nigeria's president and bombing

When the nation should be jolly and agog with joy; when the nation should be in a mood of sober reflection, our sensitivities were offended by some miscreants who call themselves MEND. Now it should be said without mincing words that the presidency is the cause of the bombing. I don’t mean the presidency sent some misguided elements to bomb – far from it. But by condoning illegality, the presidency since the time of Umar Musa Yar Adua, and his successor, Jonathan ,had and has embolden MEND to behave recklessly beyond all limits of decency.

    How? MEND is made up mainly of Ijaw militants.  These militants have being pillaging on less powerful peoples of the Niger delta. Ilajes (1998), Isekiri (1997-2003), Binis (around Ekenwan where the Ijaw are tenants (till date), Ogbia, the ethnic group of Goodluck Jonathan (when Okilo was governor of old Rivers state), have all been pillaged by the Ijaw of MEND.

    The presidency deems it fit to give amnesty to these criminals, leaving the peoples so vandalized by the Ijaw to be going about empty handed. It is a shame that the presidency should pay violence with such a big dividend. Fellow Niger Deltans devastated by the Ijaw are going about empty handed, their communities, vandalized by the people who the authorities are paying money, sending overseas: these miscreants who are damaging the economic and social order. Should we now think that the presidency, in this case Jonathan, is trying to play favouritism? It is difficult to think so, since the president is not an Ijaw man. But what does he stand to gain by playing the Ijaw card this time around? Perhaps as a micro minority he is trying to play his gallery to the biggest minority nearby – the Ijaw. This might explain why he is so close to EK Clark – the father of the Ijaw nation. Perhaps he fears for his future to have a safe stay after his presidency in Bayelsa, where the Ijaw lord it over the Epies (an Edoid group) and his micro minority Ogbia (a semi Bantu group).  Or because the Ijaws have burnt his fathers house previously.

    There is something Jonathan should realize. It is unwise to reward only militants. Right now the Boko Harams are calling for amnesty. It will be totally unjust not to grant their request. It is also unfair for Jonathan not to pay money whether it is called amnesty or not to the people who the Ijaw of MEND have so devastated. It should be realized here and now that the Ijaw are not the only people suffering in Nigeria, or even in the Niger delta. The payment of amnesty to them and neglecting the people they have been pirating upon for centuries, is a very sorry mistake from the presidency. Ling Roth (1903) described the Ijaw as pirates; Bosman (1705), described them as pirates; Barbot (1763), describe them as pirates; De Bry (1601) described them as pirates; Ikime (1980, an Isoko, a fellow Niger Deltan), described them as pirates; Alagoa (1977, a fellow Bayelsan) described them as pirates. These Ijaw that Jonathan is lavishing so much on are incorrigible judging from their history as attested to by both foreign and local historians. If the president carries on like this, I am afraid he will fail woefully even in the Niger delta region, in the forth coming elections. Since it seems the Ogbias have accepted Ijaw patrimony despite the fact that their linguistic heritage (Bantu, more related to the Efik, and has no affinity with Ijaw; Alagoa1977), bears no relationship with the Ijaw, other Ijaw-maltreated Niger Deltans will seek a protest vote. This time, it might be for Babangida or any other from the North who will not reward militants to the detriment of well behaved and law-abiding Nigerian citizens

    All good Niger Deltans should be wary of the Ijaw agenda, which might bring Armageddon to the area.

By

Olomu A O O (St Ifa) 08059046466. ([e-mail])



St Ifa is a poet, an Ifa priest, a Historian and a Pan-Yoruban critic, resident in Lagos