Private sector bears brunt of Niger Delta crisis

Words of wisdom...worth a read


The Nation

7 February 2011

Private sector bears brunt of Niger Delta crisis

As the Vice National President of NACCIMA [The Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture, Prince Billy Harry] and the President, South-south Chamber of Commerce and Industry.....

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Is the government doing enough to sanitise the Niger Delta?

No, the government is not doing enough. Government cannot be said to be doing enough if the result they are getting is not what is anticipated. Obviously, there are blue prints that have been developed and there are goals that need to be achieved. But so far, what is the milestone that has been achieved? So far, it has been politics, it has been noise, it has been propaganda. But the good news is that with Goodluck Jonathan as the president, most of the Niger Delta youths are laying down their swords.

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Can we say the crisis in the Niger Delta has anything to do with politics?

I have always said that the issues of the Niger Delta are not political and that at any point in time that politics is introduced into it on a platform that is not supposed to be – when you apply 90 per cent politics to the Niger Delta issue and 10 per cent of economic development – you will not get the answer. You have to do the reverse – 90 per cent of economic development plan and procedure for the Niger Delta and 10 per cent of politics. That should be the focus of what every indigene of the Niger Delta would want to do. As the President of Southsouth Chamber of Commerce, I would want to advise the Federal Government to develop the area and also would like to offer myself to be of service to douse most of these tensions because I believe that it is the degree of honesty, truthfulness, of working out a policy that will douse this kind of threat because the threats are real.

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With the resumption of attacks, do you think amnesty is working?

I will tell you the truth. The word, amnesty, is something that I keep quarrelling about. I think it was a wrong nomenclature. Be that as it may, you have to make mistakes to be able to make corrections. So, Nigeria has started that and we have applied the nomenclature, which I think it is not really apt for the circumstance. But so far, it has been able to give us some degree of inroad into peace. Now, this kind of peace should be managed efficiently. If it is not managed efficiently, there is no way that the country’s stability will be guaranteed. As we see it today, our youths are cramped into camps. What is the curriculum? What are they cramped in the camps for? What is the training capacity? What is the aim of the training? Nigerians and the youths should be able to have a template of what the curriculum is? What is the objective? What is going to be the product after the training? What will that product be applied to? This again is where the City Chambers of all the Niger Delta should be involved on a city-to-city basis and the South-south Chamber could offer some level of supervisory training that falls under the entrepreneur scheme because the people you are training are not illiterates.