For much of Muhammadu Buhari’s time in office as the President of Nigeria most of the Niger Delta states were in the opposition. Akwa Ibom, Rivers, Delta, Edo, Cross River, Bayelsa and Abia were all PDP states. Buhari and his team did not do much to bring these states into the big tent of the ruling party, APC. He simply left them to their devices. And when PANDEF submitted a 16-point shopping list to the President he did nothing except the establishment of the University in Warri. All the other items remained untouched. There was mutual hostility between him and the Niger Delta states. When the iconic NDDC headquarters located at the Eastern-Bypass in Port Harcourt was inaugurated in April 2021, he did not attend the ceremony. He commissioned it from his distant office in Abuja. The Governors of the oil producing states too stayed away: Only the Governor of Imo State, Senator Hope Uzodimma and Chief Godswill Akpabio, then Niger Delta Minister and now Senate President attended the commissioning physically. The Niger Delta State Governors must have felt miserable that even though their states are the geese that are producing the golden eggs, the lives of their people were far from golden. The only medicine for someone who is miserable is probably hope, hope for a better future.
Within two years of a new man in the saddle, President Bola Tinubu, there is a political tsunami in the Niger Delta region. The Niger Delta Governors have realized that if they do not get to where the honey is, they will be licking only vinegar. And who wants vinegar for a meal? Now the following states in the region are in APC: Cross River, Edo, Delta, Imo, Ondo and Akwa Ibom. The remaining states that have not defected into the ruling party are Bayelsa, Abia and Rivers. What this means now is that out of the nine Niger Delta states, six of them are in the ruling party. The latest addition is Akwa Ibom State.
On Friday June 6, 2025 Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Dr Umo Eno took the courageous step of stepping out of a party that has governed his State for 25 years and defected into the ruling party, APC. This is by far the most significant defection into the APC because Akwa Ibom is the country’s highest producer of oil and gas. With an average production of 504, 000 barrels per day Akwa Ibom, sends one third of oil and gas dollars into the Federation account wallet every month. Therefore the State remains the biggest fish in the APC net.
What is Akwa Ibom likely to get for moving into the big tent of the APC? In the oil league Akwa Ibom has been very badly treated. Despite its huge contribution to the national revenue the state does not have even one oil or gas related industry. Will it get one now? Let us hope so, for fairness sake. The state has a natural deep sea port which it has been struggling to build in partnership with the Federal Government since 1999 but it is still at a rudinientary stage. Yes, Nigeria already has seaports in Apapa, Tin Can Island, Onne, Port Harcourt, Warri and Calabar. Currently there are ongoing efforts to build deep seaports in Badagry, Ondo, Bonny and Ibom. The Ibom Seaport is very strategically located and can serve most of the neighbouring states if completed. Will the Ibom Deep Seaport receive the President’s urgent attention now? Let us hope so for the sake of fairness. There are two federal industries in the state, the Aluminium Smelting Plant in Ikot Abasi and the Newsprint Manufacturing Plant at Oku Iboku. They have been dead for years now. Will they get revived for the sake of fairness? The Calabar-Itu highway and the Umuahia-Ikot Ekpene Road have been bone breakers for many years. And these are roads that lead to the highest oil producing state but the silly sort of politics that some of our politicians prefer to play has left these pivotal roads unattended to. Will they now be attended to for the sake of fairness?
Perhaps the most important remark to be made on the political sea change in the Niger Delta is that we hope that it will affect the fortunes of the NDDC. Since its creation 25 years ago the NDDC has been tormented by various governments that approve their budgets yearly but do not release the funds for project execution. So opponents of the NDDC sit down and crunch the revenue figures approved for the commission without bothering to know how much has actually been released to the Commission. Buhari ordered a forensic audit of the Commission which showed scores of uncompleted projects as well as debts owed to people who used their money to execute those projects. That is where the story ended. Most of those projects remain till this day uncompleted. There is a Comprehensive Health Centre that the NDDC started in my village in Ukanafun Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State since 2004. It has not yet been completed as of today. Our Federal Legislator at the House of Representatives, Chief Unyime Idem raised a motion on it sometime last year yet nothing has happened at the place which if completed can save the lives of thousands of people who live in the surrounding villages. There are many, very many, of such projects that have remained like whited sepulchers, abandoned, ignored and forgotten. There are also people who executed projects for the Commission and have not been paid for years. Who does business like that? The reason they have not been paid is because the NDDC budgets are just paper budgets, no release of the billions that are approved yearly. That means that the Federal Government has never been faithful to the NDDC and fidelity is the sister of justice. As at today the Federal Government owes the NDDC about N1.91 trillion naira. The budget which was approved by the National Assembly, we are told, included provisions for securing one trillion naira from development and commercial banks to fund ongoing legacy projects. So will the fact that six out of nine states in the Niger Delta region are now in the ruling party give the NDDC a new and better lease of life? I don’t know but the fact remains that the NDDC management is more likely than hitherto to receive more robust support and cooperation from the regions’ governors now than before. One hopes that this will translate into more transformational and life-lifting project execution in the region.
There has been relative peace in the Niger Delta for several years now. The credit for that peaceful atmosphere belongs to the leaders in the region who have been able to keep the guns of the militants silent. It is not only when people hear the booming of guns that people ought to expect to get what is due to them. PANDEF must wake up and review the 16-point programme that was submitted to Buhari several years ago. It should then submit it to the Tinubu administration and push for their implementation. President Tinubu needs the support of the people of the Niger Delta not only for the 2027 elections but more importantly for the governance of Nigeria because the region still remains the country’s cash cow. But that cash cow has never been truly fairly treated. Gas flaring has destroyed the lives and livelihood of the people for many years now and no serious effort has been made to halt it. All that the various governments had been doing in the past was to impose miserable fines on oil companies that were destroying the lives of the people in those areas where the flaring was going on. And the oil companies were always happy to pay those tiny fines while the damage continued. Part of the inhuman treatment of the Niger Delta people by the Federal Government is that it allowed the Ogoni crisis to linger until now. It is gratifying that President Tinubu has revived the matter. The clean-up of Ogoni has remained untackled for years. Oil has not been produced in the territory for many years because no one seriously tried to have a decent conversation with the Ogoni people. Now that a conversation is ongoing I urge the Ogoni people, elders, youths, politicians and thought leaders to decide to keep the past in the past. They have lost a lot and what has been lost cannot be recovered. They must not prolong the loss. The people who caused the problem are no longer on the scene. That they must bear in mind. Let everyone decide that it is time to let go. Nobody fights for ever. Your fortune is in your soil which God gave to you. That is your honey. Don’t let interlopers deprive you of that honey because wherever there is honey there are always flies. What has happened to you for years is a misfortune. You should know that people can bear their friends’ misfortune better than they can bear their good fortune. Let what has happened now in the Niger Delta be a new beginning for the region, a new beginning that will bring about a phenomenal renaissance in the region where the people have been treated like lepers for years and their God-given heritage taken away without any compunction.
Now that the bulk of the oil producing states are in one party, the ruling party, they must work together to turn this tsunami in the political space into a piece of paradise.