ATLAS COVE, WHAT'S ALL THE YORUBA FUSS ABOUT?

Icheoku says, so what if MEND attacked a Nigerian National Petroleum Company owned and operated oil facility located in Yoruba-Land of Lagos State? After-all the Yorubas are the highest single beneficiary in Nigeria, of the pillage, which has been going on in the Niger Delta since independence in 1960? A foxy-race which cunningly goad, leech and encourage the Hausa-Fulani to continuously traumatise Nigeria with their inept and bad leadership. And as soon as they succeed in starting a fire between two sides, conveniently recoil to their shell in the South West and with pretended innocence, starts reaping the bounty of a harvest which they never planted? Enough is enough of this people's always holier than thou attitude and it is about time someone called them to order!

That Nigeria is suffering today under the sick Mr. Slowman was a Yoruba man's doing; a despicable fella whose eight years of bloody visceral occupation of Nigeria brought more harm than good to many Nigerians? When the midget of Kano, Sani Abacha struck, it was with another Yoruba renegade Oladipo Diya? When Buhari struck, it was also with Babatunde Idiagbon and Babatunde is not an Ijaw name? Obasanjo was there previously from 1976 through 1979 but the lot did not improve in the creeks of Nigeria? When Theophilus Danjuma and his co-mad dogs, messed up Nigeria in 1966, resulting in the Biafran civil war, it was with the active connivance of the likes of Adekunle Benjamin, Olusegun Obasanjo, Obafemi Awolowo and such other Yoruba mercenaries that Biafra was forced to abort her attempt at self governance. The Yoruba inexplicably took sides with the Northerners despite numerous and obvious reasons to do otherwise, and through their Obafemi Awolowo introduced starvation as the best instrument of warfare into the lexicon of war-faring. As a a pay-back, they convinced bloody Yakubu Gowon to sign the infamous indegenisation decree through which they commandeered all companies in Nigeria; thereby unfairly gaining and usurping all the economic advantage in Nigeria to the detriment of other tribes? Ernest Shonekan also became a tool in the hands of Ibrahim Babangida to rubbish Abiola's election victory and by extension, Nigerian democracy in general? So with this litany of transgressions, who should really be crying foul here? No, not the same group of people who have sabotaged every bold step ever put forward by other patriotic tribal-nationalities in Nigeria to permanently fix what is wrong with Nigeria? Now that the chicken came home to roost briefly, just for one night in their neck of the wood, they are crying bloody murder, that the stench is too strong; albeit, without any grounds whatsoever, since they are as guilty as the Hausa-Fulani nemesis of Nigeria? Icheoku asserts unequivocally that over 75% of all development in Yoruba-Land including Lagos State, as well as the torched Atlas Cove is owed to the proceeds of the pillage in Niger Delta and we stand to be corrected! So what the heck is this fuss about?

But just for the sake of argument, let us postulate and assume that Atlas Cove jetty is Yoruba's, Icheoku asks, what is wrong in striking at a property which belongs to an accomplice of a crime? The Yoruba's shameless support of the Hausa-Fulani oligarchs' atrocious vice-hold on Nigeria over the years, has transformed them into a people who many a Nigerian would rather they are not part of Nigeria? Was Olusegun Obasanjo not a Yoruba man and did he not rule Nigeria for another 8 years after his first calling, during which time he visited his fair share of atrocities on the Niger Delta people? Was it not during the incestuous Olusegun Obasanjo ignominious eight years terrorist-rule in Nigeria that Odi community of Niger Delta Bayelsa State was almost decimated? Was Olagusonye Oyinlola not one of those fingered with the extra-judicial murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa and where is he also from, Tiv-land? Heck No! Anyway, this commentary is not meant as a diatribe or to poke a finger in the eyes of any particular tribe, no; it is simply that Nigerians in general should see the carnage in the Niger Delta as a national tragedy which every right thinking Nigerian is obligated to help in resolving. Every Nigerian should see it for what it is - the repercussion of sinful act of every Nigerian who has benefited either directly or indirectly from the oil resources of the Niger Delta!

The trailing reactions coming from the South West to the successful expedition of the brave boys and girls of MEND at Atlas Cove, has once again called to question Nigeria's continued existence as one entity? The vituperation shows that Nigeria, really, is not one country and the earlier the hard truth is told the better; so that each nationality therein, which are unhappily yoked together all these years, might feel free to move on as they may please. Things have been blowing up over the years and in various parts of Nigeria including bombs at Ikeja military cantonment which killed over 10,000 innocent Nigerians, also Nigerians of the Niger Delta have been under the sledge-hammer of the Federal armed forces for some years now but nobody seriously uttered any harsh re-vibrating words in condemnation! But now that Atlas Cove went up in flames, suddenly, it is going to lead to a tribal war and such other stupid rantings as does not make any sense?

But does anyone in Nigeria still take these Oduduwa loud-mouths serious, after the missed opportunity of June 12 and the humiliation their race suffered when MKO Abiola was stopped cold from the presidency and subsequently killed? What about their Cicero of Oke-Onaa, Bola Ige? When patriotic Yoruba-duty called on both occasions, they instead turned tail only to emerge from their hibernation now, to huff and puff about a looming tribal war? Common, Nigerians know better and also know the jerks among their society! Icheoku remembers vividly too, that these people and their Obafemi Awolowo clandestinely and cowardly chickened out during Biafra's attempt to permanently reconfigure Nigeria for the good of all? These people are the most insidious bane of Nigeria and the single reason why nothing meaningful can ever come out of any struggle to free Nigeria from the northern 'Cabal-istic' shackles. With them, you never know where they stand on any issue affecting the greater Nigerian State as their 'yes' most times means 'no'? In some fashion, if connivance, deceit, treachery and sabotage has any natural known abode, it is across the River Niger, West of Nigeria; and this is the reason Icheoku says, they should hush and stop beating their chests about an impending tribal war because Atlas Cove was torched?

Laughably, South-west zone Action Congress, some faceless traditional rulers, some so called elders and some very corrupt local government council chairmen in Lagos State have demanded an unreserved apology from MEND, over their milestone Atlas Cove hit? Icheoku says, not in this lifetime should they get their wish! What a bunch of impostors these people are, who chickened out from a 'tribal war' for a good cause when it mattered most, when their nose was cut off during June 12 democratic struggle in Nigeria? Icheoku says, this Prince Tajudeen Olusi, should understand that MEND was simply crying out loud for attention, and by visiting the mayhem on Atlas Cove was merely pushing all available envelopes against a recalcitrant feudalistic Nigerian government. Their attack on Atlas Cove oil jetty was not borne out of any specific vindictive animosity against the Yoruba race or Lagos State; they simply saw a window of opportunity to strike at a possible Nigerian jugular-vein and decided to take it?

Hopefully this Prince now sees the light; otherwise, MEND should disregard his useless threats of this being "the last of such" attack or that any attempt to repeat what happened, "would be met with serious consequences which the attackers would live to regret.” What Nigerian armed forces could not achieve, a knee-jerk people without liver is threatening to accomplish? Anyway, it is the usual Yoruba blow-hot, empty threat which several tests of times have proved them incapable of seeing through, as they lack the guts to carry them out? Further, the attack on Atlas Cove jetty was not misplaced in any way since Lagos State is part of Nigeria and has benefited tremendously from the oil exploitation of the Niger Delta. Also it is very arrogant of this Prince Olusi to claim that “Lagos State has always provided refuge to several displaced Nigerians fleeing from conflicts and disasters', since Lagos is not his exclusive preserve and Nigerians can and should feel free to live in any part of Nigeria without let or hindrance or any prior authorisation or permission of anyone, including this so called Prince Whatever his name is and his fellow sons of the soil?

MEND, please be assured that thousands of Major-General Adeyinka Adebayo and his Yoruba Council of Elders can only bark but not bite over an issue which was never directed at them, but to the federal government of Nigeria. No target or place should be safe any longer in Nigeria as long as those Nigerians inhabiting the enclave keep quite and pretend the issue of the Niger Delta is not their business or concern; or pretend it is a problem between the Hausa-Fulani and the Niger Deltans. All have sinned and come short of glory in Nigeria that has benefited from the oil in the Niger Delta while remaining aloof and indifferent to the challenges facing the region. If this Adeyinka Adebayo sees it as a matter capable of triggering inter-tribal war, Icheoku asks, between which tribes does he want to wage this his war? Will it be between Yoruba and who, since Niger Delta cuts across nine states and impacts over ten tribes? Who will be on the receiving end of his artilery? - The Ijaws? The Itshekiris? The Ibos? The Efiks? The Ikwerres? The Edos? The Ondo Yorubas? The Ibibios? The Kalabaris? The Efaks? The Efangs, etc? In short may be this man is advocating a regional war or another civil war or a war to end all injustices in Nigeria, at the end of which every group goes its separate ways to pursue their respective destinies within their secured mutually exclusive territories? Icheoku says, the extension of violence by Niger Delta militants to the South-West was not "an invitation to an inter-tribal conflict" but a cry for help whose time has since come. Every Nigerian is yoked in the Niger Delta conflict together and together they shall solve it; but to pretend or wish otherwise is basking in ocean of fantasy.

A Nigeria tabloid, Sun Newspapers was economical with the truth in its editorial on the Atlas Cove incident, wherein it "strongly condemn the attack on the Atlas Cove Jetty" describing it as 'dastardly and despicable'? What an editorial in denial of the facts on hand as it relates to the ongoing freedom struggle in the Niger Delta? What forced the hands of the Federal government of Nigeria to pursue peace, if not the bravery and audacity of such attacks as was carried out on Atlas Cove? Icheoku says, the militants reserve the right to blow up anything, anywhere, in any part of Nigeria, including the Atlas Cove jetty and/or any other facility, funded from proceeds of sales of the Niger Delta oil; and if this is what it takes to get the full attention of the oppressors, so be it! But for this tabloid, Sun Newspapers, to editorialise that the Atlas Cove attack was "unprovoked and unjustifiable" shows the yellowness of that paper and/or the lack of editorial dept of its editorial staff. How dare this newspaper state such a fallacy of nonsense as a given, that the attack was unprovoked? Was it not the Hausa-Fulani who left their desert enclave in the north for a military adventure in faraway South of south Niger Delta? Was this their ill-advised military adventurism provoked and by whom or what? After-all the owners of the land in Niger Delta are merely trying to assert their ownership and control rights over what is in their land? Is this sufficient reason to send in the killing machine Nigerian armed forces to wreck such havoc as is ongoing in the Niger Delta? We don't think so!

The struggle in the Niger Delta has since become 'ethnicised' by other Nigeria tribes which have kept silence while the most vicious ethnic cleansing of Nigerians is going on in the Niger Delta; and while carrying on as if the life which has been drastically interrupted in Niger Delta is not their business or are lesser of theirs? There is at present no lasting unity and/or peace in Nigeria, so who gives a damn if the tension boils over and Nigeria unravels? It is President Umaru Yar'Adua who has to accept on behalf of the Hausa-Fulani north that occupation of any type is not good; and commence a meaningful dialogue with the necessary parties in the Niger Delta, so as to find an agreeable way forward out of the imbroglio they created with their unwarranted invasion. Further, the routing of the Nigerian Naval Force at Atlas Cove jetty is just another good eye-opener of the unpreparedness of the Nigeria Navy to defend Nigerian territorial waters at its hour of need. Were it to frog-jump and horse-whip innocent Nigerians on the streets of Lagos, for not yielding fast-enough the congested roads for their siren-blaring goons to pass, then they are very methodical indeed? But to defend an ordinary jetty from a non-professional fighting force of MEND, they could not muster and Nigeria prides itself the 'giant' of Africa? Their apparent mediocrity was the primary reason Olusegun Obasanjo hurriedly handed over Bakassi to the Cameroons, because the Nigerian Navy was not prepared to be humiliated in battle by the Cameroon gendarmes? It is a manifestation of the deep rot of an inept governance of a people by the worst dregs of its society, wherein Naval ratings and their commander are left with no weapons on hand to guard and defend such a vital facility as Atlas Cove jetty. Without MEND Nigerians would not have known this about their navy, so in a way, that was positive.

It is also a lie for anyone including Sun Newspaper to claim that the militants have no country other than Nigeria; because Nigeria does not accept Niger Delta as part of them, otherwise the decay therein would not have been allowed to fester for this long. More-so other Nigerians would have joined the protesting MEND and the greater Niger Delta people to secure for them, a fair shake of modernity paid for by their oil wealth? Also a 'Bayelsa Country' does not sound bad at all for a name; and in view of the lunatic Hausa mad-mallam who suggested that all Niger Deltans be killed off to end the disturbance to oil flow, make the idea of a sovereign Niger Delta country, which can guarantee their existence, a necessary future option? Icheoku condemns the Sun Newspaper's editorial as a manifestation of the dearth of courageous journalism in Nigeria since the death of Dele Giwa by Babangida's parcel bomb; and as a manifestation of what is wrong with the fifth estate in Nigeria.

In summation therefore, every Nigerian whether Yoruba, Igbo or other ethnic groupings including the oppressors, Hausa-Fulani and the oppressed Niger Delta tribes, should be prepared to take some little pain before the genie of Niger Delta struggle is completely put back in the bottle. To achieve equity in Nigeria, all the benefactors of the Niger Delta oil must see themselves as accomplices to injustice, hence if they are visited with some late Sunday night barrages of machine gun-fire or one of the installations in their neck of the wood torched; they should suck it up and see it as a necessary sacrifice which they must make, in order to fix what is broken in Nigeria. But to threaten a tribal war in an inter-connected society is reckless; Ondo State is part of Niger Delta and by necessary implication have freedom-soldiers in MEND and being a Yoruba-land, which tribes will be fighting against each other in this Adebayo's impending internecine tribal-war? Moreover no Yoruba orchestrated tribal war can be as earth-scorching and vicious as the ongoing northern Feudal war being fought with the Nigerian armed forces in the Niger Delta?

Therefore, no one in the Niger Delta should be moved by such boisterous threats from the people of Western Nigeria, whose cowardice is of general knowledge. All things considered and the Yoruba blustering not withstanding, one clear lesson of the Atlas Cove incident and its attendant aftermath is that Nigeria is not really one country nor a nation of people. Imagine the Yoruba West threatening tribal war and stating that they have been "very accomodating to other Nigerians"? What does that mean? Imagine a Lagos State that was fully developed with proceeds of Niger Delta oil, being former capital of Nigeria, in the verge of being appropriated exclusively by one of Nigerian tribes? How can any Nigerian tribe ascribe to themselves the ownership of any part of Nigeria when Nigeria is supposed to be a country and belongs to every Nigerian? How can a people be referenced as strangers in their own supposed country that another group of people reserves the right of expulsion or exclusion of that others, from a particular section of the geography? Icheoku says, if any body or group of people need to apologise for the attack on Atlas Cove, it is the Yoruba who have inserted their tribal sentiments into a national matter; notwithstanding that Atlas Cove is situated in Lagos State? This Yoruba inserted myopic tribal dimension is very omnious and higlights the deep-rooted animosity and misgivings among many nationalities which were clubbered into Nigeria. In any event however, the best solution probably may be for every person to just go their separate ways peacefully, instead of the continued stress of putting up in a 'humpty-dumpty' of a country, called Nigeria, which no member thereof really wants to belong to or work hard enough to sustain? Until there is a resolution, Icheoku salutes the bravery of the Atlas Cove incident!