The purported planned downgrade of the Okerenkoko Maritime University, Delta state have triggered fresh uproar in the Niger Delta region.
The Gbaramatu Traditional Council is spoiling for real showdown with the Federal Government over the purported plans, which they described as annoying, provocative, dehumanizing and capable of throwing the region into another round of crisis.
The plan was reportedly revealed by the Minister for State Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, during the unveiling of the oil and gas roadmap termed; “7Big Win”.
The Minister while presenting the document to Preisdent Muhammadu Buhari was quoted to have said the Petroleum Ministry has taken over the issue of the Okerenkoko Maritime University, revealing that the federal government had decided to reduce the Okerenkoko Maritime university which was a degree awarding institution to a polytechnic that would award diploma certificates.
President Buhari reportedly assented to the presentation of the document which contained the decision of the Ministry at a ceremony held in Abuja on 27th of October 2016.
The document among other things intended to chart a new roadmap for the short to medium term strategy framework with robust priorities to grow Nigeria’s oil and gas sector.
The initiative will take a more critical focus on key areas including Niger Delta development and security of the oil producing region.
Reacting to the reported downgrade of the Maritime University on Sunday, Acting Secretary General of Gbaramatu Traditional Council, Chief Godspower Gbenekama, maintained that as critical stakeholders and immediate host to the proposed university,”we find this presentation and plans annoying, disturbing, disgraceful, insulting, and dehumanizing”.
Gbenekama stressed that the issue of the Okerenkoko Maritime University was supposed to be a Pre-Niger Delta, Federal Government parley agenda which was part of the low hanging fruits that the federal government was supposed to tackle so as to build trust in the Niger Delta people.
He said that they were so surprised that without consultations the Federal Government had gone ahead to take a decision reducing the university to a Petroleum Ministry-ran Polytechnic that would award Ordinary National Diploma, OND and Higher National Diploma, HND certificates.
Gbenekama said that something must have gone wrong with the maritime university to have made the Federal Government to reduce its status as a university to a polytechnic but whatever the issue could be should be laid on the table before taking any decision on the varsity so as not to further jeopadize the fragile peace in the region.
He maintained that the Niger Delta people and Gbaramatu Kingdom in particular will continue to reject and resist the plans to relocate or downgrade the university to a diploma-awarding institution.
The activist accused the federal government for showing interest only in the oil and gas resources from the region, saying that what the government has been doing was to criminalise the region before committee of nations, deprive her offspring of quality education and reduce the aspirations and desires of the people to
nothing.
“But for the people of Niger Delta and Gbaramatu in particular, the best thing for us is to take our resources to feed the Nation, criminalise us before the committee of nations. We are not good enough to be educated, our areas is not good enough to be developed, both in infrastructural and human capital development. That is the reason why the federal government, through its militarization policy of the Niger Delta has rendered all our primary and secondary schools ineffective.
“The height of it, is to cancel the maritime university which the immediate past administration sited at Okerenkoko with take-off campus at Kurutie in Gbaramatu kingdom.
“We see this action of the federal government as a plan of calling a dog a bad name in order to hang it. We therefore call on the federal government to rescind its decision because both the lame and the blind, the incapacitated, the old and young, men and women would protest this action of the federal government.
“This has shown how insensitive the federal government has been in dealing with the issues of the Niger Delta….at a time like this when we are all working to achieve peace, when we are talking of dialogue…The action of the federal government has put some doubts in the minds of leaders and youths of the Niger Delta that this intended discussions would end up to be a talkshow on the issues of the Niger Delta.
He wondered if the proposed Maritime University was the only institution established by former President Goodluck Jonathan that should be singled out for downgrade, querying why the Buhari administration was hellbent in relocating the institution which he said will reduce the issue of restiveness to its bearest minimum in the region.
Reeling out the economic potentials of the institution if sited in Okerenkoko, the Ibe-Benemowei of Gbaramatu Kingdom, said that the varsity would boost the marine manpower of the Nigerian state as well as boost the economic life of the people of Gbaramatu and Warri South West local govt area.
“But what have the Ijaw people of Gbaramatu actually done that would make the federal governemt see them as less humans? There is a Petroleum Training Institute in Effurun and there is another Petroleum University in the same Effurun. That they are establishing another Petroleum Institution in the same Warri enviroment is absurd! And this is also capable of pitting us against our Urhobo brothers.
“The Maritime University is a special and distinct university which promises to address the marine needs of the Niger Delta and the marine needs of the Nigerian State…It is not just a university or a school like any other conventional school. The only one that is a little bit close to it, is the one at Oron in a different state, about four or five state away from Delta State.
“So we still cannot understand what the present government has seen in the Ijaws of Warri and Gbaramatu in particular.What have we actually done to the Nigerian state or the present government that cannot be forgiven and forgotten for us to live in peace within the Nigerian state?
“Is it that the Federal Government don’t want to continue with the institutions that were created by the Jonathan government because if that is not the case, why is this plan affecting only the one in Okerenkoko, Gbaramatu Kingdom..
During President Jonathan’s time, he commissioned other universities, while others are operating the one at Okerenkoko in Gbaramatu is under attack because they don’t want it to start academic actvities…
“We would resist it. If our land is good enough for the resources used to develop other part of the country, it should also be good enough to be developed”.
