Niger Delta -- Rightful Resistance
NIGER DELTA -- RIGHTFUL RESISTANCE
The word "resistance" typically brings to mind images of negation, usually of the legitimacy of something, and actions by people who lack recourse to institutional politics.
When thinking of examples of popular resistance, one is drawn to accounts of marginalized workers, peasants and people in a geographical area that have been subjected to various forms of environmental degradation, rejecting the claims of officials and economic elites--of efforts by the poor and weak to upset the plans of those with more power and status.
Whether it is furtive, everyday resistance to changes in village norms and charitable practices or open defiance of national rule, it is un-institutionalized acts that spring from a deeply felt (if sometimes artfully undeclared) denial of legitimacy that tend to attract attention.
The Niger Delta resistance surely fits this description. Struggles to tame political and economic power are often waged by the utterly excluded and rest on feelings of disapproval, even outrage. At the same time, however, other episodes of resistance exhibit a somewhat different logic. Contentious politics is not always a story of neatly divided antagonists, with representatives of the state or subordinate classes on one side and members of the popular classes on the other.
Sometimes resistance depends on the discontented locating and exploiting divisions among the powerful. In these circumstances setting up "subordinates" in opposition to "subordinates" can obscure how people actually go about warding off appropriation and political control. Thinking in terms of two parties can be especially misleading in those cases when aggrieved citizens employ government commitments and established values to persuade concerned elites to support their claims.
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When receptive officials, dignified Governors like James Onanefe Ibori, Igbinedion, other Governors and respected personalities in the South South and other regions including traditional rulers and men of God for instance, champion popular demand like the issue of Resource Control that have been ignored, unexpected alliances often emerge and simple dominant-subordinate distinctions break down. On these occasions, popular resistance operates partly within (yet in tension with) official norms. Such resistance can hamstring political or economic elites because it is couched in the language of loyal intentions; it can reveal when members of powerful groups have dared to take liberties with the symbols in which they are most invested. It is only clowns that could not read this handwriting on the wall.
What is to be made of individuals or groups who dispute the legitimacy of Resource Control and their actions while affirming (indeed relying upon) childish authorities and modified values to pursue their ends? How should we understand defiant acts that are intended both to open channels of participation and to make use of existing channels, that straddle the border between what is usually considered popular resistance and institutionalized participation? The answer to this question will be to pull out of the conference so that thses individuals can deliberate among themselves.
Rightful resisters normally frame their claims with reference to protections implied in ideologies or conferred by policymakers. Since they often demand little more than scrupulous enforcement of existing commitments, theirs is a defiance based on strict adherence to established values.
In their acts of contention, which usually combine legal tactics with political pressure, rightful resisters typically behave in accord with prevailing statutes (or at least not in violation of them). They forgo, for example, unlawful force or other criminal behavior, which might weaken their standing and alienate their backers. Instead, they assert their claims largely through approved channels and use a regime's policies and legitimating myths to justify their defiance. In this case of the Niger Delta, enough is enough. The federal Government has no other option but to concede to this hard to believe reality -Resource Control.
For those members of Arewa Forum, my advise to them is to take a trip to the area called Niger Delta to see the terrain, then they will understand that all the stolen Nigeria money in Swiss Banks and other European countries will not be enough to police the oil installations and the eventual hostilities that will erupt from their aggression.
We all know full well that instruments of domination which facilitate control can be turned to new purposes; the Niger Delta people have inspirational view of government measures and elite values and recognize that the very symbols embraced by those in power be a source of entitlement, inclusion, and empowerment. This resembles other forms of popular contention, though at some remove.
For example, it involves probing for weak points in a facade of power, and because it offers the marginalized a way to work the system to their minimum disadvantage. In their search for patrons, they also bear some likeness to "rebels" and deny claims made by "faithless" officials, like how oil flow from North to South and how Northern money was invested in oil. They launch attacks that are legitimate by definition in a rhetoric that even unresponsive authorities must recognize, lest they risk being charged with hypocrisy and disloyalty to the system of power they represent
In places where grassroots cadres broker economic relationships and still control access to vital resources, villagers are better placed to defy corrupt or arbitrary rule and unsanctioned appropriation. Also, in countries where all regions are allowed to develop and control their potentials, development of the whole country becomes a matter of months because no region would want to be left behind. Therefore, whoever moves against this principle of resource control is an enemy to Nigeria. Umaru Dikko should understand that there are better crates to cage him in Niger Delta unlike those in London. He has not accounted for the oil money he spent on the importation of rice. So those who appointed him to the conference are unpatriotic.
This struggle is a perennial one, that can sprout wherever leaders could not address issues of marginalization and oppression, make commitments they cannot keep. So long as a gap exists between rights and rights delivered, there is always room for rightful resistance to emerge like this one. The world is watching us with interest to see if this present precarious equilibrium in Abuja can be maintained. I don't think so!
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