These are interesting seasons:The Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) have followed in the years disputes over rights to property in land of the peoples and communities on the Niger Delta because of the oil & gas resources found therein by tiers of governments of the Nigerian State Enterprise (federal, and states and there agencies). If it was not the littoral states and against others and federal government, it was the states of north against oil and gas bearing states with respect the onshore/offshore dichotomy and the application of principle of derivation, otherwise it was conflict over the progressive elimination of derivation and fiscal federalism concept that Nigeria was founded on through military decrees.
Just recently it was Cross Rivers Government Vs Akwa Ibom Government and then Rivers State Vs Akwa Ibom went through this noisy quarrels over ownership and rights to property of oil & gas. Kogi State and Anambara State are warming up to a new fight arising from oil and gas discoveries along their “boundaries”. Today Rivers State and Bayelsa State two sister states have entered fully into public domain on a dispute that had subsisted since 1999. What is the subject of interest to us as Ijaw Youth Council?First, the communities involved who bear these resources are communities in two clans of Ijaw Nation.
The Nembe Clan of our Great Ijaw King, Koko of Nembe and The Kalabari Clan of our equally Great Ijaw King, Amachere of Kalabari. Both clans, communities and their founding leaders predate the Nigerian State and States of Bayelsa and Rivers and related with colonialist on their own terms not mediated by currently failed trustee governments, they did not willingly subscribe to or constitute. Their boundaries as Communities and Clans are also well known to them. Incidentally both state governments have established these facts in some measure in their respective media statements and outbursts.
Bayelsa State Government of Nigeria agrees Kalabari-Ijaw communities are of Kalabari Clan as of fact and their land and resources belong to them. They however, posit that the laws of Nigerian as interpreted by five Supreme Court Judges to whom Rivers State Government sort relief from, authorizes National Boundary Commission to establish the territorial limits of state political and administrative boundaries within Maps and their legal claim originate from extant Map as established in Nigerian law and acknowledged by the Supreme Court.
Rivers State Government agrees to the facts of law but spots the injustice inherent in the law arising from errors recognized by the authors of the Map which provides technical grounds for the position taken by the Supreme Court against the declaratory relief Rivers State sort.What is the Point of the Ijaw Youth Council in these PositionsIn 1998, the All Ijaw Youth Conference which established the Ijaw Youth Council and Issued the Kaiama Declaration had these observations to make, as part of its search for the survival of Ijaw people within Nigeria.
a. That it was through British colonization that the Ijaw Nation was forcibly put under the Nigerian State.
b. That but for the economic interest of imperialist, the Ijaw ethnic nationality would have evolved as a distinct and separate sovereign nation, enjoying undiluted political, economic, social and cultural AUTONOMY.
c. That the division of Southern Protectorate into East and West in 1939 by the British marked the beginning of the balkanization of hitherto territorially contiguous and culturally homogeneous Ijaw people into political and administrative units much to our disadvantage. This trend is continuing in the balkanization of the Ijaws into six states, mostly as minorities who suffer socio-political, economic, and psychological deprivations.
d. That the quality of life of ijaw people is deteriorating as a result of utter neglect, suppression and marginalization visited on Ijaws by alliance of the Nigerian state and transnational oil companies and;
e. That the political crisis in Nigeria is mainly about the struggle for control of oil mineral resources which account for over 80% 0f GDP, 95% of National budget and 90% of foreign exchange earnings. From which, 65%, 75% and 70% respectively……. , among other observationsIn Akwa Ibom, the Obolo-Ijaws of Ibeno-Ijaw Clan and Eastern Obolo-Ijaw Clan bear over 90% of resources that provides Akwa Ibom its revenue, but the two Ijaw clans are minorities and worst developed areas in the state despite their contributions because they are politically marginalized minorities and deprived.
In the same breath, the Obolo –Ijaw people like the current situation of mapping of Soku of Kalabari-Ijaws into Bayalsa are separated from their kith and kins of Andoni-Ijaws in Rivers State. We can also make reference of Egbema-Ijaws separated into Edo and Delta States, being Oil and gas bearing communities they are also some of the most underdeveloped and political, economically and psychologically deprived in both states. What about the Arogbo-Ijaws and Apoi-Ijaws of Ondo state that give the state the status of oil bearing state and the conditions of their development.
We can similarly speak of the Soku and Kula people like most Ijaw communities in Rivers State remain very poor and backward. This case is the same for Ijaw Clans of Bayelsa state. With the huge contributions of Ijaw communities over the years, Ijaw communities and people remain most underdeveloped and psychologically deprived and manipulated by political entities and their operators in the Nigerian State enterprise.
Accordingly, the current squabbles only bring to fore again what we stated at Kaiama and continue to reiterate. They remain in the tradition of Nigerian State a manipulation of state structures for the political interest of agents of state and not in any manner the interest of the Ijaw people as reflected in history and current state of development of Ijaw Land Re-affirmation of Our Position as Ijaw Youth CouncilThe Ijaw Youth Council, accordingly reaffirm;
1. That the current political and administrative structure of the Nigerian state do not satisfy the aspiration of Ijaw Nation and its people, but are oppressive and as such must be restructured
2. That Ijaw people are a people of common destiny and heritage and are all geographically contiguous. We therefore continue to seek to be organized into undiluted units of autonomous political entities that define traditional boundaries of Ijaw clans and communities with a model of fiscal federalism that put community ownership of resources significantly in favour and under the influence and control of communities underlined by Ijaw brotherhood.
3. That all governments of the Nigerian State at all levels have not demonstrated any exemplary use of state apparatus for the benefit of Ijaw people in all the states where Ijaws have been forcibly decreed into and as such should not manipulate the sensibilities and sensitivities of our people for cheap political ends and throw our deprived peoples into unwarranted conflict or war.
4. The Ijaw Youth Council call on Ijaw traditional and political leaders to use their time, energies, influences to pursue interest of fundamental nature to Ijaw survival particularly in Rivers, Bayelsa and Delta states where we have significant numbers and influences in our struggles for survival.
5. Finally, the Ijaw Youth Council recommend a southern minorities region of acceptable nomenclature as a federating unit in Nigeria, where Ijaws may seek a minimum of three political and administrative units composed of Western, Central and Eastern Ijaws and allow other nationalities to forge arrangements within the region and its constitution to meet their aspirations eg, Ogonis, Ikwerres, Urhorobo’s, Ibibios, itsekiri’s etc.
Our region may then find a basis to federate with other units like the Yoruba’s, Igbos, Minority Nations of the middle belt and Hausa, Fulani and Kanuri’s of the far North.6. Such a federation should be founded on productive potentials of the region and on the principles of fiscal federalism. As ijaw people we are willing to negotiate and accommodated a transition period, over which we expect economic adjustments to deal with potential economic challenges resulting from years of mis-governance and neglected productive capacity of our respectively endowed regions
7. The government of Rivers State and Bayelsa state should forthwith stop embarrassing themselves with arguments that make no meaning to the real issues of contradictions of the Nigerian state and join forces as sister states to pursue serious political concerns of its peoples and in the meanwhile focus on development needs which are challenged by corruption and bad governance over the years
8. For the Ijaw Youth Council and Ijaw Nation, Resource Ownership and Derivation is a community Issues, stolen into advantageous law for federal and state tiers of government, which we demand must be resolved in favour of communities.
We call on our communities not to be dragged into conflict or accept the seed of hate and discord planted and been watered by Government of Nigerian state, but to focus on our real problem, which is a place for the rights of community in the ownership, control and management of resources found in their respective lands
Sign Miabiye Kuromiema National President Ijaw Youth Council
Jeremiah OwupeleNational Spokeman, Ijaw Youth Council
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