After raising expectations across the country on an amnesty plan for persons involved in violence in the Niger Delta, President Umaru Yar'Adua's announcement on Thursday turned out to raise more questions than provide answers.
The Council of States meets once in a long while when crucial issues affecting the country occur. Its membership includes the president, vice president, leading members of the National Assembly and past heads of states, among others.
Following a meeting of the Council in Abuja, last Thursday, Mr. Yar'Adua listed details of his amnesty package, some of which had seeped out the previous week, to further fuel feelings of dissatisfaction, particularly in the Ijaw speaking areas.
The details of the ₦50 billion amnesty package include a 60-day disarmament and demobilisation plan, and a rehabilitation program of education for former combatants among others. But some leaders of the Niger Delta are warning that the many holes in the plan signal more days of tension.
A former Federal Commissioner for Information, Edwin Clark, had earlier faulted the idea of emphasis on amnesty, in view of its connotations of guilt, on every strand of activism in the Niger Delta.
Pursuing similar lines, Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, leader of the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Front, who arrived the country following a visit to Germany and was detained briefly at the Muritala Muhammed Airport, Lagos argued that amnesty only makes sense in situations of established criminality. "I am not saying that all militants are law abiding, but the criminals among them, if charged to court and convicted, should be granted amnesty," he said. "To perceive all militants as criminals is wrong."
Across the Niger Delta, the dominant feeling is one of dissatisfaction. But also a certain cautious willingness to still stretch the space for engagement with the federal government a little more.
Victor Burubo, spokesperson for the Ijaw National Congress, said: "Our response to the amnesty plan is fellowship with caution. The announcement does not exactly capture our expectations of a plan that would engender lasting solution to the violence in the Niger Delta."
Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, was even more circumspect. "The offer of amnesty is worthless, if it is not all-inclusive and embraces those who are currently in state custody and /or on trial," he said. "The attempt in some quarters to confuse issues by refusing to separate the principled militants, such as members of MEND and its affiliates, from the opportunistic mercenaries and criminals, has always struck me as dishonest and diversionary." Soyinka and the Nobel Laureates Commission, an influential gathering of Nobel laureates, had visited the Niger Delta in July 2006 in an attempt to intervene in the crisis in the area. They suspended their efforts following lukewarm signals from the Obasanjo government. Chris Ekiyor, President of the Ijaw Youth Council, said the whole deal "comes across as something packaged in the dark. If the government is giving 60 days for those involved in violence to turn in their arms, are they also giving six months to transform the Niger Delta in order to address the underlying issues of economic justice and the development of the area? How does the Federal Government intend to address the damage to lives in the attack on villages in Gbaramatu kingdom? True, the idea of the so-called amnesty throws up legal implications and no one has any business bearing arms in the first place without a licence. But is the Federal Government willing to confront the realities that brought the armed activism into existence? What we are talking about are the realities of true federalism and resource control, which are the core issues here".
Crisis of credibility
The IYC is itself battling a credibility crisis, weeks after the May 13 attacks, as certain segments of the Ijaw perceive some of its officials as having betrayed the cause for working on the amnesty plan. But the IYC leadership is not the only party in a cold, desperate corner in the issue. The federal government is itself desperately trying to repair some of the damage wreaked by the attacks on the Gbaramatu communities. Last Wednesday, the Nigerian president tried to reassure visiting Russian President, Dimitri Medvedev that foreign investments in the region are safe. Oil supplies have been affected since these attacks began on May 16. Armed groups have carried out several attacks on several pipelines and the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation has announced the shutting of the Port Harcourt and Warri refineries, signposting the devastating realities of these guerilla style attacks.
Godini G. Darah, a former Chairman of the editorial board of The Guardian, drew attention to the failings of the government's amnesty plan. "The term ‘militant' and the idea of ‘amnesty' are derogatory and a denial of the reality of 40 years of brigandage and robbery against the Niger Delta people by the Nigerian state, through the enactment of the Petroleum law no. 51 of 1969 and the granting of 100 per cent derivation to the Federal Government," he said. "What sort of society do the authorities expect from a terrain where oil wealth that would have created real estate and prosperity for its citizens has been denied this, with the wealth going to places like Lagos and Abuja?"
Although the President promised to unveil a three-prong plan to restore calm to the area, the local perception is that without a program to deliver development in which the locals determine what happens, the October 4, 2009 date of end of amnesty will arrive - only to usher in a deeper escalation in the conflict in the region.