The first Ijaw Day Celebration and World Summit took place on Friday, 24 February 2005, at the instance of the Bayelsa State government. Governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha had planned the event and prepared well ahead of time. Invitations had gone out to sundry sons and daughters of Ijaw land, and the attendance was expected to be nothing but massive. Only four days to the event, however, news broke that Chief Harold Dappa-Biriye had passed on.
The loss of Dappa-Biriye came as a big blow to the Ijaw nation, and no one felt it more than Alamieyeseigha. From the day he took office as governor, Alamieyeseigha considered Dappa-Biriye as one of the regular consultants to his government. He was well nigh familiar with the role played by Dappa-Biriye, not only in the creation of Rivers State in May 1967, but his personal involvement with Nigeria’s struggle from the colonial clutches of Britain.
Ten years before, in 1957, Dappa-Biriye was on the Nigerian delegation to the conference at Lancaster House, London, which deliberated on the modalities for the country’s independence. His relevance to the story of Nigeria’s evolution into a sovereign nation was well established. Alamieyeseigha had invited Dappa-Biriye to grace several occasions in the past, and the presence of the genial old politician always brought with it a promise of hope for a greater Niger Delta.
Just before the conference began that day, Alamieyeseigha called for a moment of solemn and respectful silence in honour of the late patriot, Dappa-Biriye. Alamieyeseigha said: ‘We will miss him for his sterling and invaluable contributions to the Ijaw cause. Indeed, he was a champion of the Ijaw revolution who fought for the recognition of the Ijaw race, and for equality and justice in the Nigerian system’.
The occasion at hand marked another decisive step in the long walk to self-determination of the Ijaw people, and provided another opportunity to reconsider the fate and redefine the destiny of Ijaw land. As far as Alamieyeseigha was concerned, the time had come to move forward decisively, if the minority Ijaw were to free themselves from the contrived political drama in which they had been pawns for decades. It was a time to device solutions to help define the rightful inheritance of the Ijaw people. The realization that one was lost was always the beginning of finding one’s self.
This was a time to ensure that the rhetorical power brought to war against injustice and inequality in Ijaw land was matched by a realistic sense of what must be done in the years to come. ‘I am certain that the unilateral position of the country to undermine our race will become vulnerable, if we stand up firmly to defend our rights. We must commit ourselves to the emancipation of the Ijaw race from all forms of domination and injustice. We must realise that the democratic logic of this great nation, sadly enough, is one of exploitation, inequity and sheer opportunism’, he said.
It was evident that every ethnic nationality in the county was trying to re-invent itself for greater effectiveness in the struggle for supremacy or, on the other hand, for greater resistance. It was only to be expected, therefore, that each ethnic group was attempting to re-define Nigeria in a manner consistent with their aspirations, whims and caprices, and it would be folly for the Ijaw to lag behind. In other words, it was only too clear that ethnic interest worked at cross purposes with national interest in an antiquated system founded on a false national sovereignty. Invariably, the great issues of the day –national unity and fairness — were often sacrificed on the altar of expediency.
To come against the formidable forces that face the Ijaw nation and prevail, the people of the Ijaw nation needed to reposition themselves by strengthening their fundamental structures, internal social and cultural organs, and to educate and enlighten the people. This was the whole point of the summit. For Alamieyeseigha, this entailed empowering the people economically, and positioning them strategically to resist all forms of oppression, while striving to underscore the rightful place of the Ijaw as one of the four largest ethnic nationalities in Nigeria.
For Alamieyeseigha, the feasible option for the immediate future was to press on resolutely with the demand for political restructuring of Nigeria to strengthen the federal system and make it functional. He was quick to cite the example of Canada. When Quebec, the French–speaking province of the predominantly British Canada robustly registered its desire to pull out of the federation and become an independent nation, the rest of the country which is English-speaking, consented to having a Quebecker as its Prime Minister. That was how the complex ethnic tension in the country was doused. Politics and the power acquisition process was about men and women coming together to decide how the commonwealth should be shared equitably, and Alamieyeseigha could only settle for that.
He said: ‘For us to have a sense of belonging in the Nigerian federation, we cannot continue to be entrapped in an entity founded upon great historical paradoxes. We cannot allow ourselves to be enslaved by a modern army of political conquerors commanded by the ethnic majorities of this country. The socio-economic woes we suffer as an ethnic nation, requires nothing but a definite political solution, proffered by the Ijaw people themselves.
‘It is expedient, therefore, to resolve the pockets of conflicting political interests within our various states of abode before the dark forces of destruction tear us apart. We must band together and form a more united political front to enable us make a single-point demand and enhance our bargaining power. Only then can we negotiate effectively for the highest position in the land and be taken seriously by those willing to strike a political deal with us’.
The Governor-General declared that the surest way to safeguard the interest of Ijaw communities and eliminate the lopsided policy that reserves the choicest jobs in the land for the technocratic elite of the Hausa Fulani, the Yoruba and the Igbo, was for the Ijaw to assert their place in the national equation. His submission was that greatness comes when leaders make real their vision of the world as they wish it to be without losing touch with the reality of the world as it is.
Winston Churchill believed that England would achieve victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard it may be. When all seemed lost, Churchill achieved his aim. By the same token, Reagan envisioned a universe in which the Soviet Union would rest on the ‘ash-heap of history” at a time when conventional wisdom thought such a possibility unrealisable. And yet Reagan achieved victory. In like manner, the first George Bush wanted Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait when many in the congress were reluctant to fight the dictator’s aggressive grip on power. Yet George Bush Snr. succeeded.
These pertinent examples proved that all sons and daughters of the Izon race could conceive a common vision that would enable the Ijaw people overcome all obstacles on the way of their God-given destiny. For too long now, the Ijaw had been plodding on in pain and anguish. It was time to move with dignity to that destined place in the world map, and put behind the shame and mistakes of the past.
He said: ‘I see the chains of oppression broken on our land. I see her difficult terrain clustered with infrastructure, reflecting the glory of the rising sun. I see us rising from the ashes of history. The time has come when we should take advantage of our heritage to advance our society’.
The major assignment for every Ijaw compatriot, he said, was to work towards fresh options and new initiatives to sustain the momentum of the struggle. It was important to constantly articulate a credible viewpoint that would keep the struggle alive until the ultimate goal is attained. This was not the time to mortgage the future of the Ijaw nation for short-term advantages. The goal was to secure the future stability and prosperity of the Ijaw people in the interest of generations to come.
More than ever before, this was the time to consolidate the vision and legacy of leaders in the mould of Harold Dappa-Biriye and bequeath it to future generations in order to strengthen the belief and resolve of the Ijaw people for political and economic emancipation within the Nigeria federation.
As a token of appreciation for the Ijaw nation which has borne the enormous economic burden of the country, Alamieyeseigha called on the Federal Government to emboss the portrait of Isaac Boro, Ernest Ikoli, or Dappa-Biriye on a Nigerian currency note. He equally called for important roads and streets in the Federal Capital Territory to be named after notable personalities and towns from Ijaw land, if only to give the minority population a sense of belonging. That call still resounds till this day.
