South-South Wisdom and Strength, or Universal Wisdom and Strength?
Text of a Speech by Miabiye Kuromiema, President, Ijaw Youth Council (IYC), at the South-South Youth Leaders and Elders Interactive Event of South-South Youth Leaders Forum in Port Harcourt on August 13, 2010To this South-South Youth Leaders and Elders Interactive Session, I bring the goodwill and camaraderie of the Ijaw Youth Council, the coordinating platform on which the resilient people of Ijawland struggle for self-determination and justice. Interactive sessions like this one between youths and elders serve much good purpose. They afford us time and podium to compare and contrast the so-called exuberant responses of youth to the injustices that we commonly suffer as peoples with the supposed more thoughtful ones of our elders. This forum apparently ascribes an advantage of strength to the youth but concedes a superiority of wisdom to elders. We may debate these suppositions but we cannot challenge the submission that both wisdom and strength are key to South-South’s development.
Often in fora and sessions like these, youth express an understanding of youth leadership as being essentially about leading the youth. The useful African basics of honour and respect for elders are mistaken for timidity and self-relegation. This thinking is erroneous, degenerative and pedestal. Youth leadership is much more than just leading the youth. It is more about leading the older generation than it is about leading ours. It is about breaking away from the recalcitrant cycle of imbalance of our fathers’ day into a new Nigeria for our own children. It is about insisting on justice even if it will cost us our lives like Martin Luther King Jnr or our freedom like Nelson Mandela; about insisting on justice for justice’s sake; not because justice serves us well as South-Southerners, but because only in a just Nigeria can the happiness of all her citizens be guaranteed: the happiness of South-Southerners, of Northerners, of Easterners, of Westerners, of all Nigerians. It is about leading all Nigerians into a new Nigeria.
The old Nigeria, the unjust Nigeria, is who gives us the unemployment we suffer today. It is easy to blame only Nigeria and forget that we too must harness available opportunity by being employable. Developing the right set of attitudes for the workplace is front-end preparation for employability and it is as important as acquiring skills for which organizations may be willing to pay. Of course governments can help with skills acquisition but it is we ourselves who must cultivate those positive attitudes sought at the workplace. We must also not overlook the job creation multiplier effect of small and medium enterprises. In all parts of the world, SMEs have proven to be a sustainable escape route from mass unemployment. They are as much a solution as are large agricultural, large industrial and large commercial direct investment. We can alleviate the unemployment we suffer in the South-South with more structured efforts in these four areas but I came here to mobilize coalition around a fifth.
Alaska is the “South-South”, the “Niger Delta” of the United States. Like Nigeria’s South-South or Niger Delta, Alaska is the oil exploration capital of the United States. After many years of oil exploration in Alaska, it was only recently in the 1970s that the United States gave justice to Alaskans. In 1969 when most Americans were frolicking in luxury, the Natives of Alaska were living in one- or two-room shacks built of logs, driftwood, sod or plywood. Because of a severely limited job market, only one villager in ten held a full-time job. It was when and only when Alaskans united their angers and intellects and confronted America with civil action that America gave them their justice. Today, as has been since early 1970s, in addition to world-class infrastructure and a very high standard of life, every Alaskan, from the oldest grandma to the youngest day-old infant, earns shareholder dividends from both Alaskan Regional and Alaskan Village Corporations annually. For most years, the take-home dividend for each Native Alaskan exceeds 20,000 dollars!
I came here to challenge you to demand for Ogoni Plc, Ijaw Plc, Itshekiri Plc. We live in a country where elders say “dialogue” when they mean docile. We live in a country where elders, and sometimes, painfully, even youth stand back and watch all month long on CNN as one set of laws applies in the Gulf of Mexico and a different set in the Gulf of Guinea. I came here to challenge you to demand for Ibibio Plc, Anang Plc, Efik Plc, Ishan Plc, Urhobo Plc, Ikwerre Plc, Isoko Plc, Ekpeye Plc, Ogba Plc. What is good for America’s Alaska is good for Nigeria’s South-South. I came here to challenge you to demand not only for Ogoni Plc, but also for Bera Plc, Zaakpon Plc, Baane Plc, Bodo Plc; not only for Ijaw Plc, but also for Nembe Plc, Obolo Plc, Gbarain Plc, Ibani Plc, Kalabari Plc, Okrika Plc. Even America did not give Alaska this justice until Alaskans, and only until Alaskans, united their angers and intellects to confront America with civil action. If America will not give you justice without civil action, neither will Nigeria.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the International Labour Organization Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and many other covenants, charters, resolutions and declarations all give us moral and legal ground to demand for our God-given right to be the ones who take the decisions for our own economic destinies. It is only domestic Nigerian law that denies us that right. The Land Use Act of 1978 violates these international instruments in their entireties. President Yar’Adua before his demise gave indication of a federal policy to “grant” 10% joint-venture oil business ownership to Niger Delta communities but latest drafts for the proposed amendment of the Petroleum Act that we have sighted by privilege show no provisions for Late Yar’Adua’s promise.
I say again to us all, youths of Nigeria’s South-South: If America will not give you your justice until you confront America with civil action, neither will Nigeria. The Ogonis perhaps are the only indigenous people who have confronted both Nigeria and her conniving oil businessmen to a standstill. It is that kind of civil action, the Ogoni kind, that I came here to call us to. Civil action that invokes international covenants, charters, resolutions and declarations to which Nigeria is signatory. Civil action that insists that the laws that apply in the Gulf of Mexico must apply also in the Gulf of Guinea. Civil action that demands Nigeria to remove all legal and policy encumbrances for a smooth actualization of Ogoni Plc as did America for “Alaska Plc”. Ijaw Youth Council submits emphatically that if Nigeria will not give Ogonis their God-given right to Ogoni Plc, neither will she allow any Ijaw Plc, nor any Itshekiri Plc, nor indeed any people’s Plc. This is what I came here to share with you, my brothers.
It is not strength to watch businessmen comply without resistance to the principles and laws that apply in the Gulf of Mexico and in Alaska, and then watch and do nothing as those same businessmen cry foul when you demand that those same principles and laws should apply likewise in the Gulf of Guinea, in your Niger Delta, in your South-South. It is not wisdom to look injustice in the face and not sacrifice your life and freedom to right its wrong. God told me in the very first words of King Solomon’s Proverbs: “The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel; To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding; To receive the instruction of wisdom, JUSTICE, AND JUDGMENT, AND EQUITY”. God says to you today what He said to me yesterday: wisdom pursues justice, wisdom proffers judgment, wisdom installs equity. Let us join our spirits together and in that strength which only God can give, insist on that justice which only the path of true wisdom can take us.
God bless us youths. God bless our fathers. God bless the peoples of Nigeria’s South-South. God bless Nigeria and all her peoples.
