REAL POLITICS AND THE NIGER DELTA QUESTION

Ozodi Thomas Osuji

Generally, I stay away from Nigerian politics. This is not because I do not
understand politics but because I understand it too well and do not see any need
making noises about things that are not going to change. I accept political
reality as it. I am not sentimental at all. In political categories, I am what is
called a political realist, a person who sees politics for what it is: men
struggling for power and the strong dominating the weak.

In real politics allowances are not made for such sentimental subjects as
morality and religion. This is because there is no evidence that God exists or
that law is anything but a social construct. In nature, as Thomas Hobbes pointed
out, what exists is war by all against all. In the wild strong predatory animals
eat weak ones; big fish eat small fish; lions and tigers feed on sheep and deer.
Simply stated, in nature there is no morality, unless you want to define morality
as the strong eating the weak (as Adolf Hitler did…see his Mein Kampf).

Political idealism, such as Jean Jacque Rousseau’s (Social Contract), on the

other hand, hopes for a polity where all people share power. Indeed, the more
utopian liberal idealist yearns for participatory democracy where all people
gather to discuss issues and vote on them and all votes count.

Political realists say that liberals’ hope for equality is not going to happen,
not if what we know about human nature remains constant.

Politics, as Harold Laswell defines it, is the struggle to determine who gets
what, when and why. The powerful decide who gets what. In America, for example,
the Anglo-Saxons (English) decide who gets what in the country and this is because
it is their country; the rest of the white population are welcome guests; as for
the other races, Asians and Africans, well, they can stick around provided that
they have no illusion that it is their country.

Politics is not old wife’s fairy tales; it is the struggle for power and control
over a given territory. If one is interested in power and control one reads
Machiavelli (Prince) and schemes for power and if one wins fine, if not, well,
what can I say, that is the nature of the game, some win some lose. Indeed, some
losers’ heads are cut off and hung on poles that are lined on the apian way
leading into Rome, to teach other challengers to the rulers what could happen to
them hence deter them from rebellion.

Let me reiterate: empiricism or what our British friends call logical positivism
is on the side of political realists. Human history shows that always and
everywhere the strong lord it over the weak and that law is positive law, that
which men construct, not abstract justice dictated by non- existent gods. Politics
is organized violence.

In Nigeria Hausas, Fulanis and Yorubas rule. This is the God honest truth. We do
not need to sugar coat facts and make them what they are not.

Igbos, the other large ethnic group in Nigeria that could be politically
relevant, are a defeated people and for all intents and purposes are like blacks
in America; they are unwelcome guests in the land and can enjoy the hosts largesse
provided it does not get into their heads that they are the children of the table.
As long as the Igbo know his place in the Nigerian scheme of things and abide by
them he is tolerated by the powers that be in Nigeria.
 Hausas and Yorubas are the lords of contemporary Nigeria, with Hausas playing the
top fiddle and Yorubas the second fiddle (see, they alternate who rules, from
Hausa to Yoruba, from Yoruba to Hausa; from Murtala Mohammed to Olusegun Obasanjo,
from Obasanjo to Shagari, from Obasanjo to Umaru Musa Yar Adua, but never to
Igbos!).

At the moment these two groups use the Nigerian military, which they dominate, to
steal oil (money) from the Niger Delta. They use the money they stole to develop
Hausa land and Yoruba land. And to mask their stealing they throw some crumbs to
the other ethnic groups. Incidentally, by receiving money from Abuja the non-
Hausa-Yoruba states are made culprit in stealing Niger Delta oil.

Without mincing words, these two groups are thieves; they take what does not
belong to them. Ijaw oil does not belong to them; it belongs to Ijaw people.

They use violence to steal Ijaw oil. Perhaps, they rationalize their criminal
behavior with the idea sovereignty. Nigeria is supposed to be a sovereign nation
and the national government is supposed to have control over the entire territory
of Nigeria.

Let us examine the idea of state and sovereignty. State is not a natural
phenomenon. The idea of nation-state (which began with the treaty of Westphalia in
1648) is an artificial political construct. Nation-state is a man made artifact
that, hopefully, serves some useful purpose. However, the fact that it seems
functional does not deceive us into thinking that it is a natural phenomenon. The
state is a social construct, men conceptualized it to serve their purposes, and
when its purposes are gone it will be reconceptualized. (I have reconceptualized
the idea of states in Africa; as I see it, extant nation states in Africa are
imposters; they were imposed on us by European foreigners and, therefore, are not
legitimate states. Africa Federation/Union is the only recognized sovereign state
in our neck of the wood.)

What is natural is nation (if by that is meant a people who speak the same
language, such as the Ijaw nation, Igbo nation, Yoruba nation, Edo Nation, Tiv
nation etc).

When the nation state is gone the nation remains for it is a natural phenomenon,
not an artificial construct like the idea of state.

The idea of sovereignty is a legal construct made up by the practitioners of

international law. It has no validity in nature. In nature there are no
boundaries; animals from one part of the world migrate to other parts of the
world. I lived in Alaska (a professor at the University of Alaska) and during the
southern winter birds from the south ( America) migrate to Alaska where it is
summer and reverse the trend during Alaska’s brutal winters. The point is that in
nature animals go to wherever they can get food, until powerful ones demarcate
certain territories for themselves and use force to prevent other animals from
entering them.

The state is an artificial construct and nothing it does makes it natural.

Criminals can get control of the state and use its power of coercion to steal from
the people. We know that African leaders are, in the main, terrorists who
appropriated the state and use its apparatus of power to intimidate the people
into allowing them to steal their property.

Politics is war by other means and war is politics by other means, Von Clausewitz
teaches us (see his On War), and those who can use violence in a merciless manner
always rule those who are squeamish over spilling blood.
 Let us quickly dispose another issue that folks invest with unnecessary emotions,
law. Every society has law. Men are ruled by law. The question is: who made the
laws of a particular society? The powerful make law and apply it on the weak. Law
is a means of controlling the weak and checkmating the powerful.

Law does not stand for justice (whatever that is). The question of what is just
is left to moralists, idealistic philosophers and religionists to ponder but is
not the domain of politics.

In America, for example, the ruling British class passed laws making African
Americans slaves. Remember the Dred Scot case (1857); Plessey versus Ferguson case
(1896). Those were the Supreme Court’s rulings on race matters. In the first the
chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America, John Tanner,
ruled that the black man has no right that a white man should respect hence run
away slaves were returned to their masters. In the second case the Court ruled
that separate is equal hence decreed Jim Crow for black Americans. That is law for
you.

Let us cut through the chase and not fool ourselves. Law is politics at work; it
is a means of controlling the masses. Therefore, to those who tell us that the
Nigerian state rules the Niger Delta according to Nigeria’s law a political
realists asks: who made and administers those laws? Hausas and Yorubas make and
administer Nigeria’s laws. They make laws that enable them to serve their
interests and in this case to take from the Niger Delta and that is all there is
to it. Let us not hear one more word, pin, about law and the Nigerian state!

Of course when Nigeria’s power equations change different laws would be made; the
new ruling class would pass laws that serve their interests at the expense of the
defeated groups. That is the way it has always been and will probably always be.
We are not talking political idealism here, remember. In America white folk used
their laws to relegate black folk to second class status and called their self
serving behavior law. Well, by and by accounts would be settled and whites would
be relegated to second class status according to new laws (unless, of course,
human nature changes and we learn to respect and love one another…and that
prospect is possible hence though I am a political realist I also dabble in
metaphysics…actually, many realists are also metaphysician; Isaac Newton, despite
discovering empirical laws of nature, such as gravity and mechanics, believed in
the occult!).

Let us, then, say it as it is: Hausas and Yorubas are thieves who appropriated
the Nigerian state and use its powers to steal oil from the Niger Delta. There is
no other reason why they take the oil from the Delta other than the fact that they
control the Nigerian state and with its power could take whatever they want from
any part of Nigeria (and give the masses song and dance notions about sovereignty
and law).

When the Nigerian state collapses, as it is bound to collapse (no state ruled by
out-right criminals’ lasts forever) Hausas and Yorubas would stop stealing what
does not belong to them, Ijaw oil.

If by chance the Western world discovers alternatives to fossil fuel tomorrow and
no longer buys Nigeria’s oil there would be no need for the Hausas and Yorubas to
be in the Niger Delta, for they would have no need to steal oil since nobody would
buy it from them (criminals need those they can pawn their stolen goods on).

If oil is no longer demanded by the international economy the Nigerian state

would not have the money to maintain its military in the Niger Delta. Indeed,
given the fact that the empire of thieves have neglected all other sectors of the
Nigerian economy and rely solely on oil revenue to fund their lavish lifestyles,
if oil is not demanded the Abuja clique would have no money to pay for any kind of
military and the damn artificial construct called Nigeria would break apart and
the various ethnic groups go their separated ways.

(An English woman, the girl friend of Frederick Lugard, Flora Shaw, coined the
name Nigeria, by combining Niger and area; the criminals ruling Nigeria do not
even feel shame that a white woman gave them their so-called name and change it to
something African; but, as they say, thieves have no shame or honor. Why not call
Nigeria and Africa Alamanu; Ala = land, Manu = people, hence people’s land?)

In the first paragraph of this essay I made it crystal clear that I am a

political realist, not a political idealist. I am not at all sentimental about
politics. I accept politics for what it is: the struggle for the means to control
a particular piece of real estate. Politicians are not different from criminal
gangs; they struggle for control over territories and the powerful prevail. Having
obtained control over a given territory the gang members exploit its resources for
their good. Nigerian politicians are not different from politicians all over the
world; they are antisocial and or narcissistic personalities jostling for control
of a given territory so as to exploit the resources in it. That is the way it is
and one does not cry over spilled milk, over reality.

With the above caveat in mind, let me state that I do not have misguided sympathy
for the Ijaws. I look at them with disinterested, impersonal, objective and
unsympathetic political eyes. Moreover, I am an Igbo and have not forgotten Ijaw
treachery towards Igbos. I am aware of the role Ijaws played in the defeat of
Alaigbo (Igbo land), aka Biafra, by the Nigerian state.

Emeka Ojukwu, a political novice, perhaps, actuated by idealistic desire to

protect his fellow Igbos when they were massacred all over Nigeria, declared
independence for what he misnamed Biafra (Biafra is a village in Portugal, not an
African Nation, our nation is Alaigbo; please take note of our real name; I do not
want to hear the rubbish called Biafra, again). Ojukwu did not understand real
politics and was out maneuvered by the shrewder Hausas and Yorubas.

Obafemi Awolowo, for example, was said to have come to Enugu with a bag of tricks
and seemed to encourage Odumegwu Ojukwu’s diplomacy challenged son to go ahead and
declare secession from Nigeria and that Yorubas would support him?

In the meantime, the astute politicians of the North and West employed the
classic divide and conquer method they learned too well from the British. They
persuaded the Ijaw, the Efik and even a segment of Igbo people, Ikwerrres, to
dissociate from Ojukwu’s misadventure. Having obtained the loyalty of the Niger
Delta people, the Nigerian military dealt Ojukwu’s ill equipped military a death
blow.

Nigerians defeated Igbos with the support of the Ijaw and Efik people.
Apparently, the Ijaw and Efik believed that it was in their best interest to side
with Nigeria because they feared Igbo domination. It is probably true that Igbos
would have dominated the Ijaws and Efiks if they had won that war. Therefore, the
Ijaws and Efiks had a right to be wary of Igbos. If I was in their position I
would be wary of Igbo designs. We are talking real politics here, not
sentimentalism.

However, in real politics before one makes alliances one thinks through the long
term consequences of what one is doing, for everything one does may come back to
bite one, as the Nigerian state is now biting Ijaws!
 Apparently, the Ijaws and Efiks did not know how to choose sides; they did not
know what is good for them. Yes, they had a right to be cautious over Igbos but
they still had to wonder which of the two evils, Igbos and Hausas, best served
their interests. They did not recognize that the Nigerian state, specifically the
Hausa Fulani and their Yoruaba allies, were not interested in them.

As Igbos say, let the truth be said and shame the devil. As far as Hausas are
concerned Ijaws are Igbos. See, when they killed Igbos in the north they did not
distinguish between Igbos and Ijaws, they killed Ijaws, too.

For what it is worth, I doubt that there is an Ijaw man that does not have Igbo
blood flowing in his arteries. How do they say it, blood is thicker than water; no
Igbo man would kill Ijaw people; trust me, I know what I am talking about, when I
see Ijaw folk it is like I see my fellow Igbos; we are one people.

Hausas and their allies could care less about the welfare of Ijaws; what they had
their eyes set upon was the oil revenue from Ijawland. Oil, let me repeat, oil,
was the real reason why Hausas and Yorubas fought the Igbos.

If there was no oil booty to be obtained from the Niger Delta and from Alaigbo
Hausas would have satisfied themselves with selling their groundnuts (peanuts) and
cotton to the West and left it at that. Please remember that all along Hausas had
wanted to separate from Nigeria, that they did not want anything to do with
Southern Nigerians until some crooked eyed Briton reminded them of the value of
black gold. As folk in America say, “there is money to be made in them Delta’.

If Ijaws believed that Hausas had their interests at heart when they joined
forces with them they are the greatest fools that walk this earth. Hausas and
Yorubas are simply after Niger Delta oil and could care less that human beings
live in the delta. For all they care the mangrove forests of the Delta could be
burned down by oil flays as long as money is made for the Nigerian state.

The Nigerian state needs the oil money coming from the delta to develop Hausa
land and Yoruba land even if it means leaving Ijaws to live like paupers.

Currently, Ijaw youth have taken up arms and are fighting the Nigerian state. Of
course they will not win that war. Population matters. Ijaws are about four
million people. Hausas and Yorubas are about sixty million people. There is no way
on God’s earth that four million persons can defeat sixty million persons. This is
reality check number one for the Ijaw.

If the Ijaw wants to win that little war of theirs they have to form alliances
that increase their population base so that they have a large pool of people to
draw soldiers from. Who could become their natural allies? Igbos?

Given what they did to Igbos during the “ Biafra war” I doubt that Igbos are
sentimental about Ijaw folk. Not long ago, the third rate mind called Ken Sara
Wiwa trashed Igbos. And what did he get for all his labors? The Nigerian state
(Abacha regime) pumped bullets into his idiot mouth and put him out of his misery.
Next time around he ought to study real politics and realize that even if his
immediate neighbor is aggressive, as no doubt Igbos are, he had to find a way to
live with them rather than think that he could alienate them while hoping that
folk from far away Sahel could rescue him.

Igbos are the natural allies of the Ijaw. The Ijaw, till today, don’t seem to
have recognized this fact hence they insult Igbos every which way they could.
 I, as an Igbo, would rather stay aside and have the Ijaw kicked around by the
Nigerian state. My cynical mind tells me that Ijaws need to get what is coming to
them. How do they say it? What goes around comes around. I am not sentimental at
all about politics or about human beings. In American slang, Ijaws need to have
their asses kicked real good so that they learn to respect their Igbo neighbors.

I do not think that the MEND wannabe soldiers recognize that they cannot complete
what they started, win that little creeks war of theirs, until they think
strategically and tactically. To win that damn war, Igbos must be dragged into it.
This is what they ought to be doing; they ought to be trying to trick Igbos into
getting involved on their side, even if it means telling them lies to the effect
that Hausas are cooking up something dreadful for them. Igbos have a tendency to
paranoia, so why not appeal to their paranoia by telling them that Hausas are out
to get them?

If I were the Ijaw I would appeal to Igbo sense of persecution by other Nigerians
and that ought to get them joining forces with them! Manipulate peoples weakness
is one of the teachings of Machiavelli, is it not?

Diplomacy is the art of making lies seem the moral truth.

Whoever accuses Africans of being students of real politics? Africans always look
at problems from the short run but not from the long haul. They pursue immediate
gratification, a habit that has to be checked if they really want to become
serious political actors.

For our present purpose, the Nigerian state is ruled by a bunch of criminals head
quarted at Abuja. The criminals are stealing Niger Delta oil. They will continue
doing so until an alternative to oil is found and at which point they will go find
other things to steal and the Ijaw would be set free, free at last.

Did I hear me say free? Good gracious, where is my knowledge of political

realism? The Ijaws and Igbos have a score to settle. When the Nigerian state
disappears, the Igbos would seek vengeance for what was done to them. You do not
kill two million Igbos and think that there would be no grievance and vengeance,
do you? The seeds of mutual destruction have been planted in Nigeria and every
which way you look at it there will be rivers of blood.

The alternative is to restructure Nigeria and make every ethnic group a state
within the Nigerian federation, and form a national government that is not the
denizen of thieves. In a true federation each of the constituting states is in
charge of its resources. In this light, Ijaw state should be the owner of the oil
resource coming from it. However, as in the USA the businesses mining oil and
individual citizens must pay federal and state income taxes. The central
government needs money to carry out its functions. Corporate and individual taxes
are often as high as forty percent. All Nigerians and businesses in Nigeria must
pay, at least, twenty percent of their annual incomes to the federal government in
taxes. (I must make it abundantly clear that I am not one of those Africans that
want to break up the already small African states. In fact, I want to expand them;
I am an Africanist and work for a United Africa. I am not an ethnic revanchist at
all. In that light, I have written painful truths about my so-called ethnic group,
Igbos.)

Each state must be economically self sufficient and should not wait for the
central government to go steal Ijaw oil revenue and come share it with it.

If each state is expected to be economically viable and pay its way we would not
have the many states we currently have in Nigeria. We would have no more than
fifteen states; ten made from each of the major ethnic groups…Igbo state, Yoruba
state, Edo state, Ijaw state, Tiv State, Efik state, Uhrobo state, Hausa state,
Kanuri state etc and the smaller ethnic groups lumped into additional contiguous
five states. I have covered this subject in other writings.

For now what is worth noting is that Hausas and Yorubas are stealing Ijaw oil
money and that that is the unvarnished truth. It is high time that Nigerians
learned how to speak the truth and quit beating around the bush when they talk
about the trouble with Nigeria. The trouble with Nigeria is that it is a country
ruled by thieves. The rulers of the empire of thieves exist to hijack oil revenue
from the Niger Delta; they do not exist to develop Nigeria but to steal from her!

The only reason why these criminals steal what does not belong to them is because
they have the military power to do it. There is no such thing as justice in their
behavior.

And before we get carried away by sentimental considerations of what is just, let
us remember that nature is amoral. In nature, as Thomas Hobbes pointed out in his
seminal book, Leviathan, the powerful enslave the weak. It is a predatory world we
live in, a dog eat dog world, and tigers eat sheep. Don’t cry for me, Argentina,
Eva Peron said.

I do not cry for Ijaw folk; as I see it, they are getting what is coming to them
and from this sad experience would learn what politics is all about. They will
learn to make peace with their neighbors and not betray them. In politics there
are no permanent alliances; there are only temporary arrangements that serve
political actors current interests. The current nightmare in the Delta will,
sooner or later, end. The men from the north will one day pack up and leave.

Igbos and Ijaws and Efiks must coexist and therefore must find a way to make
arrangements that serve their mutual interests.

Ijaws do not have to like Igbos; in fact, they have a right to be wary of Igbos
design on their territory. That been said, they still have to deal with Igbos. In
politics you do not have to like those you form alliances with. During the Second
World War, Churchill and Roosevelt hated the Bolshevik Stalin with passion, and
wanted him dead, but they formed an alliance with him to defeat the evil genius
called Adolf Hitler.

Igbos are a difficult people to deal with; you ought to ask me about that, yet
they must be dealt with. Until the Ijaw learns how to deal with the Igbo, well,
the thieves from the North and West will continue stealing their oil wealth. (And
as long as they rely on stealing will not develop the entrepreneurial and
political skills necessary for governing a well running modern polity. It is in
our mutual interests to teach these gangsters to stop stealing too much and for
the first times in their unproductive lives work for their living.)

This essay is my advice for the Ijaw, given to them for free; they ought to pay
me a consultancy fee for it! Well, I know the value of what we did not pay for!

PS: I wrote this essay after reading Edwin Madunagu’s piece, Reflections on the
Niger Delta, published on the editorial pages of the Guardian (6/25/2009). In
general, Madunagu comes across as a utopian socialist writing fairy tales for
school children but in this particular piece he appeared to understand the nature
of real politics. He talked about the collusion of Ijaws and the Nigerian state in
defeating Igbos and how the Nigerian state is currently rewarding the Ijaws for
their cooperation with the current Nigerian “police action” in Ijaw land. I
particularly appreciated his description of the role Isaac Adaka Boro played in
defeating the Biafrans. This piece gave me the impression that Madunagu has
finally grown up, discarded that school boy socialism of his. In the past, he
tended to come across as an anachronistic relic from the era when socialism,
communism and Marxism were political chic and he amused Nigerians with his
understanding of them. In his present piece he seemed a mature political observer
and that prompted me to reinforce his views with this essay.

Ozodi Thomas Osuji, PhD

June 27, 2009