Given Bonny’s limited communication links with the rest of humanity, all the NDLM delegates arrived in speedboats. In an exuberant show of strength, flamboyance and extravagance, up to 200 young men arrived in fast-moving boats that they drove with reckless abandon. Many a fisherman was harassed on the way and even the Port Harcourt to Bonny ferry had to be delayed during the two hours of mayhem until it was safe to travel.
They came from all over the Niger Delta, from as far away as Uyo in the east to Arogbo in the west.
At about 3.00pm in an abandoned and spacious United African Company timber warehouse with high ceilings on the Bonny docks, proceedings began. Built like a Gothic cathedral, the building had huge coloured windows, wooden floors, a two-foot platform and words echoed like you were in a cave. The way words rebounded added to the menace of the rhetoric and the height of the platform allowed speakers to captivate the audience the way a preacher does in church.
Most of the participants wore battle fatigues and camouflage clothing, with a few even painting their faces black with charcoal, indicating that they were battle ready. Some even came along with their AK-47 Kalashnikov rifles and pistols at the ready. Surveying his audience from the top of the podium, Mene Bene, the NDLM leader could tell from how rowdy and fired up they were that many of them had spent the last few hours consuming alcohol and Indian hemp.
Opening the conference, Mene started off chanting well-known slogans and popular quotes from Boro. After a 20-minute spell of chanting, singing, fist-shaking and sloganeering, he delivered the opening address.
About six feet one inch tall, Bene did not match the stereotype of the typical militant. He was not squat and stocky but was of slight build and carried himself rather gracefully. He also did not have that macho coarse voice.
In his high-pitched voice, he began “My brothers, I’ve invited you here to discuss the plight of the Ijaw. Unless you are blind, you’ll realise that in Nigeria, the Ijaw man is not considered an equal. He is not considered a contemporary, a colleague, a mate or a friend but a subordinate. Other Nigerians trample on us as if we are maggots and all the evidence shows, that for the last 40 years, we have been the footmat of this country.
“We are the goose that lays the golden egg, yet we have the worst nest in the swamp. Other Nigerian kids swim in swimming pools but ours swim in oil-polluted waters. They have bridges, we have wooden planks, they have roads, we have weed-covered streams, they have electricity, we have bush lamps. It is time for the Ijaw nation to rise and say enough is enough. Rather than educate themselves about this injustice, they indoctrinate one another and delude themselves into believing that we are irritants who can be ignored.”
“They treat us like lepers, dismiss our complaints as noisemaking and trample over our lands like wild animals in search of food as they prospect for oil. Never for once have they ever paused to think about the impact their oil activities are having on the lives of those who live in the Niger Delta. It is as if we do not exist and do not have a right to exist.
“We are not even the bridesmaid, we are the houseboys. Our opinions are not valued, our customs not cherished, our way of life not respected and our voices not heard. One cannot but get the impression that given half the chance, the rest of Nigeria, in collusion with the oil companies would love to do nothing more than drive the Ijaws into the sea.”
“We may live on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean but that does not mean we are no different from the plankton or animals that live in the sea. We are a people with a rich and proud tradition that have rights, feelings, a way of life and dignity. All we are demanding is the respect that is accorded to every other people who produce oil.
“While we must hold the rest of Nigeria to account, we must also not lose sight of who the main culprits are. These multinational oil companies come here to make billions and remit it back to their countries of origin, leaving our people with nothing but the polluted aftermath. It is a bit like a woman giving birth to a healthy baby and having the child spirited away from her and left with the afterbirth.
“Not only have they given us nothing of the billions they have made, they have left us infinitely worse off than we were before their arrival. Across Ijawland today, nobody can continue the fishing, boat-making, net-making or farming activities of our forefathers. Polluted waters, desecrated land and gas-poisoned air have made sure that we have been left destitute like leprous beggars.”
Bene went on for half an hour, detailing the injustice the Ijaw suffered in modern day Nigeria, pointing out how it was the worst part of the country in terms of infrastructure and social amenities and how their people were the least respected in the country. He sat down to a standing ovation as clench fists banged the wooden tables, making a deafening noise. Chants of alutua continua, victoria accetra rent the air.