Below is the excerpt from the interview:
There appears to be no solution yet in sight in the
current crisis in the Niger Delta, how depressed
are you over the situation?
“To suggest that there is no solution is against
my faith; there is nothing God cannot do. I know
there is a solution and we are working towards it.
I am bold to let you know that some elite in the
country want to take advantage of this to get
recognition; that is why the issue of militancy has
continued. The approaches we are adopting to
end the crisis are strategic.
“To begin to tell you what we are doing will not
be okay. When you give out information, it means
you must be able to manage it. We are getting
down to the roots.”
Is your allusion that the elite want the crisis to
continue based on investigation; and are the elite
you fingered from the Niger Delta?
“The crisis is traceable to the elite from the
region and other sections of the country. They are
doing that for various reasons which are not
connected to the Niger Delta improvement.”
Why do you think that some leaders from the
zone are against federal government dialoguing
with the militants?
“I am not aware of any leader that said we
shouldn’t dialogue. The Minister of Transportation
said, ‘If you will have to negotiate issues of the
region, then call the leaders of the region, not
those who pose to be representing the region
whereas they are only representing criminality.’
That means he believes that the solution can
come once and for all without facing it on the
basis of social strategy. That the governor of Edo
State suggested that government should drop
charges of those who committed crime against
the country as object of negotiation isn’t correct;
this is promoting crime that was what I heard
them say.
Usani Usani Uguru, minister of Niger Delta
“The only pressure I feel is the pressure of the
normal work of an office that is encumbered with
crisis. Since the ministry was formed, there was
no much measure of militants; maybe true or not
true. Not everyone is willing to see and appreciate
the change in the governance, in strategy,
approach, vision, in the total fabric of Nigerian
moral content. The difficulty of adapting forms the
agitations. The Niger Delta region in appreciating
the change is sentimental than rational. Many are
more sentimental about the administration, they
have forgotten that every administration since
1999 has come in by the ballot rightly or wrongly
perceived, rightly or wrongly introduced,
legitimately or otherwise. But when there is a
government in place, we have learnt to accept
that all along. Why is it that at this time, we will
not learn to accept that? Some people think that
if it doesn’t happen the way they want it to be,
then it is wrong. Before the election, it was said
that if the Niger Delta indigenous president did
not win the election then the country would not
be in peace. So, various theories that can be
accommodated in the speculations subject to
prove and otherwise.
“The tangent of reality is between the
pronouncement and the eventualities, otherwise
there is nothing else you can say. Are they really
carrying out the threats? If they were to carry it
out, how will it have gone other than what is
going on and I think there is no reason for that.”
But don’t you think that it was this way that the
Boko Haram insurgency began?
There appears to be no solution yet in sight in the
current crisis in the Niger Delta, how depressed
are you over the situation?
“To suggest that there is no solution is against
my faith; there is nothing God cannot do. I know
there is a solution and we are working towards it.
I am bold to let you know that some elite in the
country want to take advantage of this to get
recognition; that is why the issue of militancy has
continued. The approaches we are adopting to
end the crisis are strategic.
“To begin to tell you what we are doing will not
be okay. When you give out information, it means
you must be able to manage it. We are getting
down to the roots.”
Is your allusion that the elite want the crisis to
continue based on investigation; and are the elite
you fingered from the Niger Delta?
“The crisis is traceable to the elite from the
region and other sections of the country. They are
doing that for various reasons which are not
connected to the Niger Delta improvement.”
Why do you think that some leaders from the
zone are against federal government dialoguing
with the militants?
“I am not aware of any leader that said we
shouldn’t dialogue. The Minister of Transportation
said, ‘If you will have to negotiate issues of the
region, then call the leaders of the region, not
those who pose to be representing the region
whereas they are only representing criminality.’
That means he believes that the solution can
come once and for all without facing it on the
basis of social strategy. That the governor of Edo
State suggested that government should drop
charges of those who committed crime against
the country as object of negotiation isn’t correct;
this is promoting crime that was what I heard
them say.
Usani Usani Uguru, minister of Niger Delta
“The only pressure I feel is the pressure of the
normal work of an office that is encumbered with
crisis. Since the ministry was formed, there was
no much measure of militants; maybe true or not
true. Not everyone is willing to see and appreciate
the change in the governance, in strategy,
approach, vision, in the total fabric of Nigerian
moral content. The difficulty of adapting forms the
agitations. The Niger Delta region in appreciating
the change is sentimental than rational. Many are
more sentimental about the administration, they
have forgotten that every administration since
1999 has come in by the ballot rightly or wrongly
perceived, rightly or wrongly introduced,
legitimately or otherwise. But when there is a
government in place, we have learnt to accept
that all along. Why is it that at this time, we will
not learn to accept that? Some people think that
if it doesn’t happen the way they want it to be,
then it is wrong. Before the election, it was said
that if the Niger Delta indigenous president did
not win the election then the country would not
be in peace. So, various theories that can be
accommodated in the speculations subject to
prove and otherwise.
“The tangent of reality is between the
pronouncement and the eventualities, otherwise
there is nothing else you can say. Are they really
carrying out the threats? If they were to carry it
out, how will it have gone other than what is
going on and I think there is no reason for that.”
But don’t you think that it was this way that the
Boko Haram insurgency began?
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