THE Ijaw freedom fighter, Major Isaac Adaka Boro was made alive once more when the living gathered on May 16 to commemorate his death. The people have good reason to remember him every year. Isaac Boro who lived between 1938 and 1968 was the first under the modern Nigeria State to use the gun to draw attention to the issues of resource ownership, its exploitation and allocation of accruing benefits, as well as the attendant ecological concerns in the Niger Delta. He did not like the way the oil resources of the region were plundered at the expense of the region and deployed unjustly to the benefit of other parts of the country.

Boro abandoned midway a degree course in chemistry at the   University of Nigeria, Nsukka to begin an armed struggle to safeguard the Niger Delta resources against poachers. He proclaimed the Niger Delta Republic on February 23, 1966 and held tight to the newly created country for 12 harrowing days before the Federal Government overwhelmed his Niger Delta Volunteer Force. He and his compatriots, notably Captain Samuel Timinipre Owonaro and Nothingham Dick were charged with treason, tried and jailed.

At the outbreak of the civil war in May 1967, Boro and his men were pardoned and released as combatants into the Nigerian Army by Lt. Colonel Yakabu Gowon. They were part of the 3rd Marine Commando that prosecuted the battle of the creeks. On May 16, 1968, some four months to his 30th birthday anniversary, Major Boro was killed at a location near Okrika in present day Rivers State, in circumstances that are yet to be fully explained. Nothingham Dick reportedly died in action in the Bonny area, while Owonaro survived with injury that progressively deteriorated, consigning him permanently to a wheel chair. All three men are from Kaiama, headquarters of Opokuma/Kolokuma local government area in Bayelsa State.

Kaiama has the added significance of being the socio-political and to some extent, the spiritual rallying point of the Ijaw nation. The mass youth movement, which gave birth to the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) and a far-reaching proclamation of rights, otherwise known as the kaiama Declaration on December 1998 happened in Kaiama. The River Nun with all its associated symbols in Ijaw cosmology runs through Kaiama and the Kaiama’s dialect is the official or the written and spoken Ijaw language. Maybe it was for these same reasons that the defender of the Ijaw race, nay, the nationalities of the Niger Delta, Major Isaac Jasper Adaka Boro had to come from Kaiama.

Boro re-invented the minority vigour that was lost to years of imperial cruelty and the near instant domination by the so-called majority elements immediately the Nigerian state was born on October 1, 1960. For some 12 days, aptly captured in Boro’s autobiography, The Twelve Day Revolution, the Niger Delta was made the hot point of all national transactions. The extant account of the revolution underscored a larger vision. Boro was not fighting for self enthronement and couldn’t have genuinely hoped to defend the Niger Delta Republic against the federal forces with a rag tag army of about 200 men that were ill equipped and ill trained. He knew the mission was more suicidal than it was realistic, but someone needed to die for others to live and he chose to be the one.

The one who came after him, Kenule (ken) Beeson Saro-Wiwa chose the pen instead of the gun as a weapon of engagement. But there was a binding nexus in both operations, which was the driving passion in both men to live and die for others. They personified the perennial struggle for minority rights and articulated the great issues of the day far beyond the policy framework set by the Harry Willink Commission of 1957 instituted by the colonial government to deal with the fears of the minority group in the emerging Nigerian state. They simply wanted the best for their people and almost nothing for themselves.

The succeeding generations of Niger Delta freedom fighters did not have to create fresh philosophical and ideological platforms to anchor the struggle. Enough fertile grounds had been cultivated by these two titans for future efforts to thrive. And the struggle so far has moved along the two near parallel paths of intellectual militancy as taught by Ken Saro-Wiwa and actual armed struggle as initiated by Isaac Boro. Those hungry for debate have as much space as those hungry for the trigger. The warlords and activists have also managed to sustain the impression that the agenda from Boro through Saro-Wiwa till date has not changed.

The battle on both fronts has been sustained causing some gains to roll in. At least the region has now produced the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, in addition to the creation of multiple channels of resource inflow to ostensibly empower the political leadership at all levels to deal with the unique issues that underscore the complexities of the region. These are the Niger Delta Development Commission, The Ministry of the Niger Delta Affairs, Federal Amnesty Programme and the 13 per cent derivation fund paid to governors of the region.

In other words, after years of remaining in the trenches as underdogs, the region and its people have been pushed to the foreground as champions. Now, there is something to cheer about and share too. And it is this phase of booty sharing that has systematically exposed the difference between the subsisting generation of Niger Delta freedom fighters and the generation that lived before them. It is becoming clear by the day that the deafening noise about a regional struggle in the years past by some noise makers was more about positioning for personal glory than it was about inducing a force that would transform conditions in the region for the better.

The governors are buying private jets and building private wealth with the 13 per cent derivation money and appearing far more prosperous than Alhaji Aliyu Dangote, the business mogul who has been consistently rated Africa’s richest man by independent assessors. Ministers, special advisers and heads of departments from the region have all witnessed meteoric rise from being ordinary men of yesterday who hung around friends to raise enough to pay rent and discount basic bills, to upper class lords who own choice property in Nigeria and world over. They constituted the so-called intellectual wing of the struggle in the hot days, masquerading in bohemian garbs as minority and environmental rights activists.

Generally, the noise is now far less because the noisemakers are at the dining table and they are trying hard to maintain good table manners by not talking while eating. If they ever talk these days, it is to challenge any threat to the good meal, like calls by genuine observers for President Jonathan to overhaul his operations and chase away some of these ethnic charlatans whose only qualification for being in the national leadership is their ethnic origin. These same people would even shout not minding that they could be choked as soon as the national discourse drift towards 2015 and the need for Jonathan to retire home after May 2015. They want another four years of unbroken feast beginning 2015 and non-renewal of Jonathan’s mandate means summary termination of the good times.

The actual militants are even better transformed. From being the inhabitants of the creeks they are now lords of the manor in Abuja and other big cities, where they live in mansions and manage fat government contracts. People who hardly know enough to recite the multiplication table from 2 to 12 are made to count personal money in excess of 10bn naira. It is not likely that these guys will agree to go back to the creeks and live among mosquitoes and reptiles even if Jonathan is to end his mission in 2015. They have since discovered that life is too sweet to be wasted in a ‘senseless’ liberation struggle. Their guerrilla life styles have been replaced by a hurriedly acquired aristocratic taste. These are the ex-militant leaders who now sit first class even on 40 minutes domestic flights. They drive big SUVs and hardly return to the grassroots because they do not want to be harassed by the rank and file of the liberation army who have not moved an inch up the social ladder since the cessation of hostilities occasioned by the proclamation of amnesty for the fighters by the Federal Government.

It is normal in all cases of post conflict negotiations. The leaders approximate the people and accommodate both the heat and meat that come with the agreement. Only the very good ones take the heat alone and allow the benefits to roll down to touch everybody. This is precisely where we are with the Niger Delta liberation struggle. Their leaders, who have taken the meat and passed down the heat to scorch the grassroots even more, have duped the people. In plain language, nothing has changed concerning the overall conditions of the region in spite of the seeming gains that have been recorded in the battlefront.

The gains evidenced by the creation of the NDDC, Niger Delta Ministry, Amnesty Programme, 13% Derivation and even the Jonathan Goodluck Presidency have only meant more wealth for a handful individuals in the region. Overall, the average Ijaw youth for instant, is as distant from better life as he was when Major Isaac Boro was in the swamps fighting to defend the autonomy of the Niger Delta Republic, which he proclaimed. And therein lies the danger. A more ferocious army is gradually building up as the little gains from the long years of struggle continue to move in the concentric circles of a greedy and insensitive elite class. There is even more anger in the Niger Delta region and that can only be ignored by the political leadership at the risk of a cataclysm that will be too combustive to manage.

Put differently, if the existing template does not change, the kidnapping and destruction of oil facilities to forcefully access government promises that have been in the pipeline since the beginning of time to the ordinary people of the Niger Delta cannot stop immediately.