Fuelling the Delta Fires
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
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 valu
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
Based on the real life situation in Nigeria’s Niger Delta, Fuelling the Delta Fires is an expose and action adventure novel revealing why there is turmoil in the world’s sixth largest crude oil exporter.
Chief Tom-George is a corrupt local politician and the governor of Western Ijaw State. To “spread his message” across the state, the Ijaw chief buys the services of Mene Bene, the leader of the largest youth militant group the Niger Delta Liberation Movement (NDLM).
In exchange for cash, Bene ensures that Chief Tom-George’s opponents are harassed and threatens communities that refuse to back his man’s National Umbrella Party. However, once he was sworn in as governor, Chief Tom-George no longer needed Bene and the NDLM, so they have a problem.
Later, the NDLM resorts to kidnapping as a means of raising funds to sustain its operations. What started off as a little bit of mischief, soon grows into a multi-million dollar industry as oil companies are willing to pay handsome sums for the return of their expatriate workers.
This book also gives a real live account of the experience of Alan Ward, a kidnapped British oil worker. Alan is held on the isolated and desolate delta island of Epeleama.
Fuelling the Delta Fires ends with Chief Tom-George’s ambitions to run for the presidency of Nigeria in tatters. He is the front runner until at the last minute, the rug is pulled from under his feet when a litany of his corrupt deals are read out to him a day before the ruling party selects its presidential candidate. Faced with the threat of standing down or being indicted, he does the former and watches on helplessly as the prize slips from his grasp.
About the Author
Ayo Akinfe, born in Salford, Manchester in 1966 is a London-based journalist who has worked as a magazine and newspaper editor for the last 20 years. He spent his key formative years in Nigeria where he saw the kind of horrors poverty, an unfair trading environment, under-development, corruption and mismanagement visits on African countries. Fuelling the Delta Fires is one of a series of novels aimed at highlighting Africa’s sorry plight.