A Nigerian NGO and its good works. (Part 3)

With the vastness of the Niger Delta — 187 local government areas, more than 40 different ethnic groups and 250 languages and dialects among them, about 28 million peoples, 12 per cent of Nigeria’s surface area, 13,329 settlements, with only 98 being urban centres, long coastlines and environments that are devastated; you will no doubt agree with RAWDP that to accomplish its mission is a huge challenge.

RAWDP is presently working in only 7 communities out of over 5,000 located in only 7 local government areas out of 187. This is really not enough hence underscoring the imperativeness of training and empowering the trainees and the communities to expand the water filter production within a record time.

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Ken Saro-Wiwa Resurrects

The prolonged struggle by the Ogonis was rewarded on Monday 8 September, when the Vice-President of Nigeria, Dr. Jonathan Goodluck inaugurated a 40 man Niger Delta Technical Committee headed by Ledum Mitee, the second in command to the murdered environmental activists Ken Saro-wiwa.

Mitee alongside Ken Saro-wiwa and other members of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), faced murder trial in 1995, while Mitee survived Abacha’s hangman, Saro-wiwa and nine others paid the supreme price for the emancipation of the farm lands of the Ogonis from Shell and a healthier, greener environment.

The Federal Government should go beyond allowing a MOSOP member to head the NDTC and grant presidential pardon to the murdered Ogoni activists and coupled it with executive apology to the families of the slain heroes and the peoples of Niger Delta.

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A Nigerian NGO and its good works. (Part 2)

In the NGO, Rural Africa Water Development Project (RAWDP), a baseline assessment/survey is often the first step towards a water, sanitation and hygiene improvement programme. It provides RAWDP a means of assessing the existing water and sanitation as well as the Hygiene situation of the target communities, and to understand why people do what they do and why the status quo subsists.

To make the assessment effective RAWDP uses suitable methods to investigate the existing situation within the community. Baseline information enable it to; Prioritize communities, or identify target audiences within a particular community for the promotion of its programmes; Providing the baseline for planning and measuring the success of the intervention .i.e. it need to know the proportion of people using each risky practice before its programme starts, so at a later stage it can measure this again to see if there has been a reduction; identifying the issues to be addressed, and the resources available or required for resolving them, and understanding the water and sanitation situation of a community and the issues surrounding those practices.

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Father Hassan Kukah Attacks Niger Delta Elites

The most politically visible Catholic Priest in the last decade, Father Hassan Matthew Kukah, has thrown his weight behind the 19 Northern State Governors who dropped the bomb that the North can survive without oil from the Niger Delta. This outburst by the Northern Governors was in response to an accusation by the leader of Niger Delta Volunteer Force, Asari Dokubo, that the North is parasitic and living off the oil and environmental degradation of the Niger Delta.

According to Father Kukah, who stirred the reconciliation between Ogoin and Shell, the problem of the Niger Delta, is their elite. Falling short of agreeing that the problem of Nigeria is class struggle, he thundered “I know enough political science to know that this nonsense about north and south does not exist”. In an interview with a national newspaper, Father Kukah said the good thing about abusing the north or abusing government is that it saves the elite of the Niger Delta the trouble of dealing with the problems they have created; the contradictions of their own inactivity and inefficiency. I hear people say, the road to my village is not okay or my people don’t have water. For goodness sake, people who have lived in Victoria Island, they have lived in all the comfort of Nigeria, in embassies abroad representing Nigeria, didn’t they know that people in their village don’t have water then? Suddenly at the age of 70 or 80 that people are wearing glasses that enable them to see the poverty of their people. Father Kukah wants the people not only the people of the Niger Delta to confront their leaders and ask them when they were ministers on federal character representing the people, what did they do for the people.

We at WWN agree with Father Kukah but cannot help pointing out that there is room for a renegade to be born again and champion the course of his people after purging himself of the betrayal. All we solicit the people of the Niger Delta and other oppressed peoples of all ethnic groups in Nigeria, is to see the crisis in Niger Delta as an intra-class struggle between the rich elite to reposition themselves in appropriation of the oil and continue the oppression of the working peoples, the fisherman, the hewers of wood and the poor Nigeria.

All oppressed peoples of Nigeria must unite; hold their leaders accountable while they are in office. Oppressed Nigerians should not wait till a thieving governor, a member of both State and National Assembly leave office before his name is dragged to the mud. Nigerians should be a vigilant watch dog and “attack” any representative of the people who is not representing the people.

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Arewa To Commence Oil Exploration

As a sequel to the position of the 19 Northern States governors that the region can survive without Niger Delta, the Group Managing Director of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Engr. Abubakar Yar’Adua has revealed that NNPC will soon commence exploration in the North to ascertain if there is oil deposit in commercial quantity in the region. According to the GMD, the NNPC will use 3D seismic technology as against the 3D that was used in the Niger Delta. The GMD said that the 2D technology was prone to error and can only be used where the base rock is accessible.

The GMD made this disclosure while briefing newsmen on the activities of the NNPC over the past one year. It will be recalled that the GMD drew the ire of MEND when while testifying at a Senate Committee that the NNPC paid about 12 billion naira to the militants in the creeks of Niger Delta to secure oil pipelines.

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Peter Odili Celebrates 60 Years In Abuja.

The birthday bash of Sir Dr. Peter Odili, immediate ex-governor of Rivers State in Sheraton Hotels Abuja on Friday 15^th August, has put an icing on the allegation by the incumbent governor that those who ruined River State have relocated to Abuja.

For a governor who testified at the Justice Eso led rivers State Truth and Reconciliation Panel that he was generous to a fault while serving  as governor of Rivers State for 8 years, one would have expected Sir Dr. Peter Odili to celebrate his birthday in Port Harcourt where he claims he touched lives and has a strong following.

It is a shame that Nigerian Politicians are like the proverbial sheep that soils her sleeping stead and prefers to sleep on all fours.  It was during the tenure of Sir Odili that the local communities’ agitation against the oil companies grew fangs and gangs believed to be armed by the PDP ahead of 2003 General Elections introduced criminality into the peaceful struggle for resource control.

Sir Odili, whose wife is a judge of the Court of Appeal got perpetual injunction restraining the EFCC from investigating or and prosecuting him or his activities as governor of Rivers State. I think Mrs. Waziri Farida should brief a SAN to appeal this questionable injunction if she is serious about running after ex-governors.

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