In ageless Africa, it has long bear held – and I submit that this is without an iota of doubt as to its veracity – that the truly clairvoyant can spot the mother hen even from the egg.
Without any shred of doubt, even for the briefest capsule of time, the wise saying above, especially with regard to its impact, sits befittingly with the story of Delta, Nigeria’s champion state.
Yes, without any room for sustainable argument, Delta State and its people, in far more ways than can be readily enumerated on the fingers of both hands, have earned their place of pride in the scheme of things, and, quite deservedly, are truly Nigeria’s leaders in legion positive ways.
THE DELTA STORY
Before we deal with the issue relating to the champion state and its status, let us, in brief, tell the story of history of Delta State and its unique, upward mobile people.
That Delta State, in a way, shares a similar story with Nigeria is self-evident: it has had a long, almost windy, history, just as Nigeria, and, again, just as Nigeria, is multi-cultural.
With regard to its multi-cultural essence, Delta State is peopled by diverse ethnic nationalities. They are the Urhobo, Ijaw, Itsekiri, Isoko, Ndokwa, Ika and Aniocha/Oshimili. The Ijaw, Itsekiri and Isoko inhabit the Southern fringes of the state, along with a sprinkling of Urhobos. In the central senatorial district are the Urhobo, who are the single most symmetrical ethnic stock in the state, while in the balding northern senatorial district are the Ika, Ndokwa and Aniocha/Oshimili, who, by language, are distinct only by dialectical variations.
What is now Delta was once part of the defunct Western Region. That was in the First Republic when Nigeria’s regional political structure was a tripod – North, East and West. It was a child of circumstances, following the political crisis that engulfed what was then Western Region of which it was a part. At that time, the political leadership of the Western Region, headquartered in Ibadan and led by the Action Group (AG), was in an internecine political squabble with the National Council of Nigeria and the Camerouns (NCNC), which was not only in charge of the north, but also, quite strategically, in charge of the powerful Federal Government.
Latching on the growing hushed demand for enhanced self-determination by the many minority ethnic groups in the region, the NCNC – led Federal Government sought a political foothold in the Western Region: it found a fertile soil in the minorities in the region.
Following the crisis in the Western Region (caused largely by the bitter rivalry between Ladoke Akintola and Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Premier of the region), the NCNC – led Federal Government mounted a stealth campaign to have a foothold in the Western Region as a way of enhancing its reach and influence. It, therefore, actively, but surreptitiously, supported the rising agitation of the minorities in the Western Region for self-determination.
The agitators included the Urhobo, Ika Ibo (as the present Aniocha/Oshimili and Ika areas were known then), the Ndokwa (Ndoshimili and Ukwuani), the Ijaw, the Itsekiri, and the Isoko, who were actively led by Chief James Ekpreh Otobo (now late).
With the agitation increasing in intensity and extensiveness, the Western Region Government and the Federal Government (led by the NCNC that had been secretly supporting the agitators) reached an agreement for the holding of a referendum in which the agitators were to vote for self-determination or against it. Part of the agreement was for the referendum to return a 66½ per cent affirmative vote before it could be binding. This was considered an uphill task in the light of the persisting doubts as to the penetration of the pro-autonomy campaign and the fact that the AG – led Western Region Government had actually padded the applicable register of voters with fake and or non-existent names.
The die was cast.
To cut short a long story, the referendum held on July 13, 1963, and the result, against the grain of the initial trepidation, returned an impressive result. With the register weaned of the pad of ghost and fictitious names, the referendum returned an affirmative 80 per cent vote – far in excess of the 66½ per cent benchmark set.
And that was it.
On August 9, 1963, the result of the referendum became effective and Midwest Region was carved out of the Western Region.
Some four years later – May 27, 1967, to be precise – it became Midwest State. Following the state creation exercise of the administration of General Murtala Ramat Mohammed on February 3, 1976, it became Bendel State. On August 27, 1991, Bendel state was split in two – Delta and Edo.
And that was how Delta became a state of its own.
Delta And The Nigerian Project: The difficult Relevant Questions
That Delta is vital to the Nigerian Project is not in doubt. It has world-grade manpower in all spheres of national development and boasts five power plants – three in Ekakpamre, near Ughelli, and one each in Sapele and Okpai in Ndokwa East local government area; two polytechnics and two Colleges of Education; houses several active and dormant seaports in Warri, Sapele and Burutu; hosts the gigantic former Delta Steel Company Limited (DSC) in Ovwian-Aladja and is home to such strategic minerals as lignite, coal, sheet glass, oil and gas and Kaolin.
At its creation – and shortly afterwards – Delta (and Edo) formed one quarter of the quadruplets of Nigeria’s political and administrative regions that were equal in every material particular and every particular material. In politics, the West Region was equal and equivalent to all others; what was due to either the Northern, Eastern and or Western Region was due Mid-west. That was it.
But not anymore.
Decades down the line of history and time, Delta (just as Edo after its creation), has become the Cinderella, the clear victim of the stealth machination of the powers – that be – a machination that is evil in conception as it is luciferious in effect.
Over time, Nigeria’s military rulers – who happen to have come from the major ethnic blocks and indigenes of the other defunct regions, in the name of the machination, typified by state and local government area creation exercises, tactically took measures that have eventually confined the old Midwest (now Edo and Delta) into the back burner as an almost, irrelevant minority within not just the larger Nigerian geographical space, but also even among its co-minority groups of the South-South zone into which it has been ingloriously lumped.
This is how.
By the effects of the machination and its strategic tool – state and local government creation – Edo and Delta – which used to be equal to its counterparts (North, East and West), has now been done in. This is because, quite unlike other former regions, Delta and Edo have been roundly cheated and undone. For example, while the old Northern Region is now a whopping 19 states, aside from the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), which is more than half of the 36 states and FCT now in existence in Nigeria, the Western Region, if you add Lagos, has six (plus Ondo, Ogun, Oyo, Ekiti and Osun states). The same trend is the situation when a close look is taken at the Eastern region, which, inspite of the fact that it has lost nearly half of its original geographic space (Akwa-Ibom, Cross River, Bayelsa and Rivers states) to the South-South Region, still has five states – Anambra, Imo, Enugu, Ebonyi and Abia.
To draw down effectively on the practical scenario of the situation we now have this situation: the old Northern Region – 19 states and the FCT; the Western Region – six states; the Eastern Region – five (after losing Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River and Rivers to what is now the South-South zone of Nigeria) and the defunct Midwest – a miserable two (Edo and Delta)!
With regard to the geo-political classification, while the defunct North has three zones (North Central, North East and North West), the defunct West has one, just as the South-East, (after the ‘loss’ of Bayelsa, Awka Ibom, Cross River and Rivers states to the South-South) has one, while the old Midwest (Edo and Delta) has none. In fact, to drive home the marginalization of the people of the defunct Midwest in this regard, they have not only been denied their own zone, but have been lumped into the South-South zone in which they are a minority.
This is a spite of the fact of the reckonable population of the two states – Delta and Edo – put at more than 10 million people – a demographic feature that should have made them at least five states and earned them a place in national reckoning as a separate zone of their own.
An Inscrutable Deafening Silence
The really unfortunate thing about the clear marginalization of the old (defunct) Midwest Region is the deafening silence of the people of the area with regard to their poor, in fact, inhuman, fate, at the hands of those who mind the Nigerian Project.
It is still mysterious that in spite of their stridency in other areas, including and especially, the Nigerian Project and its uncertain fate, stakeholders in the Midwest issue have chosen – for whatever reason – to keep silent on an issue that should, in the right circumstance, be their top priority. Name them: the Edo people movement, the various ethnic groups and organizations related to the Binis, the Esan, the people of the Kukuruku hills (in Etsako and Akoko-Edo areas of Edo state); the Ijaw (of both states of Edo and Delta), the Isoko, the Ndokwa, the Urhobo, the Ika and the Aniocha/Oshimili – have all remained mum on the core subject that should be of prime importance and relevance to them. Even the otherwise outspoken militants (active and ex), have looked the other way with regard to the vital issue of the poor treatment of the defunct Midwest in the context of the contemporary Nigerian Project.
As for our politicians, that is an entirely different kettle of fish: They appear – for whatever reason – to have forgotten that the basic benefit of politics in which they represent us is the protection of our interest – real, potential and even imagined; part of that benefit/gain should have been the split of the two states into, at least, six states (at more than 1.8 million people each and the huge resources available to them, each of the new states would be viable, economically) and a separate region of its own, probably making it the seventh region in Nigeria.
An Embarrassing Ironic Afghanistan Campaign
In fact, quite amusingly, during the National Conference of Nigeria’s stakeholders organized by the Dr. Goodluck Jonathan administration, no worthy mention was made of the need to reverse this grave injustice to Midwest people throughout its sittings and even in its report. Rather, it was both embarrassing and ironic that, rather than campaign for the Midwest, one of the representatives of one of the ethnic groups in Delta State chose, instead, to be the champion for the campaign for the creation of an additional state for Nigeria’s Eastern flank – the South East region- on the ground that it had been cheated, having just five states.
While there is nothing wrong in creating an additional state in the South-East, it does not remove the urgent necessity for the reflective reversal of the subsisting injustice to Midwest Region by the powers-that-be, behind the Nigerian Project.
Making The Mid West Case
Quite unlike the case of other people, the case of Midwesterners is crystal clear and can be justified on political, demographic, economic and social grounds. Why the civil political elite – the politicians – and other stakeholders who should spearhead this campaign have opted to remain mum on it beats me hollow.
Does it require rocket science for anyone to know that if Bayelsa (with just eight local government areas and a demography estimated at just 1.8million people), Zamfara, etc, can be viable states of their own, why can’t Edo and Delta conveniently be split into six states – viable ones at that? This would enable the people (of Edo and Delta), to be at par with their colleague states, and become a full region. In that instance, the people would be entitled to six parts of whatever the Federal Government has to offer on the basis of one per state (and this is much, anyway), rather than the miserable two they are currently entitled to.
Let us closely look at the case for Delta State ( which is virtually same as Edo’s), in terms of land size.
By its size of 17, 698km2 of contiguous land mass, Delta is bigger/ larger in size than Lagos( 3,345km2), Anambra,(4,844km2) and Imo (5,530km2) put together ( at a combined landmass size of (13,719km2).
In fact, Delta State is only slightly smaller than all four smallest states in the country- these three states combined with Ebony ( 5,670 km2) put together by just 1,683km2 ( see 5,670km2+13,719 km2=19,380km2-17,698km2( Delta State).
The case of
Edo, which is larger in size than Delta State , is even more pathetic.
That our politicians have not sufficiently averted their mind to this obvious case of grave injustice yet, is one of the strangest and most embarrassing features of our experience as a people and a pitiable irony of our value.
It is my expectation that, with the event of today, (Edo and Delta attaining 34 years as separate states), there will come a new awakening among our people, especially the civil political class, to begin to cohere and coagulate on this vital issue that should be of primary concern and interest to us.
Our leasers cannot continue the way they currently dispose while our people – the rich, proud and highly productive people of old Midwest, continue to suffer subjugation and deprivation, quite undeservedly.
Well, that is just the political element of it.
Economically, Delta and Edo states (defunct Midwest) are viable, being commercial grade crude oil- producing states. Both, by estimation, account for more than a quarter of Nigeria’s total crude oil output. Delta, for instance, is home to the Isoko nation which is the single largest producer of onshore crude oil in the country. Today, Delta is the highest oil-producing state.
Yet, in spite of all else, the state is only entitled to only 13 per cent of its output as its share of the proceeds of the huge crude oil business. This figure of 13 per cent is offensive to the marginalized people of the South-South for two reasons: it is a far cry from the 50 per cent peg applicable during the First Republic when the major ethnic groups (of Hausa, Yoruba and Ibo) were in charge of their resources and were producing the national economic mainstays of the country then – cocoa, groundnut, palm oil and related products, hides and skin, etc. Besides, it (13 per cent benchmark) is the lowest benchmark set under the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria ( as amended). The question is why are they being paid only the minimal benchmark?
Aside from oil, Delta State is a major natural gas producer, has huge coal, kaolin and Sheet glass deposits, while Edo boasts alluvial gold deposits , quartz and other raw materials for making cement which is highly demanded for construction.
Both states have great marine resources that are rich in marine life, aside from an arable land that can support virtually all forms of crop farming.
How unfair!
Correlated to the foregoing is that fact of the active role of Delta State in Nigeria strategic infrastructure sector: Delta is host to core national assets as crude and gas reserves (the gas field in Okpai in Ndokwa East is reputed to be the biggest in all of Africa and of uncommon high quality), seaports, (in Warri, Sapele and Burutu), Nigeria’s only petroleum – related university (FUPRE); Nigeria’s only Maritime University (NMU,Okerenkoko) and five power plants (three in Ekakpamre, near Ughelli and one each in Sapele and Okpai). It is also home to Nigeria’s biggest crude oil export terminal in Forcados.
With regard to manpower and its deployment for the National Project, Delta has always been the state to beat. Delta also has had a fairly good outing with regard to the production and deployment of the huge manpower base that Nigeria boasts, and, in terms of national security, was top-grade instrument for the protection and preservation of national cause in the heydays of the Nigeria Civil War, hence knowledgeable insiders were reported to have once said that, without the Midwest (Edo and Delta), there would have been no more Nigeria. This is because, as evident, had Midwest Region authorities sided with breakaway Biafra, the general equation of the war would have significantly altered and the outcome, most probably, gone against the run of play and expectation, to the peril of the Nigerian Project.
Specifically with regard to the issue of manpower assets, Delta has made much more than a fair share of its contribution to the national cause in legion ways, including the arenas of sports, education, entertainment, medicine, the arts and science, politics, etc, and an attestation to this is the fact that the likes of Best Ogedegbe, Stephen Keshi, Austin Jay Jay Okocha, Victor Ikpeba, Peter Fregene, Charles Nwokolo, Chief John Ojidoh, John Pepper Clark, Awoture Eleayae, Amaju Pinnick, Prof. Bruce Onobrakpeya, Prof. Chike Edozien – black Africa’s first Dean of medicine – Christopher Ossai, Peter Keonyegwachie, Victor Agali, Dr. Ngozi Okonji Iweala (former Vice President of the World Bank and current Director- General of the World Trade Organization ,WTO), Prof. Frank Ndili, world renowned Nuclear Physicist; Prof. Grace Alele – Williams (first black female to be Vice-Chancellor of a university in Africa) and Miss Independence – Mrs. Rosemary Adams, are/ were all Deltans, etc.
The truth, if it must be told, is that the list of Nigerians of Deltans extraction who have excelled in their various callings, is inexhaustible.
In relation to the security services particularly, Delta has produced the likes of Gen. Alexander Ogomudia; Admiral Dan Preston Omatsola; Peter Nwodua, ex-DG of the DSS; Air Marshal Paul Dike, Admiral Dele Ezeoba; Col. Nwajei; Col. Nwawor, Gen. Cyril Iwueze; Gen. Obada; Gen. Felix Mujakperuo; Gen. Osokogwu; Gen. Agbogun; DIG Donald Ugbaja; Gen. Lucky Irabor, Big Alabi Esama of the Civil War fame: Gen. David Ejoor; Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, leader of Nigeria’s first Military coup, and in religion, Ayo Oritsejafor, Simeon Okah, Christian Apena and Primate Nicholas Okoh, etc.
In the face of all of these alluring contributions to the natural cause, particularly at strategic moments in the life of the country and its people, does Delta State deserve its poor treatment?
