Emperor, the Avengers have landed!.

As the country burns and boils in the vortex of lawlessness, civilian dictatorship and maladministration, emergency armchair analysts have started with their psychoanalysis of the Avengers. The Avengers, the new militant group who seems to have taken over from where MEND left off, are now joined by other similar groups in the region. The evolving conflagration is sure to cripple the Nigerian economy further, exactly what the Avengers promised in no unmistakable terms.

While many who lack the knowledge of a concise history of the Niger Delta think the Avengers are criminals, miscreants and good for nothing jobless youths, the same could also be said of the Fulani herdsmen, Boko Haram and their sponsors. However, whatever name the Avengers are described it cannot be denied that they have launched themselves into the critical equation of the national politics. For those who call them names, the joke is on them for failing to make the distinction between the Avengers on one side of the political spectrum and the Fulani herdsmen and their cousins, Boko Haram on the other. Therefore, let’s make the differences very clear.

The atrocities of the Fulani herdsmen and their cousins Boko Haram are legendary. Their crimes against humanity has been captured time and again by all international human rights organisations. The Fulani herdsmen have been rated as the fourth deadliest terrorist organisation in the world. In their marauding, murderous and scorched earth exploits are hundreds of thousands of innocent lives wasted and millions of dollars of property destroyed. For the Fulani herdsmen, their southward advance seems unstoppable because their sponsors are very well entrenched within the northern establishment. So much for one Nigeria! So much for faketoids.

For a long time it was thought that the amnesty program in the Niger Delta was the perfect fit in a perfect storm. Not exactly. The oligarchy, their micro fiefdoms and the oil cabals they wield thought naively that the Niger Delta should be content with a few Tompolos and general Boyloafs settled. But the problems of the Niger Delta have been festering for more than half a century. Make that five generations. So the late president YarAdua’s amnesty program was a miniscule band aid on a metastasizing cancer and oozing wound. And the situation wasn’t helped by a ruling cabal who thought the Niger Delta resources don’t belong to the people, and therefore had to be plundered silly.

The above synopsis is what has been the driving force of the Avengers. The Avengers, a guerilla outfit is taking matters into their own hands in the hope of changing the fortunes of their people, their lives and their region that for decades have been in the hands of heartless leaders managing a fraud called Nigeria. The Niger Delta has been haunted for years by the deaths of their revolutionary heroes like Adaka Boro, captain Nothingham Dick, world renowned environmentalist and Ogoni activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and other freedom fighters too many to mention.

It should therefore be clearly stated in unmistakeble terms who the Avengers are. They are militants fighting to free the Niger Delta from the clutches of internal slavery. They are not terrorists. Their military exploits are not targetted at Moaques, Churches, public places so on and so forth. They are not into raping innocent victims caught in the maelstrom of war. They are not into burning down whole villages, towns and communities. They are not into massacres of the genocidal kind. The Avengers have their sights fully set on crippling the country’s oil and gas industry. And make no mistake, no form of threats will deter them. The federal government will play mind games with them at its own peril.

As the country burns and boils in the vortex of civilian dictatorship, lawlessness, maladministration and is hell bent on clipping the militant wings of the Avengers, there is the question many have been asking. Why can’t the Avengers turn on their own leaders who have not helped in oiling the region’s state of perpetual marginalisation? The answer to that question will be delt with in the fullness of time. But the same applies to the movers and shakers of the oligarchy. If the political leaders of the north were not fantastically corrupt, everywhere in the north would have been like the middle east. The north wouldn’t have been a basket case mired in a paternalistic philosophy for almost the history of Nigeria. The culture of backwardness stuck in the medieval and stone age would have been a thing of the past. 

With the Avengers now joined by other militant guerilla outfits in the Niger Delta, perhaps this is the best opportunity to restructure the country that is far from a united Nigeria. In this regard, is the current administration willing to, at the very least, look at the demands of the Avengers? Will the administration release Radio Biafra guru Nnamdi Kanu and look into the re-allocation of oil blocks? Will the administration start to apply the national confab resolutions amongst other demands? And is Nigeria ready for true federalism? The idea that Nigeria’s false sense of unity cannot be negotiated will not work in this day and age. There are too many aggrieved federating units within the unitary system which continue to impede everybody’s progress. Nigeria cannot continue pretending all is well.

There is the temptation that a military blitzkrieg with naval gunboats, air force jets and main battle tanks can overwhelm the freedom fighters. But that can assure only a pyrrich victory. The only real victory is that one where the invaders obliterate the will of the defeated. Nothing can make Confucius and Sun Tzu writh in their graves. Because defeating the will power of an oppressed people is like asking for the heavens to fall. That won’t happen.

        ___________ Ebi B Asain
“The most potent weapon

in the hands of the oppressor

is the mind of the oppressed.”
      ___________ Steve Biko