Poverty in Nigeria has always been state sponsored, and also conveniently & naturally maintained by past military northern leaders. This is the bedrock of our problem. This is a social fact in the North of Nigeria and a manipulative outcome in the south. How?

Overtime it had been a political strategy, guarded by religion for indigenes of northern extraction to procreate, even in the absence of means to provide the basic care for their offsprings. There is no need to go further on this. In the south, poverty has been used as a tool to subdue, malign and fracture its citizens. This can be seen in the indigenisation decree of 72, after the civil war that cut off the ravaged secessionist states and its citizenry. Also average worker welfare has not improved much since the 80's till present. It is clear that living standard had been on a decline during the military era, and only got a lifeline with the emergence of a 'middle class' in the early years of our present democracy. Democracy is what opened doors from which we exited most of the blockades on communication, media, information, knowledge, enterprise and even the our fundamental human rights. We must never forget this.

It happens that from the time of oil booms of the Gowon regime; when the government had very little idea of what to do with the inflow of forex, up to the IBBs, Abachas et al... till present, the goal has been self-aggrandisation for the political class. This keeps opening up an ever widening chasm to be filled, especially in host communities where these resources have been explored. When the oil - rich regions began early demands for more inclusion from the wealth generated from their lands , the past military leaders only sent more boots on ground. Today your average oil installation like say a flow station has more military security on ground at the expense of the tax payer. In fact, every oil facility has a mini barracks on site, and oil workers more detailed personal military security than a community under threat from terrorists. A well contrived strategy to surpress the ever reoccuring agitations arising from the exploration activities in those locations. This also is an example of state sponsored poverty of these areas and awareness has been raised since the time Saro wiwa of this great injustice. They hung the man.

The dynamics is such that it is relevant to have the poorest of poor cut from true information and easily subdued by fear, and those on the same divide, indoctrinated to be used as simple tools.... Sadly, these dissidents of our society only understand violence, however at various levels of application. The amnesty of Yaradua was only temporary, because it did not address the root cause. It only made some few stinkingly rich and provided more money for state governments of these oil producing state to squander, while the federal government continues stealing from the host communities. What if host communities are made to also be stake holders of wealth generated from their areas of abode? The answer will be there will be no need to enforce military presence in these areas, as these communities will secure the facilities. When you alienate people from their land and their natural resources and keep them in poverty, they tend to revolt and see both the oil workers, the oil facilities and the govt officials as their enemy. Militancy becomes inevitable. Even if you pay and educate a set of these people, a new generation would always emerge more hungry than the last; The young shall grow. When you make oil communities become stake holders in the exploration activities, thereby making them wealthy, the protection of the oil workers and the facilities become their responsibility. Every attack on the oil facility is an attack on their income. This is common sense security measure.

The government over the years have failed to do this but would rather pay billions to the military to provide security for facilities and expatriates, even at the expense of its own citizens sweat and blood. The oil producing communities of Nigeria are the biggest losers of this unitary-military system. Their lands are degraded, their health threatened, their future bleak, their wealth stolen and their economy is miserable. Yet it is from their backyard that the whole country is sustained. Militancy, bunkering and vandalism becomes inevitable. These are all forms of protests and survival tactics. It is unfortunate that the youths have to steal their own crude oil to survive and be labelled as vandals while the country and its politicians lavishes the crude oil wealth all in the name of running a unitary-military 'feeding bottle' government.

The part of the PIB which was suppose to make communities become stakeholders and enable them provide security guarantee for oil facilities in their domain has been tactically suspended from the bill without any meaningful explanation.
Nigeria is a criminal state. The earlier we unbundle the country and entrench true federalism, the better.


#RestructureNigeria
#TrueFederalism
#SupportRegionalAutonomy

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