Having spent the past three days around the table with a small group of people in Abuja, all of whom are dedicated to improving life on the ground in a tangible way for the communities of the Niger Delta, I was startled to discover myself on the opposite end of the spectrum from one of my colleagues on the outlook for the Delta region. Specifically, I felt we disagreed on the prospects for meaningful change under the current federal administration.
My colleague, who has periodic interaction with ministerial contacts in Abuja, has over the last year got the sense that government folks are serious about change, and about improving the Delta. As such, it is not fair to paint them with the same brush as the preceding administrations. In essence, my colleague has taken the risk to feel optimistic. Perhaps cautiously optimistic, but optimistic nonetheless.
For myself, I don’t see it. The current administration has failed miserably to make any headway since coming to office in May 2007. President Yar’Adua, in order to recover from the massive and blatant electoral fraud which characterised the elections and destroyed his legitimacy, needed to make progress on two key issues that matter to the citizens. First, the government needed to make quick visible progress on the provision of electricity. However, the government has not only failed to improve on the situation it inherited last year, but in fact has overseen the further deterioration of the network. For a country swimming in oil revenues, for electricity generation to have plummeted from about 2000MW to under 900MW at one point this year is unacceptable. People all over the country are outraged, and justifiably so — especially when the government appears more focused on ferreting out misuse of funds spent on this issue under the previous administration than on tackling the issue themselves.
The second issue was to deliver results on peace and security in the Niger Delta. After choosing a running mate from the Niger Delta, in a clear attempt to demonstrate commitment to the issue, Yar’Adua has made no headway. Online pharmacies sample viagra http://secretworldchronicle.com/tag/metis/ assure for discreet packaging of the drug. It is savvy to turn away admission of buy viagra discover now now, if you take it with other medications, which is why you should discuss it with your doctor beforehand. Some of the brands in our network are seeing online cialis 25-30 percent redemption rates. Dilation is an essential part for the organ becoming erect. viagra canada free secretworldchronicle.com His initiative to organise a Niger Delta summit had already fundamentally failed by the end of 2007. During the first few months of 2008, it looked increasingly like the summit would simply be another talking shop for the familiar faces, and not even including all the stakeholders. By the middle of this year, the process was abandoned, after a controversial figure (Ibrahim Gambari, recently a UN special representative to Burma, but associated with the atrocities in the Delta region under the Abacha regime) was chosen to chair the summit. Yar’Adua appears now to have pulled back, and is considering his options for engagement with the region. Worse, he’s managed to evoke a commitment from the UK for security cooperation in the region, which was widely interpreted in the region as evidence that London prioritises the security of the region’s oil over the livelihoods and development of its people.
For those of us committed to promoting positive change, this situation presents a strong challenge. On the grassroots level, there is evidence of change. The board meeting which brought me to the region was for Stakeholder Democracy Network, an organisation that is making a difference on a small scale at a very local level. That in itself is reason to hope. But compared to the scale of the problem, it also makes clear the enormity of the challenge. I fear it won’t be anytime soon that we can hang up our tools and congratulate ourselves on a job well done.
Nevertheless, it’s worth the effort. The struggle is to maintain realism, without yielding to cynicism — a challenge almost as daunting as the project itself.