I’m sure that in the night when Tinubu wakes up, he will regret that he asked for this job—Female Activist Ann Briggs

Ms. Ann-Kio Briggs, 72, is a compelling voice on issues affecting the Niger-Delta region and Nigeria, generally. A member of various ethnic organizations, the Rivers State-born rights activist, in this interview with Vanguard, spoke on Rivers politics, the state of the nation, and the way forward for the country.

What are the economic and social implications of the dissolution of the Niger-Delta Affairs Ministry by President Bola Tinubu?
We must remember how the ministry of Niger-Delta came to be established. It was established through a process and for a reason. Dissolving it came as a shock to everybody, especially the people who fought and agitated to make sure that changes were brought to the Niger Delta. (Late President Umaru Musa) Yar’Adua created that ministry at a time we were also discussing the possibility of amnesty along with what eventually ended up as PIA (Petroleum Industry Act). We demanded that 10% should go directly to the host communities.

A lot had gone on before we ended up with the Ministry of Niger-Delta. But the President was advised or he decided it was better for his government to scrap the Niger Delta ministry and bring together other commissions. North-East Development Commission, South-East Development Commission among others. It reminds us of past agencies, even the ones that were created before the Willinks commission such as the Basin authorities and many others which were created specially for the Niger Delta.

It seems to us that anytime the Niger-Delta gets something, everybody wants to get exactly the same thing. But nobody wants to take the suffering the Niger-Delta people are suffering because of oil and gas due to the neglect the people suffer.

For a long time, the Niger-Delta people have been neglected, pushed aside and disrespected. Dissolving the Niger Delta ministry is one more disrespect and disregard. It is like saying, ‘what can you do about it? We have made our decision.’ You can see the reactions that trailed the dissolution of that ministry.

The Niger-Delta Development Commission, NDDC, was first put in the presidency when it was created. Later, they brought it to the ministry of Niger Delta under the guidance of the present Senate President, Godswill Akpabio. Niger-Delta people have lost all that they got and our people are also part of why we lost it all. If I see Akpabio even as he is now the Senate President, I will ask him whether he is the person that encouraged the scrapping of the Niger-Delta ministry. Now we don’t know what is going to become of the NDDC. It is sad. It is painful. We feel used.

We have about six development commissions, do you feel a sense of Nigeria returning back to the old system of regionalism in a subtle way?
That is not the sense that I feel. We already have six geo-political zones. If you talk about regionalism as it were, what then will you do with the geo-political zones? Are you going to rearrange it back to regions? If that is so, then everyone should produce, manage and control what they have.

We had cocoa in the West, they used it to develop themselves. Groundnut was in the North and they used it to develop themselves also. But when it came to oil and gas, they are using it to develop Nigeria except the Niger Delta region. What we are getting is just 13%. Even that 13% is far low because the majority of work that the Niger Delta people were supposed to do in the NDDC is being done by people who are not from the region. Yes, they will say the commission is being run by the people of the region but there is a northerner on the board of the commission. What is he doing there?

Going back to regionalism is not a decision the president alone can make. It has to go to the Assembly, more like a referendum. That is not how changes come about. I have never seen it anywhere in the world where somebody will just wake up and say, we had a national anthem in the 1960s, I want to change the present anthem to the old one. I have never seen that kind of a thing. Those are the things that are of concern to me.

Are we going to wake up one day and hear that they have removed the 13% derivation? The western world says oil is no more useful but the Nigerian government is shouting oil theft every day without knowing who the thieves are. Talking about oil thieves, we have them even in power. The NNPC has a lot of questions to answer, the security forces that have been occupying the Niger Delta since 1999 must answer how this oil is being stolen. They know how the oil is stolen.

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So, when you say regionalism, the policies are just mixed up. This looks like restructuring going on, but you have not discussed it with the people. We have been shouting for restructuring and changes. If you are going to effect those changes, you have to discuss them with the people. This is not how to change policies. What is this ministry of Livestock that they are talking about? Can we also have the Ministry of Fish and Periwinkle to balance the equation?

As a Niger-Delta elder, are there any plans by PANDEF or any other group to send a delegation to the President to reverse the dissolution of the Niger Delta Ministry?
Whatever plans on ground by the ethnic nationalities of the Niger Delta who are affected by this change, I am not in any position to discuss it. Yes, we are definitely discussing the matter, but I can’t discuss it here.

There is a move by some persons in Rivers State to stop the local government allocations, what is the implication of this to the common people?
The problem of Rivers is the fact that there are some people that have never done anything in their lives except politics. There is no other country except in Africa where you have that scenario playing out. In civilized climes, you have people who have gone through some stages in life, served in the Army, being diplomats, lawyers and ran companies among others before going into politics.

In Rivers State, there are some people who think they were born to be politicians. This is a personal interest that has turned into politics. You have a situation where a few group of people are those to determine what happens in Rivers State. They don’t realize that the resistance today is coming from the people. The type of politics in Rivers State is very dangerous. It can actually make even those who practice it sick.

There is a section of the constitution that everybody keeps referring to that if you defect from your position or party and go to another party, you have lost your seat. There are people who refuse to accept that the tenure of the local government is three years. Local government elections are going on in every state as instructed by the Supreme Court. The governor of Rivers State, Siminalayi Fubara, has the right to call the state electoral commission, RSIEC, to conduct elections. The fact that they refused to understand this is why some persons are conniving with outsiders in the judiciary and other political parties outside the state to deprive their own people of the dividends of democracy. There are some people who feel that they have the right to go to court to deprive the Rivers State government of allocations.

I am amazed because this same thing happened to Tinubu. When he was the governor of Lagos State, (then President Olusegun) Obasanjo withheld the allocations of the council areas, did he sit down and fold his hands? Even if that allocation is withheld, will it go to those who said it should not be released to the state? It will still go to the people. This is insane. This is being encouraged by some persons in the judiciary who are confused on what to do.

PANDEF has just set up a reconciliation committee to settle the crisis between Nyesom Wike and Fubara. Will this effort yield anything positive considering the two failed attempts by the President?

Don’t forget that PANDEF is an organization that involves the six states of the Niger-Delta. The decision by PANDEF is binding as much as it is what the body wants to do. There are voices that do not agree with that decision. I am a member of PANDEF. So, if it wants to try to see if it could achieve what it wants, that is fine. The FCT minister had said over his dead body, he would never forgive Siminalayi Fubara. I don’t know what the governor has done that he will never forgive him. If PANDEF believes that it can succeed and is going into where Angels fear to tread, if they succeed, fine, if they fail, I won’t be surprised. This is Rivers State’s problem.

Youths of the Niger-Delta have issued a threat to blow up oil installations in the region if the allocations of local government areas in the state are stopped. Do you see the region returning to the dark days of militancy?
Yes, I always foresee that. Before the time of armed agitation, it was not about a matter of one person but a group of persons reacting to what was affecting them. That type of reaction should be expected because when you push people to the wall, they will always push back with what they have. So, if a group has come out to say that this is what they will do, then we have to do something about it. I have always said this when armed agitation came into the equation that I am highly concerned about the environment because we are the ones to suffer the devastating environment such action will create. It is the Federal Government that will suffer the loss of revenue. Am always concerned about the environment when the pipelines are blown up whether by thieves or in anger and frustration. I am not worried about the revenue the rest of Nigeria will lose. The Federal Government should not take this threat lightly because any judgment that accepts the plea being made at the court that the allocation of the local governments in Rivers State should not be released because a group of people feels they can get that kind of wicked judgment against the people of Rivers State, is bad. If the judgment goes their way and the people carry out their threats, the environment will suffer and the Federal Government will also suffer. Nigeria as a whole will suffer because they will lose a lot of revenue.

Give us your perspective on the state of the nation today in terms of economic hardship, insecurity and what is the way forward for Nigeria?
Let us make no mistake about the fact that the present government under President Tinubu is not responsible for the woes that Nigeria has been through since independence. But as they say, I am not the president. He is the president. The buck is on his table. What he does to fix whatever was spoiled before he came is to his credit and if it is worse, he has to take the responsibility. In 2011/2012 (former President Goodluck) Jonathan removed subsidy and the price of petrol went up from around N72 to about N90, people like this President then, Femi Falana, Wole Soyinka, Tunde Bakare and Muhammadu Buhari were at the forefront of ‘occupy Nigeria’, which threatened to bring the government of Jonathan down if he didn’t reverse the price of fuel to what it was. Jonathan succumbed to that pressure. Today, Nigerians are buying fuel for more than N1000. In the creeks, we are buying fuel for close to N2000 a litre because of the high cost of transportation. When you look at the value of the dollar when President Tinubu took over, last year, and compare it today, you will know there is a problem.

He came and said he could fix the problem but has not been able to fix anything. The supply of electricity was bad but today there is even no electricity. Terrorists are busy attacking power supplies in the North. No light. As you are sitting with me here now, there is no electricity and I live in GRA.

They said we are in band A. I know how much I spend on petrol in a day. Everything has gone worse. Is it education, medical or what, everything has gone worse. I am thinking of buying a bag of rice to keep for Christmas because the price will go up. You can’t afford beef again, you can’t afford chicken and our fishes are polluted. Things have gone from bad to worse even for them. Things have really gone bad since the President took over. I am sure that in the night when he wakes up, he will regret that he asked for this job. He said it was his turn, but the question is it is in your turn that Nigerians can say that since the amalgamation and independence, Nigerians who are alive can say that so far this is the worst government in terms of bad governance, corruption, insecurity among others?

The people in government must stop deceiving the President that he is doing well. I wish that the President can sit in the villa and have a town hall meeting across the 36 states where people can call in through the local governments or their representatives to engage him on issues affecting them. The people advising the President are not telling him the truth.

I can’t recall the last time a sitting President visited my community. The people in power don’t hear from the people they are governing. They don’t hear from the woman picking periwinkles and sending her children to school. But today she can’t even eat the periwinkle or sell it because it is polluted. Yet, you have people who are buying assets that the oil companies are leaving behind in our communities. There are Nigerians and foreigners who are buying these things.

The President just announced that there are 31 or so oil wells up for sale. Where are these oil wells, who are those buying them? I want to ask the governors of the oil producing states of the Niger-Delta why they should allow these oil companies to leave behind this kind of devastation and sell off their assets to non-Niger Delta people? Who is going to be responsible for the devastation they leave behind? These are some of the things that this President must hear. If we don’t drill oil and gas again today in the Niger-Delta, I will be the happiest person on earth. Let everybody go to his community and see what they can pick up to develop themselves.