A foremost Niger Delta Activist and stakeholder in the Pan-NIger Delta Forum, Â PANDEF, Â Chief Anabs Sara-Igbe, Â in this explosive interview talks about the powers trying to truncate activities of PANDEF, Â Which is an umbrella group of Traditional rulers, Â leaders and stakeholders of the coastal states of Niger Delta Region.
Excerpts:
Chief what we witnessed today, (October 26, 2017) is the fact that the earlier planned meeting coud not hold. The place was highly militarized, we want to find out from you how you were able to hold your meeting in spite of that highly charged atmosphere?
Well, thank you very much. Nigerians have spoken. We have issued a communiqué. We met! About a hundred of us have met, today (October 26). We are supposed to have over 1,000 delegates from across the Niger Delta. As at yesterday night, over 300 have arrived the comfort of the state and checked into the various hotels. Yesterday afternoon, (0ctober 25), Director of DSS invited us for a chat. I led the delegation to chat with the Director DSS and he told us that the Governor of Rivers State directed that we should not hold the meeting. And his fear was that he wanted us to shift the meeting and because we refused to shift the meeting, the meeting should not hold.
So, we explained to the Director DSS that look right from August, we have been making contacts with the Governor, as it is done with other states. In other states, the Governors host us, provide accommodation, provide all and so on. But from August, till today, the Governor has neither been here nor there. And we are not a conventional organization; we are a pressure group from the Niger Delta. We are like the Arewa, we are like the Oha Neze Ndigbo, and we are like the Afenifere and so if the governor is bluffing us, no problems. We are ready, anytime he is ready to invite us, we can be able to attend what he wants to do but for now we want to go ahead with our meeting.
The Director DSS agreed with us and even escorted us out and said he would provide security for us. He now raised another issue. Issue of threats from some boys. We said what are the threats? Â That is why you are here security agents. We wrote to you, two weeks ago or three weeks ago, we have also written to the police and police has agreed to give us six vans to protect the place, so you are security agents, you should be able to protect the place. Because what we are going to discuss is basically how we can turn Niger delta to an industrial haven. And so, he escorted us and we left. Only for the hotel management to call us last night to say they were invited and given instruction not to allow us use the place.
So a high powered delegation was sent to the DSS again, and a different picture was also raised that he had an order from above that we should not hold the meeting.
So our leader called the deputy director HOPS in Abuja SSS, also called the Minister for Internal Affairs and sent text messages to the vice President and others informing them of the situation that is about to happen.
Well we didn’t sleep till 2am, after we have done that, we went to bed. Early morning, the deputy commissioner of police came with the six vans as he promised to protect us in the meeting. But not quite 30 minutes another order came and the DSS came and directed the deputy commissioner of police to seal up the place.
And for what reason, we don’t know. As Niger delta leaders, we know what we can do that will cause ripples in the state and this country, but we have to exercise constraint and said look we are leaders, we don’t need to drag issues with anybody, but they said we should not go to the Atlantic hall. They did not stop us from meeting. They did not write us formally not to meet, so we decided to meet and we deliberated for more than five hours and had our communiqué. We also adopted our constitution, we also set up a 12 man committee to zone the offices and also an electoral committee was set up. Thereafter, we took other business and we are here to have dinner.
After the meetings, we had lunch, beautiful lunch. The whole of Rivers hall was filled up with our members. Over 100 and we are here having dinner. So whatever plans they had failed. But we didn’t want to confront anybody and we have sent signals to the federal government that they are so insensitive. They don’t appreciate what we are doing. And we can say that they are deliberately trying to stir up problems in the Niger delta. We are not like the south east that the python dance can dance; we are not willing to see any crocodile smile because the crocodile smile will turn to crocodile cry.
We don’t want that in the region. As leaders we have resolved that our region should not be seen as a violent region. Our region should not be seen as an insecure region, our region should not be seen as a place that is not safe for investment.
We have resolved to make our region safe for investors to come in. we have made our region to be safe so that our ports will be open because there is a deliberate ploy to kill our ports. There is a deliberate ploy to kill our industries. There is a deliberate ploy to destroy the Niger Delta. Having realized that we have decided to tow the path of peace and a path of wisdom, so we are not ready to confront anybody but we thank God, we have held our meetings and we will continue to hold our meetings.
PANDEF is not all about militancy. PANDEF is not all about going to stop pipeline vandalism, PANDEF is all about protecting the interest of the Niger delta, like every other region is doing. Afenifere has been meeting; they have never taken such actions against the Afenifere. Ndi Igbo has been meeting; they have never done that to Ndi Igbo. Arewa has been meeting, they never did that to them.
All they are trying to do is stir provocations. We also know that some of our sons might have hands in this. They might be the agents of destruction. As leaders of Niger delta, we promise ourselves that we will lead this region to prosperity not to destruction. And so whatever they have done, they failed!.
And we are proud that we have done our meetings and we will continue to hold our meetings as a group, as a people. And we must protect the interest of Niger delta at all level. We also want the international community to take notice of what happened today ( October 26). We have been telling the international community in our dialogue group. The European Union has been witnessing us, the American have been witnessing us and every other nation have been witnessing us. We are not violent. We prefer dialogue and we have been pursuing the path of dialogue. We will continue to pursue the path of dialogue despite any provocations but they should realize that act of violence is not meant for one group. The Niger delta region has been very violet and very hot and we can go back to that state they want us to be, but we will not go there. We want peace, we want development. We will continue to move on.
Before now there were talks about the federal government willingness to continue to discuss with PANDEF. As a matter of fact, another group came up and said that they don’t trust PANDEF to speak with the federal government. Does this in any way suggest friction in your relationship with the federal government in the ongoing discussion?
Well I will tell you that PANDEF is the umbrella body of all the ethnic nationalities. It is the umbrella body of all the various groups in the Niger delta. We are not competing with any other group. We are not fighting with any group. Every group is free to do whatever they like. But having said that we know that as a region, one of our cardinal program is to resolve conflict within the Niger delta, within the ethnic nationality, within the various communities and so if some groups are annoyed, are provoked, it is our duty to see what their grievances are. We have held several meetings and we have resolved all those misunderstandings, some of them regretted that they were being sponsored by some political elements to destabilize the region or to destabilize PANDEF. Some political leaders have also vowed to make sure they destroy PANDEF. But I bet them. The more they do this, the more we will be stronger. We have no problem in Niger delta and we have no conflict in Niger delta. Whoever that says that, I want them to come out and say it. They should not be faceless. They should come out and say this is their grievance and this is what they are doing.
Let me tell you today. We are not a mushroom organization. We adopted the constitution today and we also set up a zoning committee to zone the offices, we also set up an electoral body in line with our constitution to make sure proper election is carried out. And the zoning is done across all the states of the Niger delta. We are not hidden, so if anybody feels he is strong enough, let them do it. We are ready.
As regards federal government, we don’t know yet the source. Whether it is the state government or it is the federal government. But we have made all our contacts with all of them. What we are looking at, one year ago, we met with Mr. President, and we are supposed to evaluate the outcome of those things. But today, we could not do that because of crisis. We believe we still have time to dialogue with government. We believe in dialoguing with government and we want to see the reaction of federal government whether in deed they are behind this or not, we have asked them to come and tell us. What is the situation. We want their reaction to this issue, because it is a disaster. We are not under military dictatorship. We are in democracy and if you are in democracy, it means we have freedom of association and freedom of speech. We have done nothing to warrant this type of intimidation and harassment. So we ask Mr. President to tell the nation or otherwise apologize to the nation for the action of the security services and we demand that all those who are involved should be disciplined, otherwise the Niger delta will see it as an affront a planned purpose to destroy our region and we will complain to the international community.#
