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The Action Congress (AC) has decried the state of anarchy in Port Harcourt, saying what is happening in the Rivers State capital and the entire Niger Delta region depicts the country as a failed state where, among other indices, the government no longer has monopoly over the powers of coercion.
The Action Congress (AC) has decried the state of anarchy in Port Harcourt, saying what is happening in the Rivers State capital and the entire Niger Delta region depicts the country as a failed state where, among other indices, the government no longer has monopoly over the powers of coercion.
In a statement issued in Abuja on Monday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party called on the Federal Government to immediately jettison its fire brigade response to the rising violence in the city in particular and the Niger Delta region in general.
The party said while it agreed that imposing a state of emergency might not be the way to go, the Federal Government must re-invent and re-assert itself, because the steps it had taken so far had shown a terrible lack of understanding of the Niger Delta problem.
'We have said it before and we now repeat it, the situation in the Niger Delta is capable of consuming us as a nation, and all hands must be on deck, with the government leading the way by showing political will, to resolve the crisis.
'With militant and criminal groups now in control of the oil region, the Federal Government must admit it has failed in dealing with the situation and sit down with genuine stakeholders to get to the root of the problems.
'Hostage taking, attack on oil facilities and rampaging criminal gangs are all symptoms of a very serious problem in the Niger Delta, which is the deep resentment of the people in the region over long years of neglect and abandonment by the government.
'Only a genuine effort, backed by sincerity and determination by the government, will help achieve a lasting solution to the crisis, not the usual made-for-television stakeholders' meeting patented by former President Olusegun Obasanjo," the party said.
Commenting specifically on the situation in Port Harcourt, where days of gang violence have left dozens dead and filling station and radio station bombed, AC said the criminals had left no one in doubt as to who is really in charge in the state.
'When people can easily destroy a government-owned fuel station, attack radio stations, threaten the nation's refineries, they are indeed aiming at the country's jugular.
'A situation where even a government house has been attacked and the governor forced to escape by speed boat, and another government house is now being protected by soldiers cannot be described as normal," it added.
The party said deploying soldiers to battle what has now grown into a full scale insurgency can only be a palliative, as events in other lands have shown.
'The British government did not know peace until it re-invented itself on the Northern Ireland problem, where years of reliance on the use of force failed to produce the peace now prevailing in the area," it added.
'Therefore, deploying soldiers to man strategic areas in Port Harcourt will not solve the problem. Can soldiers patrol every street and every household? Is it not true that the bandits and the militants choose where and when to strike?
'These dare-devil militants and bandits have shown they are not worried about soldiers' deployment, as many in the Niger Delta will rather die fighting than stay alive because of the sub-human existence to which they have been subjected.
'While not condoning the brigandage and resort to violence in the region, we urge the government to take a holistic view of the problems in the region by attacking the disease and not just the symptoms and get the Niger Delta back on the road to sanity," the party added.