Why there is so much suffering in Niger Delta- Edwin Clark

Edwin Clark is a nationalist, Ijaw leader and politician from Delta State. In this interview on Arise Television, he spoke on the inauguration of the 10th National Assembly, the state of the Niger Delta region, among other issues. BusinessDay brings the excerpts:

What is your reaction to the election of Godswill Akpabio as Senate president and a Christian deputy speaker also from the South?

I’m not a pessimist, I always want to believe that the right thing will be done in Nigeria, but at the moment Nigeria is a broken country, even though the last government refused to accept it.

They scored themselves 100 percent, nobody believed them, no right-thinking Nigeria believed them.

We believe that we must build up a country, whoever becomes the president that’s what we believe. How do we heal the wound? The North and the South must be equal partners.

I was surprised yesterday to hear that out of the 109 senators, 55 of them are Muslims, 54 are Christians, whoever says that Christians have to be relegated to the background? No. So, what happened yesterday gladdened my mind. I congratulate 109 senators.

I was a Senator myself, they’ve done very well, they conducted themselves very well and the competition that went on even though Yari was not qualified, went on very well. It shows that Nigerians are coming to understand themselves. This never happened some years ago.

So, I congratulate all of them, the president of the Senate an uncommon thing actually happened, nobody thought he would win. He came to me and I blessed him, I gave him my prayer; I am 93 years old. I know God will hear my prayer, listen to my prayer.

I congratulate Akpabio, I also congratulate his opponent, Yari, I like the way he came to congratulate his opponent who defeated him, Yari was able to get 46 votes the way he came to embrace the man who defeated him. I say the same thing for the House of Representatives where they openly showed that I vote for this man, I was very proud.

I congratulate all of them and I pray that the almighty God keeps them together, thinking about the interest of Nigeria first before themselves. I also want to advise them that the 10th Assembly will be able to reduce the cost of governance; people are suffering in Nigeria but a few people are enjoying it. Nothing has changed in the state house, the number of things they do they have not reduced them.

The number of cars the President uses, the number of cars the governors use, the number of cars the president of the Senate uses, these things have to be reduced to show to Nigerians that something is wrong, that the economy is down. Therefore, we are all observing that. I thank the new Assembly. This reminds me of 2014 when we had the national conference; at the end of the conference where we made 600 recommendations, my good friend Professor Jubril Aminu from Adamawa came to me and said; a new Nigeria had been born and held me; and we went to His Majesty, the Lamido of Adamawa.

What are the things you love to see under Bola Tinubu’s administration under a South-South Senate president?

I am a forthright man; I don’t know a mix of things you know very well that the election the tribunals are still holding in that case we are looking for a judgment from the tribunal, if possible from the Supreme Court of Nigeria. It’s too early for me to comment on the President Bola Tinubu’s administration. But as to what Akpabio said; yes the Niger- Delta people produced almost all the oil in this country, almost all of them but we are strangers in our own home. We are poorer now than when our forefathers were alive. They were worthy traders; you take King Jaja of Opobo, so many of them, even my own great grandfather bought a jeep of his own. The European intelligence report says that my great grandfather Beccaremo had a compound as big as the Oba of Benin’s. He had a glass shot for European guests, but today everything has gone down. Our schools are not well equipped, new teachers and to imagine that we don’t have proper development in our area. Series of reports of inquiries have been set up, but nothing has happened, we are suffering. To tell you how bad it is, I have to travel to Daura, if I have to benefit from the oil that is found in my backyard, I have to go and take permission for that benefit to be given to me. We have no light; we have no water, and we are fishermen. We were fishermen, today fish are dying in our rivers; they are floating all about. We have to eat ice fish now in the Niger Delta which is an abomination. We are suffering on roads; look at the East West Road. I took it up with Godswill Akpabio when he came to visit me, days before he won the senate president seat. He told me that 75 billion naira given to him by Buhari to finish the road was later taken away from him when people like former minister of Transportation Rotimi Amaechi and Timipre Sylva who have always been fighting among themselves went to meet with former president, Buhari.

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This is what Akpabio told me when he came to visit me some days ago. He said that they told Buhari that the job of East-West road should be handed over to the federal ministry of works and Buhari asked him to hand over the money to the Minister of works. Akpabio told me that people are blaming him for embezzling 75 billion naira. So, these are some of the problems we are facing.

The East West Road has been on and not constructed for over 12 years, nothing has happened, yet the minister of Transportation at that time was building Railways to Maradi in Niger forgetting his own area. He comes from River State; he should be able to show what he did for the River State.

Based on the suffering of the people of the Niger Delta, you wrote a letter as regards how the derivation money was spent in Delta State. Can you speak on that?

Let me say this 13% derivation was something raised at the Constituents Assembly by the former Justice of the Supreme Court.

People like the late Yara’Adua and others felt that there was a need to compensate the people that produce the oil and we were going around lobbying; 13 percent was granted under Section 1622 of the constitution which provided 13 percent of the federation account be paid to the oil producing communities for their development.

If that money was properly spent our boys would not be agitated, there would not be more militants in the creeks, but we are always facing the federal government. I’m not facing the governors who have been stealing the money.

At the 2014 national conference, we asked for an increase to 20 to 25 percent to 50 percent after five years; but they told us we will give you 18 percent, but go home and see what your governors are doing with the 13 percent. That’s why we decided to ask the governors what have you been doing with this money?

I remember in 2017, when the new Nigeria Avengers gave a warning to the Federal Government that they would attack oil pipelines and platforms if the derivation money is not used in developing them. I had to intervene; appealed to them that I would talk to the governor.

The managing director, Makinde and his director came to see me in Abuja that he could not pay their staff and the contractors. Properties which they used as collateral were seized by the bank that gave them the loans.

So, I sent a message to the then Governor Okowa, I told him to make some money available, even though you are on leave. There was a law established by DESOPADEC that 50 percent of the money should be given to the new organisation, the question most of us asked at that time was what are you going to do with the remaining money? Nobody could account for that and that had been going on for a long time.

Recently, former governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike revealed in one of his press conferences, the amount of money that was paid to them by Buhari’s government under the 13 percent derivation and Delta State got over N250 billion.

This annoyed the former governor of Delta State who issued a statement criticising the people, saying they were interfering in their matter.

So, I wrote a letter to the former governor of Delta State to account for the money he had collected, he replied that he spent 5 billion naira in paying pensioners in Delta State. How does that come under the 13 percent oil derivation money? They also spend the money building a university in his own village with his money.

I decided to employ a lawyer who went to the Federal Accountant General’s office to obtain the certified copy of all the amounts they paid to Delta State since 2007-December 2022.