The worsening crisis in Nigeria’s Niger-Delta region is, by every stretch of the imagination, symptomatic of the grave ill-health that has bedeviled the being and the character of the largest black nation on earth since colonial dictators from Britain departed these shores in October 1960. Name them: abject poverty, grade (A) corruption, bad governance, sectarian-cum-inter-ethnic conflicts, diseases such as malaria and H.I.V- AIDS, natural disasters, mass illiteracy and political upheavals.

Slowly, but, surely this problem, the Niger Delta crisis, taking the form and toughness of a boil on the scrotum, which, if or when it eventually bursts open, could spell doom for the carrier. For that very reason, Nigerians of virtually every persuasion have spent years trying to find a way to nip the crisis in the bud and thus manage to prevent the country from plunging into a full-scale civil war.

Go to the street corner, market place, church, mosque, drinking bar, varsity and the like, and also any woman or man, child or adult, educated or otherwise, when the seeds of bad blood began to be sewn in the Niger-Delta. The consensus opinion seems to be the same. Namely that the state of decay began to brew during the almost three decades of military rule.

There is also the widely-held view that the situation there has gone haywire over the last nine years of "democratic" governance.

Another point on which nearly every shade of opinion appears to be coalescing is that it’s only a matter of time before the region’s militant groups, criminal gangs and foreign-mercenary pirate transform the only real economic lifeline of the nation into something worse than hell on earth.

However, the area in which one man’s view seems to differ from his neighbour’s that of crisis resolution. For almost a decade, the same question keeps coming up and no-one appears to have any answers. People in government are not left out in the utter bemusement.

For eight years, Obasanjo tried all kinds of domestic measures, and he even attempted to use raw force on countless occasions, and that as Nigerians have seen, has had one regrettable consequence: that of biting the tail of the lion. But, if the truth must be told, what Yar ‘Adua has inherited, eighteen month after his political godfather officially left the scene, is at, best, an exaltation, to which he seems to have no answers or blueprint of his own.

Since coming to power on May 29, last year, President Umar Musa Yar ‘Adua has presided over 9 series of meetings by the powerful Federal Executive Council which includes some of the ex-military leaders whose untoward policies helped to entrench poverty and nationalism in the Niger-Delta. As yet, not one f those crisis meeting, so-called, has produced the proverbial magic wand. In that wise, the door has been left wide open for anyone who has anything, or any solutions to profer, to do just that.

One irrepressible race in this whole debate about how to find the proverbial black goat before darkness dawns has been Dr. Wale Omole, who is the national coordinator of National Problems and Solutions. Decently he addressed a group of journalists, speaking his "mind" as he saw it. "It is now very clear," he told his audience, "that no dialogue with the militants in the Niger Delta area can yield any appreciable result. The militants get wiser each day to know that they have a lucrative business. In situations where the oil companies pay billions of dollars to militants, no dialogue can stop the crisis.

"This is because to stop the crisis is stop the regular income.

"There are only two options from to bring abut the desired peace in region. One is to sue the military approach, for it involved destruction of lives and property. It is also synonymous with day-light armed robbery of the people of the Niger-Delta region.

"It may also lead to a civil war that may attract international sympathy. This approach is not good and it is not recommended.

"The second option is regional resource control. This can be achieved by the bringing about of the much-discussed national conference, where all the ethnic groups are represented on regional basis.

"Petroleum is not the only resource(s) in Nigeria. Let each region develop its own resources. Nigeria would be better for it."

Yes indeed. Everything Dr. Omole has said here is by no means new to anyone.

There is hardly any Nigerian that has been keeping abreast with the degenerating law and order situation in many parts of the Niger delta states who does not know that the issue of resource control had been seriously canvassed by many a progressive-minded Nigeria, during the drafting stages of the 1999 constitution. Those who were wise enough to understand the handwriting on the wall had back then, told he discredited, outgoing military rulers that one way to keep a lid on the simmering pt was he adoption of an equitable arrangement.

Thousands of Niger-Delta youths, many of them disgruntled for legitimate reasons, had begun forming themselves into well-armed militant organizations. Their traditional rulers and political representatives in government circles had either been harangued by the military into submission or were belching and gloating under the financial largesse of the unscrupulous multi-nationals from Europe, America and Asia.

Apart from turning chunks of arable land into ecological disaster, as well as decimating marine life in many places, these oil companies entered into accursed, alliances with chiefs of the area and politicians in order to stifle dissent. Where small bribes, plus menial jobs for disaffected youths didn’t do the trick, coercion and these of well-known instruments of state power and authority were tried.

In places where such tactics failed to achieve the desired results, some of the multi-nationals, with their political accomplice, used their unimaginable financial cout, plus the exploitation of age-old grievances between groups, to drive a wedge between the Ijaws, the Itsekiris and their neighbours in the oil-producing states. The hope, at the time, was hat the tactic of divide-and-rule would least prevent the natives of the region from unifying behind a common purpose, as well as keeping their ranks largely illiterate poor, and uninformed.

In Aso Rock, the outgoing military rulers, led by General Abdusalam Abubakar, succeeded in sweeping the much more popular proposal of a Sovereign National Conference under the carper, and instead, persuaded or cajoled the "emerging" civilian leaders at the time to insert into the new constitution a derivation formular that was as meager as it was ludicrous.

In other words, what Chief Obasanjo (all too happily) inherited on May 29, 1999, was a Niger-Delta policy whose cornerstone, even if he didn’t admit it openly, was the use of force to re-assert Federal Control and to keep the powerful oil companies happy to continue business as usual.

As for President Yar ‘Adua, his government has begun virtually the same way his predecessor did. By pretending not to have any ready-made blueprint for confronting the crisis on the ground. But, the big difference between now and, say, nine years ago, is that, nowadays unlike, in 1999, there are enough weapons in the region to start and keep a ferocious war going for another 10 to 15 years. Not only that.

There is little evidence that the military boys Obasanjo deployed in the region some years back are able to hold their own. In many places, they are easily outgunned and outnumbered, and they are painfully finding out that some of the militant groups are now able to lay hands on some sophisticated and state-of-the art weaponry. To make matters worse, criminal gangs from every corner of this earth have joined the fray, so that often times, you can hardly differentiate militancy from sheer criminality.

Ghana rejects tribal politics

NANA Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo, presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has called on Ghanaians to reject the politics of tribalism and ethnicity.

He said Ghanaians were made up of several ethnic groups who had the liberty of association and therefore could belong to any political party and not be coerced into one.

Nana Akufo Addo, said this at a well attended regional rally of the NPP in Tamale last weekend, during the final leg of his campaign tour of the Northern Region.

"Don’t allow anybody to bring division between us by preaching tribal politics," Nana said.

He said if the NPP administration had had the 19 years uninterrupted rule of the PNDC/NDC it would have transformed the country into a highly industrialised and prosperous one.

He urged Ghanaians not to hand over the destiny of the country once again into the hands of incompetent rulers.

He urged Ghanaians not to hand over the destiny of the country once again into the hands of incompetent rulers.

He urged Ghanaians not to hand over the destiny of the country once again into the hands of incompetent rulers.

Nana Akufo Addo said the NDC had resorted to violence, after all their politics of lies and deceit had failed, and called on NPP supporters to remain calm and not be provoked.

Nana Akufo Addo entreated the electorate to come out on December 7 to vote massively for the NPP to continue with its good works.

Mr. Alan Kyeremateng, a leading member of the party, said a US$60 million groundnut processing factory is to be built at Buipe in the Central Gonja District and about 50,000 groundnut farmers would be needed to feed the factory, adding that this would bring a lot of employment to the youth in the three northern regions.

It is as Ghanaian as it can be and it can’t get more Ghanaian than that! It is only in Ghana that there can be peace talks when no conflict has taken place! This is because even before a single vote has been cast in the forthcoming presidential and parliamentary elections, the generality of the Ghanaian polity has been put on the alert that it could end in violence.

The alert was first flagged when ex-Flt. Lt. Rawlings, the owner of one of the political parties contesting the elections (NDC), put it out that his party did not lose the last elections, which he claims were rigged to favour the NPP and for which reason, this time round, they would resist any rigging by the NPP.

Even this week, he has been at it. This is what the Ghana News Agency (GNA) reported from Navrongo: "Former President Rawlings said ‘We would not sit down this time to allow the election to be rigged like that of 2004’".

It is that kind of rhetoric that has heightened tensions in the country with accusation and counter accusation flying between the political parties, but especially between the NDC and NPP.

NPP chairman Peter Mac Manu came up in October with a peace plan, which was initially spurned by the leadership of the NDC, but on Wednesday, the party’s presidential candidate, Professor John Evans Mills, welcomed a meeting to discuss matters pertaining to the peaceful conduct of the elections under the auspices of any credible and impartial organizations that can facilitate such a discussion not only with the NPP but also with all the political parties that are participating in the December polls.

"Professor Mills would be prepared to participate in such a meeting himself should the need arise," a statement issued by Ms Hannah Tetteh, Communications Director of NDC said.

Prof. Mills’ statement said: "It is important to state that the NDC has behaved responsibly as a political party and has made proposals for building the peace before the elections well in advance of the NPP’s belated call for a meeting to discuss the peaceful conduct of elections.

The NDC had previously sent proposals to the National Peace Council for ensuring a peaceful, free and fair election.

In this regard, it is also worth noting that the NDC wrote to the Council of State formally requesting to have a meeting with them to discuss the measures that ought to be taken to build the peace and restore public confidence immediately after the gruesome incidents that took place in Tamale and Gushiegu.

Unfortunately, at the time the Council of State did not make itself available to meet with the party to discuss the concerns raised."

Prof. Mills said the NDC also wrote to the Ghana Bar Association, the Christian Council and other organizations, which in the party’s view could help to engage the political actors in constructive dialogue towards peace building.

"We do not think that it is too late to work together to build public trust and confidence, before the elections take place."

In what some observers have described as a shirking of responsibility, Professor Mills’ statement said, "The prime responsibility for maintaining the nation’s peace and stability, however, rests on the current Government and while we will all contribute to this process, it is important that the government fulfils its obligations to the Ghanaian people in this regard."

The point that is being missed here is the responsibility of political leaders in holding their supporters in check and minding the kind of words they themselves put out in the public domain.

Often it is political leaders, with their acts of omission or commission who drive their supporters to adopt attitudes that then end in violence.

It is only then that the government comes in to restore order. That is perhaps why the peace talks being proposed are essential in creating the necessary confidence building measures before a single vote has been cast.

All parties, said the Mills’ statement, should come to the meeting in good faith, determined to do what is necessary to overcome any lingering feelings of suspicion or mistrust, and putting the national interest above any partisan interest.

"The December 7th election is an event within a process, the process of entrenching our democracy and ensuring that we build a peaceful, stable and prosperous society. The National Democratic Congress, which I lead, is committed to this process.

We wish to lead Ghana in the right direction, and will surely contribute our quota to building a peaceful, stable and better Ghana," the statement concluded with a nationalistic flourish.