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Asari changes the ground rule
ANDY IKE EZEANI
Nigeria was
prominent in the international news orbit last week. As usual it was not exactly
for the right reasons. With Oil price hitting a recent high mark of $50 per
barrel, the world’s sixth biggest producer of crude would not be completely out
of place in the sun. But then, if it concerns oil but does not involve the
mismanagement of the prized asset it surely will not be Nigeria. It followed
pattern therefore, that while the issue of interest on the international arena
was oil, Nigeria gained a prime place as a subject of the attention essentially
as a result of its perennial problem of existence. The crisis surrounding its
production and supply of oil happens to be a part of the manifestations of its
unruly essence. The world is forced by need to pay attention in this instance.
Producing oil has come to mean a curse for
Nigerians, more or less. The higher the price of the product on the world
market, the greater the burden at home for the people.Intriguingly, if the price
of the same product heads the opposite direction and takes a dive, the people of
Nigeria are in trouble no less It is that hopeless. The fate and fortune of
other producers of the same product are, of course, different.It cannot but be
so anyway, for there is no other place under the sun as maligned as Nigeria and
its leaders are simply peculiar.
The working of the oil price mechanism as
promoted by the present Nigerian government completely seals the fate of
Nigerians. If oil price declines in the international market, the government
cuts back on the budget for social amenities and services. Justification for
such a cut back is easy; oil is the primary source of income for the economy, so
a low oil price automatically translates into reduction on government
expenditure for social services.
For much of the five years that President
Olusegun Obasanjo has been in government, the price of oil has however, been on
the upper side of the budget estimate. That is to say, the Obasanjo government
has been far more fortunate than any other government in Nigeria in the last two
decades at least, in terms of receipt from oil. In the last five years, oil
price has not gone below $20.That actually, is a very low benchmark. For any
other oil producing country, the healthy income from oil in the last five years
would naturally have been a blessing. It has not turned out that way for
Nigeria. On the contrary, the continued rise in the international price of oil,
occasioned by the quagmire in Iraq among some other factors, has become a new
source of misery for hapless Nigerians.
In the explanation of the government,
since none of its refineries is working, it has been selling unrefined crude
while importing refined oil at the high international price. This being the
case, Nigerians, producers of crude oil or not, just have to pull themselves up
and buy the product at whatever price obtains on the international market. That
is what free market economy in a global economy means, so holds President
Obasanjo, who relishes holding court to expertly educate his hostages on this
rather remarkable theory of free market economics.Somehow, interestingly, it
never comes across to the President as an indictment that in five years, he has
not been able to fix one refinery or on the alternative build one, if the
existing ones are far too gone to be salvaged.
The issue in the international news last
week concerning Nigeria had nothing to do with what the country makes of its oil
and the tremendous income that accrues therefrom.The story was about a local
militia and its less than one week ultimatum to foreigners, especially oil
workers operating in the Niger Delta area to leave the area. In the clear,
definite message from
Mr.Dokubo Asari, the president of the Ijaw
Youth Council (IYC), Friday, October 1, 2004 will mark the commencement of show
down with the government of Nigeria over control of the oil belt of Niger Delta.
Although a recent profile in the struggle by the impoverished people of the
Niger Delta to get some measure of justice and economic protection from the
collaborative parties of rapacious oil exploiters in the oil belt, Asari seemed
determined to make a point. He has been accused of involvement in some of the
recent deadly conflicts between dark warring groups in Rivers State which
continues to be deceptively tagged cult clashes. He denies involvement in any
such activity, explaining his focus to be on higher, more serious issues of the
survival of the Ijaws and Niger Delta.
Whether Dokubo Asari and his group are
identified as freedom fighters or nationalists or rebels or mischief makers does
not seem to matter to the militia men.Asari gave a deadline and the world took
note. The ultimatum did not exactly push up price of oil on the international
market, but the development was been keenly followed.
Then something happened. President
Obasanjo who has been threatening hell and brimstone against radical ethnic
organizations and paramilitary groups around reached out to Asari.
The Federal Government and its State
Security Services (SSS) did not send , Dokubo Asari a one way ticket to report
to their headquarters in Abuja last week for some hazy discussions. They did not
set about in a futile crude hunt for the members of the IYC, their pastime where
it concerns Ralph Uwazurike’s MASSOB. The IYC president, who made it clear from
the onset that he was out for war in the struggle for restitution in the Niger
Delta, was respectfully ferried across to the federal capital. Interestingly,
the resolute young man met, not with the SSS, not with the Inspector General of
Police, but with President Olusegun Obasanjo.
May be the Obasanjo-Asari conference
heralds a new approach by the Obasanjo government in seeking resolution to
nagging questions of inequity and injustice within the Nigerian state. We shall
see.
The attempt by some of the assistants to
the President to deny the meeting between Asari and the Federal Government was
rather awkward. It remains unclear till now what that effort to deny the meeting
was intended to achieve. Information Minister, Chukwuemeka Chikelu’s reported
explanation that the government has always met with such groups as Asari leads,
came across as more matured. There may not be any point asking the minister when
last they met with Uwazurike.Or Ganiu Adams of OPC.Matters will still arise.
Even if anyone in government wanted to
deny the meeting, Asari would not do so. He confirmed the meeting right inside
the venue. His integrity was amply testified to by President Obasanjo who later
confirmed the meeting, how ever he defined it. In the reported words of the
President, "We are talking to those I described as rascally elements from the
Niger Delta in the effort to open lines of dialogue and peace as they feel
aggrieved by their state authorities".
Give credit to Dokubo Asari.If it takes him and his
determination to get President Obasanjo to realize that there is need to talk to
aggrieved groups within Nigeria’s troubled setting, the young man would have
made his mark. It is apparent that the President is far more realistic and
respectful than the SSS which goes about issuing one way ticket to elder
statesman to come over to Abuja to discuss an unspecified matter. May be Dokubo
Asari may be the turning point in a life of this government. Asari’s suspension
of his ultimatum on the Niger Delta is but a first yield from the dialogue. Many
more can follow. Who says we are not making progress?
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