Environmental and human rights activist, Anniko Briggs, shares her thoughts on how to make a better Nigeria in this interview with Emma Obe

What do you think about Nigeria at the moment?
I think very clearly and very obviously that Nigeria as a country, even the way Nigeria started as a country, has failed. Everybody is saying it. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said it. Several other people have said it. America has done a study and has come up with the position that Nigeria bears a format of what would make experts say that it is a failed state or at best, a failing state.

If we recall, Nigeria was created by the British. The historical facts are there that Nigeria was created, Nigeria was amalgamated in 1914 and eventually became an independent state in 1960. It is very clear that Nigeria is not a state or a country that has performed.

How do the people of Niger Delta feel about this scenario you have just painted?
Before Independence, the people of what is today known as the Niger Delta and the geopolitical zone of the South-South had already started agitation against their being included in the country that would become independent with Nigeria. And that was what led up to the Willinks Commission. Men like Harold Dappa Biriye and so many others of this region and other people from these parts went to the United Kingdom, where a meeting with the British government was held.

And some of the issues that led them to the meeting in the United Kingdom are purely what we are talking about today: injustice, the concern that our political leaders and traditional rulers had, that they would get a fair deal within the state that was going to be created as an independent Nigeria.

And that was why some of the reports clearly stated that the Niger Delta is a region that is difficult to develop; it’s underdeveloped, it is neglected, it is abused. These are all descriptions that are in the Willinks report in favour of the cry by what is today known as the South-South, the Niger Delta by her people. Therefore it is not strange. We are not strangers to agitation.

The fact that we are in a country today that has failed is part of the problem that the British created for us. We were not allowed to evolve in our own natural habitat and environment in the way that our forefathers evolved to the point where the British came and Lugard eventually created what he called Nigeria.

There is absolutely nothing to celebrate in Nigeria as an independent country. It is not just today. I certainly believed that for quite a long time. Nigeria has nothing to celebrate. It is actually a shame.

Do you really believe that Niger Delta people do not have a hand in their plight in Nigeria today?

To an extent; yes. The people of the Niger Delta today have not been able to utilise their capacities. Having said that, the fact that they have not been able to utilise their capacity as a people, as I have told you earlier on, we have demonstrated that we can utilise capacity, that is in the past. So, if we can utilise capacity in the past, how come we find ourselves in this situation? That is what brings us to what I would call the deliberate failure that has been set up through the type of politics and the people that implement those policies.

How?
The colonial governments in Nigeria and across Africa really, are very much responsible with the help and assistance and collaboration, sometimes knowingly and unknowingly by our own people collaborating with the colonial government against our own selves. And collaborating with what I would also call external collaborators. So we have internal collaborators, which are our own people.

And then we have external collaborators, who collaborated with other external oppressive parties, that is, the British government. And then there are other people outside the region, outside whom I am, outside being an Ijaw person, there are other people. So when the British wanted to exert powers in different parts that they were packaging together for themselves, they had collaborators. And who are the collaborators? The collaborators were in the north.

When the British began to open up the hinterland by moving inwards, they first came in through the ocean and then some of them came in through the desert from Egypt, from Algeria and all those places and they began to move into what they called the northern protectorate. They had already struck a deal with the people they met in the north. And it worked against the south because now, the British had collaborators in the people that were waging a Jihad war that wanted to Islamise people that they were coming across.

There is collaboration and this has been kept up. Unfortunately, our people in terms of leadership have not been able to see this collaboration as apposition to our existence and do something about it politically or whichever way.

But some measures were taken as recommended by the Willinks Commission report that the Niger Delta be treated like a special needs area?

When you said that the Willinks Report led up to the river basin authority, it is. But then you can see what the collaborators and the external forces did with it. Immediately the British created that basin authority for this area, the same northern collaborators I am referring to also created for themselves disregarding the fact that there was a reason why this basin authority was created and that it didn’t apply to them. And they insisted on it, and all the funds that the British packaged that were supposed to go to the basin authority went to them. The higher category was supposed to come to us. But they changed it and the higher category went to them.

Subsequently agencies like OMPADEC, NDDC and HYPREP were created to attend to the development needs of the region
When people say that OMPADEC was created; after that NDDC, they are not being fair because they are not looking at the fact that these things were created and these things were also denied us. You cannot create a budget, for instance, for NDDC and the same budget that was created for the NDDC is not given to the NDDC in full. Two, the people who are supposed to execute the jobs that NDDC or OMPADEC will give have to be authorised by Abuja; have to be authorised by the same people that we are claiming are being unfair to us. So at the end of the day, things are given with the right hand and taken back with the left hand.

Again, we find ourselves in a situation where the people who are approving the budget, the people who are creating these things are the same people who insist on how and what this should be expended on. And as a matter of fact, who is going to get the jobs now. Take for instance, the probe that came up about NDDC. I have always said that NDDC should be probed. I have always said all agencies irrespective of where they are should be probed because of the corruption that is involved. But now ask yourself. We were seeing and watching magic and drama that was going on about NDDC.

Where is the report? There is no report because they shot it down. Who are the people that benefited from the NDDC? Are they only from outside the Niger Delta? No. Are there Niger Delta people involved? Yes. But the majority of the key players, the people, who have taken the millions and billions like (Godswill) Akpabio rightly said, it was the National Assembly members that have benefited. He knows what he is saying.

He was governor for eight years before he became senator for four years. He is now a minister. He knows what he is saying. He was referring all the way back to when it was created, not just when he became minister. People just want to twist things around. We have our own issues and our own faults. But the major fault is coming from external sources. The major fault we have is that my people have not been able to resist both the external forces and the internal forces that work against the development of our region and our people.

What is the way out for the region?
The question you have just asked, the answer is linked to what I said before. The political structure and politics in Nigeria had been set in place before the creation of NDDC; before the creation of OMPADEC, before the creation of all of them. We in the Niger Delta do not want the creation of agencies. We are human beings. We are of different ethnic nationalities in this region.

There is not a region like the Niger Delta geographically. And there is no region like the South-South politically. We are unique and we are different. Our political positioning and body language is one of the major final positions in any political equation and elections in the country.

The economic position of those regions is the final say in the economy of Nigeria today because there is nothing else that brings in more than the oil and gas in Nigeria. You cannot say that oil and gas belong to the federal on one hand and on the other hand say that gold and bitumen and any other things that are found in the north belong to the state that they are found in. It is ridiculous. And it is oppressive.

It is looting of other people’s resources when you create states that are not viable with the sole intention of using the resources of another state to keep that other state viable. For example, Kano has 44 local government areas. It is not producing anything, even tax wise.

Even the tax that is raised in Kano is generated by what the traders and the commerce people do in Kano. And they are not majorly indigenes of Kano. They are majorly Igbo people that generate the tax in Kano. And it is generated mainly by Christians in Kano. Yet, Kano is taking from the tax that is generated in Lagos and other states where alcohol is consumed and Kano banned alcohol.

The oil and gas that are generated by a state like my state, Rivers State, that has 23 local government areas and Bayelsa State that has only eight local government areas. Now, Kano gets 44 allocations that go to local government areas of the 774 local government areas every month.

Kano gets 44 of oil and gas share that comes from Bayelsa, which has only eight local government areas and Rivers State which has 23 local government areas. In sharing allocation, what is Bayelsa State getting from Kano? Nothing. What is Rivers State getting from Kano? Nothing. And so this already is just so unfair and unacceptable. Those are the politics that we are talking about. These are wrong politics.

So, what should be done?
That is why we have been saying let us control our resources. If you recall, Adaka Boro before (Emeka)Ojukwu declared a war in Nigeria that lasted 12 days. What was the content of his declaration? We will show them how we feel about injustice. As from today, we must resist them because our grandmothers are suffering in the villages. They are sucking the oil from our blood.

So the resistance against injustice did not start today. It didn’t start with MEND. It didn’t start with Avengers. It started with Adaka Boro just after Independence. So the policies that are on ground are working against some parts of Nigeria. And it is working for some parts of Nigeria.

Today, it has become very clear. And there is no sensitivity. The people are insensitive. The government is insensitive. This particular government, whose whole structure is in the hands of the people from a particular ethnic nationality and from a particular region. The structure today of the customs is completely (you have other ethnic nationalities, don’t get me wrong that are customs officers) controlled by one religion and one ethnic nationality. That does not in any way demonstrate that all of us are equal. Some are more equal than others.

The political structure, the economic structure, the developmental structure, even the religious structure, everything is working against the people of southern Nigeria, who are majorly Christians. How do we think? Do we fare well in this country? No, we do not. Should we continue within this type of structure? No, we should not. That is why we are saying, let us restructure Nigeria.

The point, therefore, is that our people must wake up to the reality that Nigeria should not survive at the cost of the identity of another ethnic nationality. That is what they are trying to do. They don’t care as long as they survive. Nigeria has failed just the same way marriages are said to have failed when they have irreconcilable differences. We have differences that we cannot reconcile with ourselves. We are intolerant of each other. We are just pretending. It will take us nowhere.

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Then, we found ourselves in the 2014 national conference, which some people are saying they will never accept because it is convened by a southerner, it is convened by a Niger Delta person, it is convened by a Christian. They will never accept any decision that is made by a Christian for them. If they don’t want to accept any condition, any suggestion that is made by a Christian, made by a southerner, why should southerners and Christians accept conditions that are made by them?

They don’t have two heads. You know the reality is that today, Nigeria has failed and anything that they say is success in Nigeria is being imposed by some people on other people. If you don’t want to restructure, you don’t want to practice federalism, you don’t want people to be self-determined within the state that they find themselves in, you don’t want them.

The structure is wrong and we must revisit. You don’t want to practice federalism. You brought a constitution, you say we the people. We the people did nothing. So you are lying. You don’t want people to control their resources and their economy. You want people to be relocated out of their community because you claim that there was a cattle route in the days of the British government, so that cattle route in another man’s land. After Independence, you are now still claiming a cattle route.

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You are coming all the way from your state and your country to come and claim cattle routes in Imo State, in Abia State and in Rivers State. And you think it will be well. Cattle ranching is a private business like fishing. Why is cattle ranching something that Rivers State must give free land to a private businessman to make profit? It is not as if he is from Rivers State. Ranch it and if I want it, I will come and buy it from you and transport it back to Rivers State. What is wrong with that? Are they not bringing tomatoes and going back? Or we must give them tomato ranch.

So if we are not restructuring, if we are not practicing federalism, if we are not going to own our resources, if we are not going to be self-determined, then I ask myself, what am I? If I have no will of my own to do what I want, why can I not have the refinery that I can refine oil in my own backyard when a man, a governor can get up and come to present to the president of Nigeria 12 bags of gold and precious stones.

The people of the Niger Delta need to wake up to reality. We need to argue our case in our own interest and in the interest of the people.