Buhari Does Not Respect Niger Delta – Edwin Clark

Edwin Clark recently spoke up about all things Muhammadu Buhari as election results roll in from several polling units.

He also had his say on INEC’S postponement of the general elections last week and how it affected a lot of things and people in the country.

In an interview with Punch, he said, “As I said earlier, the word ‘independent’ in INEC is not just for formality. It is meaningful in the sense that it is an independent institution. And that is what is provided for in the 1999 constitution of Nigeria.

Unfortunately, for some time now, we have observed that the executive arm of the Federal Government is always tampering with the independence of the INEC, which is unconstitutional.

I won’t say it is only President Muhammadu Buhari that is doing it. This has continued for some time and Nigeria should fight against that, that this is an independent institution meant to conduct elections. That’s why I said the other day that in a place like India, the electoral body controls the security. When elections are to be held in India, the head of the police and the ministers will sit with the electoral body and ask them how many or what type of security do you have. If he talks about 4,000 security men or four million, they will agree on that and that number will be sent to the electoral body for training.

After that, they will be controlling them during and after the election, pay them their allowances. Not in the situation whereby what we saw in the 2018 budget, where certain amount of money is given to the Army, certain amount of money is given to the NSA, certain amount of money is given to the electoral body… I think this is very irregular. So, that is why I said, the chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, has the courage and wisdom to postpone the election because today, both the government and the politicians are criticising him. And if this is true, that is what Nigeria wants that INEC should be free from the control of anybody if it is to conduct free, fair and credible elections.

Normally in the past, the electoral commission would refer to the executive. The election will not be postponed without the President knowing about it and so on. But this particular one, it appears the chairman and the commission took the decision on their own, particularly when he (Mahmood) said he is not prepared to stagger the elections, which is against the position of the government.”

On if INEC chairman was acting on instructions given to when he mved the date, he said, When you listen to the government, the President even called the chairman incompetent for the action. I saw the meeting they had on Saturday at the International Conference Centre, Abuja. You could see that the APC (All Progressives Congress) national chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, was very hard on the chairman. That gives you the impression that perhaps, he did not consult with them.”

On if the plans Buhari said he had for Niger Delta had been implemented, his words “Nothing! Nothing has been done. Before then, you realised at that time that Niger Delta Avengers, some militants, were vandalising pipelines and oil platforms. The Federal Government sent troops to the area, including what they called, Operation Crocodile Smile. It could not stop, but it was when I convened the meeting at the PTI in Effurun and invited prominent Niger Delta people from all walks of life, and about 500 of us attended that meeting. We were addressed by the governor of Delta State.

There, it was resolved that we should appeal to our children to stop vandalising the pipelines and they listened and they stopped the vandalism. Then we decided to see Mr. President. I led the delegation of about 100 first-class traditional rulers, politicians, senators, businessmen, youths and women to Aso Rock on November 1, on a Monday, to present a 16-point programme to Mr. President. The place was full; some of our governors were there. At the end of it all, we took photographs with Mr. President. We held a conference in the Villa, attended by some of the ministers and some of our prominent leaders. After that, we heard nothing until Mr President went to London on health vacation.

Then the Acting President, in the person of Prof. Yemi Osibanjo came to the Niger Delta where the university is, visited the traditional rulers and he made a statement there. The statement may be a joke but he said he thought the oil-producing areas must have been another Dubai. He was shocked that no development was taking place in the area. Then when he came to Warri, I presided over the meeting, various statements were made and he said the government was going to adopt the 16-point programme.

Thereafter, he decided to tour the area – the nine states that made up the Niger Delta. All along, we, Pan Niger Delta Forum members were invited to accompany him and we were very much impressed.

In Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital, he told the audience that our boys should abandon these illegal refineries and modular refineries would be set up, whereby these youths will be part owners. Nothing has been done since that time. He went to Uyo, he told the Uyo audience that the oil companies should relocate to their operational headquarters because we discovered that in Lagos, there could not have been anywhere called Lekki if Chevron and Mobil had not sited their headquarters there. And we said, in Lagos, the workers pay their personal tax, the people in Lagos benefit from the operations of these two companies. At the lower level, the groundnuts, the water, bread and other things that these people sell at these companies’ operation were being carried out by Lagosians. Chevron has an estate in Gbagada for their workers. So we thought that if they bring the headquarters of their operations to the Niger Delta, it will save money, the area will be developed because they will not be flying everyday from Lagos to Escravos or to Forcados river and the people will benefit. What do they use? They now use houseboats at the waterfronts. Once the operation is over, the houseboats leave and there is no evidence again to show that there was ever a company here. These are the problems that we are facing.

The youth are not employed. A situation whereby people from other regions are employed more than our people, I have evidence to that. In fact, recently, I sent a petition concerning some boys who are engineers, who have been trained but are not absorbed. They gave them contract employment. Yet their counterparts from other parts of the country are being employed.”