Niger Delta: The emerging maelstrom

Independent

8 June 2011

Niger Delta: The emerging maelstrom

By Tamaraudoubra Sultan Zimughan

A discordant tune strums from a broken guitar in the Niger Delta. Discordant tune strummed by the wounded. Wounds inflicted by the actions of Niger Delta top-guns occupying sensitive positions in Abuja. These twisted lords of the Manor feel that oppressing fellow Niger Deltans with the levers of their stations gives them Lordship akin to those fading dictators that adorn dark parts of the world. People whose actions do not tally with their benefactor, President Good luck Jonathan. As Mr President writes his name in gold these group of people kiss malfeasance by encouraging the spilling of the blood of fellow Niger Deltans directly or indirectly because dissent bulges their pockets to no end.

Niger Deltans have a sudden realisation of a new breed of oppressors and wielders of marginalisation, their kit and kin, who waltz through the streets of Abuja with glittering automobiles, sucking on the beautiful surroundings called their homes and offices. Surroundings thoughtfully put together by the Babangidas and Abachas plus F.C.T. ministers whose patriotic vision saw to the sprouting of these aesthetic wonders, while these new occupants whose ascendancy to these plum offices is drawn from the crevice of the Niger Delta agitations have now retooled these positions to oppress their people and leave their constituency rustier than ever.

Empowering the armed bandits in the creeks as against hugging the intellectuals, gives them a false sense of adulation....