is not one to trivialize by any means. The body language of the current occupant of the Government House, Asaba who is of the same linguistic and ethnic ilk as Ibe Kachikwu points to some manipulation of the entire process, agitation and so-called self-serving negotiation of which the latter is the ready voice-enabling mannequin to articulate the position of Asaba. Thus, everything extra-judicial and otherwise must be done to protect the sponsors that brought them into government house!
If the Buhari Presidency truly desires to carry all stakeholders along, then it should not kowtow or be compelled willy-nilly to accede to some unreasonable and arm-twisting demands of the powers that be in Asaba, Port Harcourt, Yenagoa and co.
And then again as I conclude, is it not rather curious and very so that in all the frenzied discussions centering on the development of the Niger Delta region, not one mention is made, in passing, of the far more important and huge economic entrepot waiting for immediate actualization to benefit hundreds of thousands of unemployed Nigerians today? I talk here of the multi-billion dollars Export Processing Zone, EPZ located in the Warri South-West Local Government Area of Delta State. This was an anticipated project that brought far more economic hope to Niger Deltans and beyond when it was flagged off, albeit willy-nilly, by former President Goodluck Jonathan at the twilight of his administration. What I say I repeat here, the government must prioritize projects based on economic advantage and not for political patronage. The Federal Government must spread its net of change far and fast, and save us from going through the same old route!
Comrade Esimaje Awani
President, Itsekiri National Youth Council
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