Throwing money missiles

The results are in and the prognosis is not good. It's no longer just a slight rash; the Niger Delta Crisis has turned into a large, unsightly scar on the nation's consciousness. We cannot just scratch and scratch in the hope that the irritation will go away, now we need some serious medical treatment to get rid of it. The scar has run so deep that it's eating at the bone. And for world-class treatment, we need to pay top dollar. A couple of million will not even begin to help.

But what's this? An act of benevolence you say? Oh! praise the heavens. The EU will give us a whopping N10 billion to get rid of the scar. Happy days. Or perhaps the news is cause for even more concern.

The Niger Delta crisis hasn't exactly sprung up on Nigeria. Over the years, it has grown into a conglomeration of different fights, squabbles, age-old hostilities mixed with a hefty dollop of good old-fashioned human greed. If any had really bothered,

each of these events could have been tackled on their own individual merit.

What we have now is an untameable multi-headed beast that continues to bedevil our government. At first they tried to ignore it in the hope that it would just sort itself out and go away. Then they tried the softly-softly approach, which didn't work either. As violence escalated, they decided to meet fire with fire and that tactic failed to.

Undeterred, the government have finally tried the age-old Nigerian method of tackling a stubborn problem - taking aim and firing loads of money at it. The hope is that the sheer force of the money missiles will obliterate the problem into oblivion. Sadly this method never actually works in Nigeria. The thrust of the money missiles is never quite strong enough and often fails to reach their intended target. The government tried it with PHCN, NITEL and with fixing the nation's refineries. Not one is a success story.

The Niger Delta crisis is the latest national problem that money is being aimed at. Almost a year has passed since Mr. Umaru Yar'Adua presented his 2009 budget proposals in which the newly formed Ministry of Niger Delta was allocated N47.9 billion and the Niger Delta Commission (NDDC) was to get N27 billion. The year before that, the NDDC got N84 billion.

These are figures that dwarf the N10billion grant that the EU is reportedly doling out over three years.

In making the budgetary allocations last year, the president said the money was to "improve accessibility to the region, improve and restore the environment and to establish two sophisticated skills acquisition centres to help the youth from the region and acquire practical skills relevant to the energy and petrochemicals industry." The question is where has all the money gone Mr.

President? If the EU grant is fated to go the same way as the 2009 budget allocation for the region, then Niger-Deltans should be mourning the news and not rejoicing.

In spite of the promised new money, entire communities continue to struggle for survival in lands where they cannot farm because of the black liquid that seeps through the soil. The painful irony is not lost on the river communities that cannot even drink the water that surrounds them.

The N10 billion is good news to the indigenes of this beleaguered region only if the resources are properly managed and utilised. Such an amount of money ought to make a visible difference to the livelihoods of those who have suffered from the wanton pillaging of their land. The painful lessons of recent history have forced us to be cynical but it is our hope that the money is put to good use.

We hope that the EU will put sufficient checks in place that will encourage transparency. The scar may yet heal yet but it will take more than just money to get rid of it for good.