4th TERF underway, as Danbatta leads discussants

ITRealms:

The 4^th edition of the Nigeria’s Telecoms Executives and Regulators Forum (TERF) being hosted by the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), is at advance preparation stage, with the Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta leading discussants, reports ITRealms. 

President of ATCON, Mr. Olusola Teniola, confirmed this to ITRealms, saying that the event would hold on the 8^th of December, 2016 at Oriental Hotel, Lekki Lagos.

Teniola also said that the Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) of the Nigerians Communication Commission (NCC), Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, is billed to give the keynote, expected to discourse on Quality of Service (QoS), multiple tax, forex sourcing, funding telecoms investment, the Internet Exchange, spectrum management to name a few.

The forum, Teniola noted would provide members with the understanding and knowledge of the policy and regulatory best practices. 

“It will also give information on emerging issues that Nigeria needs to consider in regulating the telecom industry, while proving an enabling and sustainable environment for the sector,” he said.

Top level management personnel of operating companies, he said, would discuss with seriousness of purpose and brainstorm on measures that would accelerate the expansion of telecommunications services across the federation in the years ahead.

Focus for TERF this year is  on  getting the best quality for services being rendered, identifying  the impacts of VAS debts  and interconnect, Internet Exchange Point, Spectrum management  and many others .There will be various panel discussion sessions to allow elaborate and judicious deliberations on the various sub-themes. 

Some CEOs of key telecoms companies in the country have already been confirmed to be panellists at the forum.

Telecoms Executives and Regulator Forum, initiated in 2012, has become one of the most important forums for regulators and policy makers in Nigeria telecom sector.   

Remmy Nweke/ED, Ops
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Sage One expert says bookkeeping essential to financial well-being

ITRealms:

Sound bookkeeping has been described as essential for a business financial well-being, according to the Director, Sage One in East and West Africa, Nikki Summers, reports ITRealms.

Summers made this assertion ahead of the 2016 BusinessDay SME Market Access Forum in Lagos, Nigeria, explaining why cloud accounting solutions have an invaluable role to play in helping Nigerian entrepreneurs to grow their businesses.

ITRealms also reports that Summers said that Nigeria’s 37 million Small & Medium Businesses need to keep accurate records to meet the needs of tax authorities as well as to keep track of trends within their own businesses.

“They also need to automate processes like issuing quotes and invoices so that they can save costs, present a professional face to customers and free up time for tasks that add value to the business,” he said.

As said by Summers, a business owner needs to focus on things that really give them a competitive edge, like innovation and customer service. 

“You can’t afford to waste time worrying about your books. That’s where affordable online accounting solutions such as Sage One come in – they make accounting easy for non-accountants,” Summers said.

The director, explained that cloud solutions offer businesses and employees fast, secure access to their small business accounting from anywhere at any time.

“So you can control your business from the palm of your hand. You can connect your accountant and other people in your business with real-time and intuitive information. Up-to-the minute reporting also means you always know exactly how the business is performing and means you can make educated decisions based on that insight” Summers assured.

Nenye Dom/GEE

 

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Pix: Director, Sage One in East and West Africa, Nikki Summers

German authors pull veil off YouTube

ITRealms:

German authors rights society under the aegis of GEMA has advanced a licence agreement with YouTube thereby settling a long lasting legal battle regarding royalties, reports ITRealms..

The music videos, ITRealms gathered, was blocked for copyright reasons through a caption in Germany.

Sources at GEMA, said the contract signed on November 1, 2016 constitutes “a milestone for a fair remuneration of music authors in the digital age.”

In addition, Broadband Tv reports that the amount YouTube pays per video watched by an internet user in Germany has not been disclosed. In January 2016, GEMA lost a legal case against YouTube at the regional appeal court in Munich in which the society claimed 0.375 Euro cent per video. The figure both sides agreed on now is likely to be lower, according to industry sources. The agreement also contains a retroactive payment for videos watched since 2009, the year in which the legal dispute began.

GEMA represents around 70,000 music authors and publishers who are now going to receive royalties for the usage of their musical works protected by copyright. The ongoing court cases will be terminated, the previous verdicts will not come into force.

Besides the conventional ad-supported service, the agreement also covers the new subscription service YouTube Red that YouTube already offers in the USA and plans to roll out in Europe.

“The conclusion of this contract with YouTube is a clear signal to all online platforms that successfully build their business models on the musical works of creatives,” Thomas Theune, director of broadcast and online at GEMA, said in Munich. “Authors must be fairly remunerated for the exploitation of their musical works. GEMA will continue to actively pursue this goal.”

There are still, however, different legal positions held by YouTube and GEMA regarding the question whether YouTube or the uploaders are responsible for the licensing of the used musical works. GEMA calls for a political solution to establish a fair legal framework on this issue.

Chuks Egbune/GEE 

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Winning War Against Corruption, A Task That Must Be Done

Opinion@ITRealms:

Introduction

It gives me immense pleasure to welcome you to this Press Conference on the State of our dear Nation. The present need for critical and patriotic voices, as Nigeria passes through its current stormy moments, cannot be over-emphasised. At the Resource Centre for Human Rights & Civic Education (CHRICED), we are poised to join forces with other credible civic agencies to populate the national space with ideas that would translate into better governance. For us therefore, it has become imperative to amplify the views of the Nigerian people, with respect to the many burning issues in the Nigerian polity. If citizens and those in control of the levers of state power are to get clarity, and not get the issues muddled up, credible actors in civil society need to speak up more often. This task becomes even more critical when it is realised that there is a mushrooming of groups with neither antecedent nor character to navigate the discourse towards a people-centred solution to the current crisis Nigeria faces. The civic space has become awash with a motley of so called civic groups and coalitions, whose motivations are clearly at variance with the aspirations of the long-suffering people of this country. These groups only show up when there are personal and elitist interests to protect or defend. And in many cases, they purport to speak for the entire civil society. It is therefore a matter of urgency that credible groups in civil society speak up more, to avoid the ongoing tendency to muffle the real voices of the people. Ladies and gentlemen of the media, this is part of the motivations for our decision to convene this event to offer direction in a number of areas that have engaged the attention of Nigerians in recent weeks.

POLITICS

CHRICED has been keenly following developments in the polity, especially as they concern the electoral space. It is our considered view that the biggest threat to Nigeria’s democratic space remains the politician, whose tendency for do-or-die politics, generates so much heat in the system. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Ondo State in the build up to the November 26 governorship election. When the faction of those now spitting fire and brimstone won the right to fly the flag of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the Edo governorship election, the heavens did not fall. Now that the pendulum has swung the other way, the expectation is that the politicians should accept the outcome and refrain from the blackmail of insisting that if their side does not win, then hell will be let loose. This desperate attitude is at the heart of the stunted growth of democratic development in Nigeria. The earlier political actors begin to act like responsible adults, the better it will be for Nigeria’s democracy. 

Security

CHRICED commends the nation’s security forces for the yeoman’s job they have been doing to beat back the insurgents in the North East, and reclaim the pride of the nation’s armed forces. We are however not unmindful of the fact that a lot still needs to be done to keep the threat of Boko Haram at bay. The occasional and sporadic attacks by Boko Haram, resulting in scores of deaths, makes it clear that a lot still needs to be done to vanquish the threat of terror. In the Niger Delta too, it is apparent that the military needs to redouble its efforts to deal with pipeline vandals and other enemies of the state. CHRICED calls on the Federal Government to move quickly towards addressing the root causes of these problems, so that the nation’s security apparatus will no longer be stretched to its current limits. Moving quickly to address the root causes will equally save the nation the billions of Naira being spent to sustain the campaign against the insurgents across the country.     

Fight Against Corruption

CHRICED stands firm with the Federal Government in the ongoing onslaught against the rot in the nation’s judiciary, as well as in other arms of government. It is remarkable that the fight against corruption is now bringing into its dragnet highly placed officers of the state, who were hitherto untouchable. For us, the willingness to take the fight against corruption and graft to the door step of those wielding the judicial powers of the state, is both courageous and commendable. It is akin to asking the physician to heal himself. At least from the revelations that have come so far, Nigerians have been given a sneak preview of the extent of the decay in key institutions of the state, and have seen how the course of justice has been serially mortgaged over time in this country. While CHRICED is not declaring anyone guilty before they are passed through the judicial process, it is mindboggling that an institution which should serve as an important social modulator has been so degraded by bribe-taking and unconscionable abuse of powers. For those attempting to defend the indefensible by raising questions about the arrest of the judges, it will be interesting to know how many of such defences were raised when ordinary Nigerians were being denied justice because of the cash and carry judicial system that had been foisted on Nigerians. How many of those crying wolf now made attempts to condemn the apparent judicial apartheid, in which there was a separate kind of justice for the rich and the powerful, and another for the poor and vulnerable. It therefore stands to reason that those who saw no moral obligation to defend the interest of the ordinary Nigerian when it was being serially abused by a corrupt judiciary, have no moral foundation to castigate a clear attempt to bring certain officers in the temple of justice to account. 

Nigerians are therefore in support of the attempts to cleanse the Aegean stable in the judiciary, as well as other institutions of the state.  Unlike some that have tried to conflate the issues by holding up the narrative that this is an attack on the judiciary, we hold that the action to bring corrupt judges to justice, falls in line with the expectations of citizens that all forms and appearance of corruption in the state must be clinically dealt with. CHRICED calls on the Federal Government to follow up this surgical intervention by ensuring that the arrested judicial officers are brought before courts of competent jurisdiction to account for their actions. In fact, CHRICED is of the view that the case of these judges throws up the efficacy of special courts for the trial of cases of corruption. It will not be good for these kinds of cases to drag on endlessly, thereby allowing the accused to further conflate the issues around their indictment. We therefore call on the government to ensure that legal and administrative structures are put in place to ensure that all cases of corruption are speedily tried and dispensed with. It is by doing so that the confidence of the average Nigerian would be lifted in the capacity of the government to successfully deal with graft.

Corruption fighting back in the National Assembly

As the onslaught against graft in the judiciary intensifies, it is not surprising that the arrowheads of corruption in the legislature have been taking desperate steps to undo institutions saddled with the task of ensuring public officers stay above board. Nowhere is this anomaly more apparent than in the National Assembly, where legislators in defiance of the voices of the people, have gone ahead to amend the Act setting up the Code of Conduct Tribunal with the aim of weakening it and making it pliable. This treasonable amendment is unacceptable to the Nigerian people, and it will surely be resisted. It is a clear case of corruption fighting back with all vehemence. 

At a time the nation is faced with crisis on many fronts, it is strange that members on the so-called hallowed chambers can offer the nation nothing, but sheer mischief. Nigerians are not unaware of the shady games which led to the passage of the retrogressive amendment aimed at whittling the powers of the CCT. Nigerians are also in the know of acts of subterfuge that orchestrated absence by lawmakers from the majority party, which was used to create an alibi to concoct the dubious passage of the offensive amendments to the CCT Act. One does not need to look far to see the motivations behind these machinations to weaken key institutions in the fight against graft. It is a case of participants in the endless looting of Nigeria fearing the consequences of their actions, and taking the route of weakening institutions to secure for themselves and their tainted leaders like Bukola Saraki and Yakubu Dogara soft landing. 

CHRICED calls on the President to ignore this latest round of subterfuge from the National Assembly by declining assent to this attempt to render prostrate a key institution in the fight against corruption. But beyond the refusal of assent, CHRICED calls on the Federal Government to show more grit and determination in the push to bring corrupt elements in the National Assembly to book. As things stand, the arrowheads of corruption in the legislature are having a field day. At the expense of Nigerians, they have padded budgets and nothing has happened. At a time of scarcity of financial resources, these so called honourable and distinguished members have not been honourable and distinguished enough to cut their jumbo allowances, both known and unknown; legal and illegal. They have not been productive enough to pass legislation to grant autonomy to the local governments, which are currently under the stranglehold of the state governments. Rather they keep guzzling a substantial chunk of the nation’s resources, while majority of citizens wallow in unemployment and abject poverty. This cruel form of greed and elite driven corruption must be immediately tackled. Even if output is to be assessed, what would the National Assembly say it has contributed to good governance to warrant the huge chunk of resources it drains from the public purse?   In fact, if the judiciary required a surgical blade to push the debate towards dealing with corruption, the National Assembly needs a transplant to replace organs that have long rotted beyond any usefulness to the Nigerian people. CHRICED again calls on the Nigerian people not to remain silent in the face of these institutionalised stealing from the people. Citizen action is urgently required to stop the current unchecked impunity and abuse going in the National Assembly.  

THE ECONOMY

Tackling unemployment 

As the Federal Government battles the monster of corruption and insecurity, it must realise that the task of putting the youth back to work is critical. In fact, insincere critics of the government are quick to use the current realities of unemployment and the recessed economy as talking points for vilifying government’s efforts to tackle corruption. To conflate the issues, some clever-by-half analysts are even going ahead to spin theories that government’s push for transparency and prudent management of finances, is responsible for the cash crunch in the system. CHRICED is of the view that the Federal Government should not give ammunition to its adversaries by not taking decisive step to put young Nigerians back to work. CHRICED insists that the various components of the social protection plan as being implemented currently, are not far reaching enough to deal with the crisis of unemployment the nation currently faces. CHRICED calls on organised labour to move beyond the push for minimum wage towards advocating for people-oriented solutions to the nation’s unemployment crisis.  

Dealing with this crisis requires radical out of the box interventions, which will create quick wins in the shortest possible time. In that regard, fixing the economy by implementing programmes that will immediately raise the purchasing power of Nigerians, cannot be overlooked. As CHRICED has suggested before, the Federal Government could explore the option of pumping N1 billion into establishing one industry in each of the 774 Local Government Areas. We make bold to state that such a novel approach will put economic power in the hands of the people at the grassroots, create thousands of direct and indirect jobs, while planting the seeds for the industrialisation of Nigeria. With the scale of the current unemployment crisis in Nigeria, we believe only this kind of far reaching approach would begin the process of reversing the lack of jobs for millions of young people, especially in the rural areas. 

Importantly, we believe that by now, the government should have learnt valuable lessons from the Boko Haram insurgency and the militancy in the Niger Delta, to understand how critical it is to empower young Nigerians. As a matter of keeping promises too, the President must remember that he was propelled to the Presidency on the back of passionate youths who believe he would make the difference. As we have done before, we call on the President to reciprocate this belief in him by Nigerian youths. The only way to do so is to ensure jobs are created to give this important constituency of Nigerians, livelihood opportunities.

This crisis of unemployment is the reason why at CHRICED therefore, the question of livelihood opportunities for young Nigerians is central to the advocacy we have been doing. CHRICED has been very much involved in campaigning for fairness, transparency and inclusiveness in government-run youth employment and empowerment schemes. We have developed in consultation with critical stakeholders, a Draft Code of Principles for the Design and Implementation of Youth Employment and Empowerment Programmes. These principles go to the core of the need to ensure all such programmes are governed with the best practices in terms of transparency and accountability. In the light of the several scandals that rocked government agencies in the last one year, such a monitoring framework becomes even more important.

  

Devaluation and the free fall of the Naira

CHRICED considers the continued free fall of the Naira as one of the biggest threat to Nigeria’s economic recovery. The foreign exchange crisis has resulted in a situation where several companies have shut down resulting in job losses. Citizens have become increasingly pauperized in the face of the current foreign exchange quagmire. Many foreign airlines operating in the country only recently indicated that they would be suspending their operations, with severe implications for the aviation industry. These realities make the need for urgent action on the economy much more urgent. CHRICED is of the considered view that now is the time for the Federal Government to halt the drift in the economy.

As noted in previous interventions, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as presently constituted is a big part of the problem, the Nigerian economy has been facing. It is our considered view that the problems in the economy would not have been this bad, if the current CBN leadership did not throw open the vaults for treasury looters to have a field day. It therefore stands to reason that those who created the problems can never be trusted to provide the needed solutions. Instead of thinking creatively to proffer solutions to the current economic woes, the people in the apex bank who pushed Nigeria to these dire straits would rather concentrate on trying to hide their guilt. Mr. Godwin Emefiele, Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and members of his Board would rather focus on how to survive and bury records of illicit deals, than work towards revamping the economy. CHRICED calls on the President, if he is indeed serious about restoring the economy, to overhaul the CBN. President Buhari should follow the shake-up at the apex bank by bringing in sound minds that would give a new direction in the management of the economy.

SOCIAL SPACE

State of the health system

It is acknowledged fact that Nigeria’s Health sector is in shambles and this issue aside the energy problem and other related developmental issues need to be addressed and fixed as quickly as possible by the President Buhari administration. In many places in Nigeria, our hospitals, especially primary Health centres are far away from where people live and some are with expired drugs, dilapidated structures, corrugated roofs covered with cobwebs and in many places, have become inhabitants of domestic animals.  From study in some tertiary and secondary health centres, ordinary water supply is not available. Patient’s relatives therefore have no option but resort to buying water in jerry cans. Health workers too have to wait endlessly for essential drugs and disposable gloves, as well as faced with irregular power supply.

Also, the rate at which women are dying of preventable and avoidable complications of pregnancies across the entire nation is alarming. Nigeria accounts for 10% of the global estimate of maternal death, though according to World Health Organisation, our population only accounts for 2% of the world population. It is therefore, no wonder why our train qualified Doctors and Nurses are all eager to leave the country and travel abroad. Therefore, in a time of recession such as we are, CHRICED believes strongly that government spending should focus on the issues that are most critical to the well-being of citizens. One such area is reducing the scourge of high maternal deaths across the country. The high rate of maternal mortality paints a very ironic scenario in which a mother that is on the verge of bringing another human to life, loses her own life in the process. Apart from the inhumanity apparent in such a tragic situation, it runs contrary to the spirit and letters of all national and international human rights instruments, which advocate the right to life as an inalienable human right. CHRICED calls on government at all levels to do more to tackle maternal deaths due to the poor state of health infrastructure. Citizens must also begin to explore avenues to hold government to account and ensure it works on social issues like maternal health for the good of most of our citizens. 

State of the Education

There is no doubt that the standard of Education in our country has eroded and fallen beyond expectation. This fact is no longer disputable judging from the massive failure of WAEC and NECO by our secondary school leavers.  Again, when we access the quality of graduates from our Nigerian Universities which has made most Nigerian graduates unemployable today, one cannot but sit to wonder where we are going, and where is our future. Therefore, we call on the government at all levels to take serious action to bring back the quality standard of education that once existed in Nigeria, which made our graduates compete anywhere in the world.

Text of Press Conference addressed by Executive Director of Resource Centre for Human Rights and Civic Education (CHRICED), Comrade Dr. Ibrahim M. Zikirullahi, at Valencia Hotel, FCT Abuja, on Tuesday, November 1, 2016

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Annkio Briggs to President Buhari: Leaders serve people not punish them

Commentary@ITRealms:

The oil-rich delta region of southern Nigeria - called Niger Delta - is larger than 70,000 square kilometers with a population larger of over 35 million people - larger than the population of Saudi Arabia, Belgium, Australia, Greece, Netherlands, Austria, Romania, Hungary, and United Arab Emirates - made up of 40 ethnic nationalities and collectively producing over 2.2 million barrels of crude oil per day.

I have to restate here for the purpose of emphasis - the population of the people of the Niger Delta is larger than that of all our African neighbours - Chad, Niger, Cameroon, Benin Republic, and Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mali, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, and many more. If the Niger Delta region were an independent country, its population would place it as the 39th most populous nation in the world, a position between Canada (36 million) and Morocco (34 million) on the global country-by-country population list.

The people of the Niger Delta with the crude oil resources exploited from their region are not a poor people, are not a conquered people, and we are therefore not beggars. And we could probably be the richest black people on earth, if we dared to own our God-given resources.

From 1885 to 1893, the Niger Delta we have gone from being the Oil Rivers Protectorate to the Niger Coast Protectorate Petroleum Rich Region, these are identities given to us first because of our riches in Palm Kernel produce to the discovery of crude oil and gas just before the independence of Nigeria in 1960. Before the British came and ascribed these nomenclature on the region, we were (and are still are) the indigenes of an enviable, blessed, rich, and industrious region.

After the discovery of oil and gas in commercial quantities in the Niger Delta, the region has remained in the centre of national and international debate with regards to the pollution and environmental degradation of the region. The twin issues have been made worse by unimaginable levels of corruption and human rights abuses of succession of military regimes and the democratic regimes that followed.

The Niger Delta are mostly found in the South South political zone of Nigeria. Geographically, we occupy 7.5% of Nigeria's landmass. Politically, the region is made up of six states - Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo, and Rivers.

We have experiences different seasons of oppression and political climate - colonial, post-colonial, Nigerian civil war (in which we were marked for extermination by the two armies in the conflict), violent agitations, and non-violent resistance, and the story is on-going.

The resources of the Delta region has been used for more than a century, since the 1914 amalgamation to 1960 Independence, when we were dealt a bad hand of cards of oppression, neglect, under-development and human rights abuse.

We are a welcoming and peace loving, yet we have never failed to resist oppression, neglect, injustice and inequality from the days of Nana of Itsekiri, the Nembe war, the era of King Jaja of Opopo, to that of Chief Harold Dappa Biriye, Adaka Boro, and all the way to the agitations of Ken Saro-Wiwa, we have always wanted fairness, justice, and equitable for all.

During all these times, our peaceful and humble ways and obvious loyal commitment to the continuity of Nigeria as a country has been willfully misread as weakness or even deadly desire on our part to sacrifice our people, region, and resources to keep the corrupt enterprise called Nigeria going.

When in 1998, the oppressive and extremely corrupt regime led by the late General Sani Abacha was dismantled following the unexpected death of the head of state, a supposed democratic government was ushered in the next year. General Olusegun Obasanjo (Rtd), a former military ruler who had just been released from prison took up leadership of the country as president based on the 1999 Constitution and there was high hopes for a new era of democratic rule.

But, the 1999 Constitution wasn't the constitution agreed upon by the 350 ethnic nationalities in Nigeria. Rather, it was a military decree signed into law by General Abdulsalami Abubakar. The military-produced document begins "We, the people", then proceeds to say the people agreed on a united Nigeria and prescribe laws to govern the people, who never agreed to the document in the first place. It is a fraud to pass off the 1999 Constitution as a democratic framework for the country.

I have always maintained that the problems staring Nigeria in the fact, that threaten our unity, are are written in the 1999 Constitution which the military government handover over to a military general as the basis for him to rule the country.

The Niger Delta people expected things to change in favour of the region, politically, when Obasanjo took over power, but what we were handed was continued genocide. We were cruely handed Odi, Odioma, Gbaramatu, Ayekoromo, and others.

The Niger Delta Development Commission, a supposed developmental intervention agency, turned out to be a puppet controlled from Abuja using people from the Niger Delta region as willing political and economic pawns in the hands of the federal government working against the collective good and development empowerment of the very people the agency was created to serve.

Though the NDDC is being presented as an agency for the Niger Delta people and region and managed by the Niger Delta people, it is actually a political power tool manipulated and controlled by the political system today known as the 'cabal'.

What did we get from democracy? The calls for resource control which galvanised into a globally recognised movement during the Abacha years was frustrated, the oppression and neglect of the Niger Delta region continued which snowballed into the armed agitations. Only then, did the issues that had been placed before past leaders of the country receive some attention.

President Obasanjo again offered something, a truce to enable the output of oil to rise again from the creeks of the Niger Delta, he succeeded. Then we had to deal with the unconstitutional ambition for 3rd term, NDDC became the cash cow for driving an illegality driven by the raw ambition of one man. Funds meant to go into the Niger Delta was diverted to fund the unholy agenda. The Niger Delta and Igbo people are still paying the price for the failure of the 3rd term, as they are seen as being responsible for the failure.

There is, indeed, a political cabal, that takes a hold of any elected or military government, it either controls the government to its selfish benefit or brings the government down. The Niger Delta has been at the receiving end of this cabal. The policies and system of long established decisions of never allowing either political or economic power to leave the control of "the cabal" which is made of one minority ethnic group from the North driven by the draconian philosophy of the military profession.

The cabal won't permit a government with aims different from its selfish aims to hold power at all costs to rise and fix Nigeria by addressing the very unjust system that the cabal feeds off of.

Boko Haram, the Fulani herdsmen militia, boldly killing, destroying and raping their way from Kaduna to Warri in the past 6 years, the kidnapping of under-aged Christian girls of South South origin, forcefully converting them to Islam, renaming them, and married them off to Muslim leaders and truck pushers are all criminal and terrorist enterprises funded and protected by the cabal.

In May 2015 the President Muhammadu Buhari-led All Progressives Congress government was sworn in, 1 year and 5 months later, the Niger Delta people are worst off than they have ever been since 1960.

In my opinion as a Niger Deltan, amongst over 35 million Niger Deltans coming from 40 ethnic nationalities owning the resources known as oil and gas, and others yet to be discovered, we the Niger Delta people have made too many sacrifices that no other groups of peoples have made for Nigeria or will ever be willing to make. And this is for a country dubiously created 100 years ago for selfish economic reasons. By 1914, the people of the Niger Delta had been living in the territory as free and independent nationalities for hundreds of years, it is therefore nothing to be ashamed of, if we decide today to re-appraise our terms and conditions of continue stay in a union that has no regard for us as equal partners in nation building, but rather sees us as tools to serve.

The Niger Delta region and her people, and the people of the South East have been referred to as the 5% that did not vote for the President Buhari lead APC government and were told not to expect what the 97% who voted for him will get.

At home and abroad the people of the Niger Delta, Igbos, and some selected outspoken Yorubas have been singled out and made to undergo media trials by the Muhammadu Buhari government. They have been branded thieves and looters of the treasury and denied their fundamental human rights.

The Niger Delta region is under constant threat of having the political will of the people overturned by the courts. Nearly 18 months after the 2015 elections and re-run elections, my beloved Rivers State is without full representation at the National Assembly, House of Representatives and State Assembly. All this, is a bid to frustrate the will of the Rivers people embodied in Governor Nyesom Wike. A political party and a democratic leader is meant to serve the people not punish the people.

The devastation and destruction of the Niger Delta people's environment, by International Oil Companies and their 60% federal government partners is probably the worst and most unacceptable sacrifice the people of the Niger Delta reLegion have had to make to sustain Nigeria. And it is one that we will continue to make until we take our destiny into our own hands.

The Niger Delta ecosystem and the people's livelihood has been destroyed by the careless and wicked method of exploration and exploitation of oil and gas has been undertaken since the discovery of oil and gas in the Niger Delta in 1957.

It is estimated that 25% of our mangrove has been destroyed! Our rain forest is nearly if not all destroyed all 7,400 square kilometers.

Oil spills in communities destroy crops; aquaculture which contaminate our drinking waters and farm soil destroying our livelihood, taking away our basic human right to feed and provide for ourselves and family. In the 90% agrarian and fishing communities of the Niger Delta, our fish and crops are destroyed by the activities of the federal government and their international oil major partners.

Experts have predicted that the environmental degradation in the Niger Delta region, if it continues at the current pace, our land and waters will become uninhabitable in less than a generation.

l personally believe this unfortunate trend has been the strategy of the born-to-rule power dealing cabal all along and the silence and inaction of the Nigerian government has encouraged it, in fact, actually promoted it. To either kill us off or make the region uninhabitable, either one of each will produce the desired outcome - unfettered access to our oil and gas (by any means necessary).

Respiratory problems, asthma, skin, stomach, and lung cancers, are some of the common health issues prevalent in the Niger Delta. Access to clean water, air and food is denied us as a result of the environmental abuses.

Gas flaring minimum of 3.5billion cubic feet of associated gas is flared yearly in the Niger Delta by the oil companies and their federal government partners, ironically the governments are obliged to protect us from these abuses. Gas flared in the Niger Delta is the equivalent of 25% of the UK's gas consumption, which is the equivalent of 40% of Africa's gas consumption as of 2001 (15 years ago) (Source: Wikipedia.org).

The federal government and oil companies are wasting a minimum of US$2 billion per year of Niger Delta wealth. It is cheaper for them to flare than to commercially separate viable associated gas from oil so they flare not minding the cost to the people and the Niger Delta region. They are killing us slowly to, ironically, save money.

It is therefore my considered opinion that this is the reason oil companies take their headquarters to Lagos State, and not because of insecurity caused by the Niger Delta people. They have the knowledge of exactly the health hazards they have created for us, according to the UNEP report we have a death sentence hanging over our heads. Our children have no future even before they are conceived.

Climate Justice in its study estimates that the exposure to benzene would result in 8 news cases of cancer yearly in Bayelsa State. Is it worth it? So that Kano State can collect allocation for its 44 LGA while Bayelsa State gets less than 1/5th of that for its 8 LGA.

l can say with confidence that more than 95% or 97% of our people in the Niger Delta region believe that the call for restructuring and resource ownership rather than threaten the unity of Nigeria seems to be the last post for the unity of Nigeria. I make my observation as a Niger Deltan, I don't claim to speak for all the ethnic nationalities, and I have been a strong advocate for all ethnic groups to speak for themselves.

As recently confirmed by Nigeria's minister of state for petroleum resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu when he presented a roadmap for the development of the nation's oil and gas industry at the Presidential Villa Abuja on Thursday the 27th of October, 2016 that President Buhari will meet with some stakeholders from the oil rich region on Tuesday, November 1.

*Being a part of contribuition by Annkio Briggs, a daughter, servant, and respected leader of the Niger Delta. She is a leading voice in the struggle for human rights and environmental justice in the oil-rich region. Connect with her on Facebook. 

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