RESOURCE STRUGGLE: The Diezani Alison-madueke Trial – (OPINION)

By Kabowei Akamande (Port Harcourt)

UNDERSTANDING RESOURCE STRUGGLE.

Any group abundantly endowed by their Creator with natural resources is target for annihilation from its less endowed neighbours.

The attack could take different forms but the overall objective, namely, resource capture and appropriation, remains constant. Anywhere natural resources abound; deception, religion, racist laws, blackmail and outright violence are imported to subdue the rightful owners for the benefit of outsiders.

In the past five hundred years resource-rich Ijaws have endured unprovoked attacks from local and foreign aggressors. It came to a point where, for sheer survival, Ijaw City States organized themselves under War Canoe Houses. These are verifiable historical facts. Full blown wars, deception, assassinations, abductions and exile were deployed against Ijaw monarchs by the British, for instance. Yet, resources worth millions of pounds were fretted out of Ijaw territories even in the midst of armed hostilities.

Bear the above anomaly in mind to understand why the British is today siding resource-plunderers in persecuting the Ijaw-born Diezani Alison-Madueke (DAM). What you see happening in the Southwark Crown Court in the United Kingdom did not start today. King Jaja of Opobo was also abducted from his kingdom in 1887 by the British, subjected to a flawed trial in Accra and exiled to the West Indies. And what was his crime? The monarch had insisted on exporting palm oil directly to Europe without British middlemen.

For clarity, presented here is a brief history of resource wars visited on the Ijaw nation by aggressors who loved Ijaw resources more than the rightful owners. Each war is dated according to the technology that drove it.

Era of Christian Evangelism, 14th-19th Century: The West controlled the lucrative Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, 15th-19th Centuries, by means of Christian technology. This technology facilitated the building of bigger and better merchant ships, medicine and weapons. As a matter of fact, it was Catholic Pope Nicholas V that ordained slavery in 1455 when he degreed compulsory baptism for enslaved Africans before being chained down in the diseased hold of the merchant ship.

“Jesus of Lubeck” was a slave ship owned by Queen Elizabeth I of England. She leased it to the English militant called John Hawkins, who captained the ship to carry away slaves in 1564 from the West African coast, his second slaving venture. Dr Harold Dappa-Biriye graphically captures the unmitigated tragedy that was Ijaw land under relentless assaults. Catholic Europe used Ijaws as human fuel (resources) to cultivate its plantations:

It was not until European Merchants came with the light of Western Civilisation, in the fifteenth century that salutary changes appeared in the old economy of the Oil Rivers. Portuguese adventurers first reached Bonny in 1464. They brought (coral) beads and battered for tusk, and opened the way to other European competitors. At first their trading features were not regular but by the middle of the 17th century when the need for labour in the plantations of the West Indies and the Caribbean called for human resources from Africa real business began. Man chased man in the wilds of the Oil Rivers and for nearly three centuries made a most gruesome trade in human traffic (see Biriye’s “Oil Rivers is Coming to Limelight,” in “Harold J.R. Dappa-Biriye: Essays and Speeches, Volume One,” Cona Concepts Ltd, 2007, p.86).

Era of Gun Boat Against Ijaw City States, 1840-1900: In “Ernest Sisei Ikoli, 1893-1960: Pioneer Nigerian Journalists and Nationalist,” Professors Ebiegberi Joe Alagoa and John Horace Enemugwem identified this period as the era of Ijaw proto-Nationalism preceding Nigerian Nationalist Movement that began in 1900. This was a period when Ijaw monarchs, not limited to King William Koko of Nembe, King Jaja of Opopo, King Opubo Pepple of Bonny, etc, took up arms to defend Ijawland from the newly industrialised West hungry for palm oil to grease its machinery. Trade wars over the control of legitimate goods, mainly agricultural resources, was the bone of contention.

Ijaw monarchs took advantage of their middleman position between European Supercargoes anchored off their coast and the hinterland to dominate international mercantilism as bulk purchasers and sellers. They later ventured into export and import but this was a move no European power was prepared for as it completely cut out their merchants. Having woefully failed to use Christianity to deceived Ijaw proto-nationalists (King Koko was a Christian but still killed Westerners), gun boats were brought in from Europe but Ijaw proto-nationalists reciprocated with their own canon-mounted war canoes.

To forestall future attacks from the British gun boats and counterattacks from the ubiquitous war canoes that did legitimate trade no good, the two protagonists settled for diplomacy. Ijaw ancestors signed with the British Queen Victoria Treaties of Friendship and Protection still valid in today’s Nigeria. These treaties recognized Ijaw ownership of Ijaw territories and natural resources under British protection.

But the same cannot be said of the Treaties between the Sokoto Caliphate and the British, for instance. Sultan Attahiru I (the twelfth Sultan of Sokoto Caliphate from October 1902 to March 15, 1903) was overthrown by British forces led by Frederick Lugard, on March 15, 1903. Lugard told the defeated Caliphate that the treaties it signed with Queen Victoria of England had been rendered invalid by the new order. Lugard thus declared:

The old treaties are dead…you have killed them. Now these are the words which I, the High Commissioner, have to say for the future.

The Fulani in old times under Dan Fodio conquered this country. They took the right to rule over it, to levy taxes, to depose kings and to create kings. They in turn have by defeat lost their rule which has now come into the hands of the British. All these things which I have said the Fulani by conquest took the right to do now pass to the British. Every Sultan and Emir and the principal officers of State will be appointed by the High Commissioner throughout all this country…. (see Margery Perham’s, “Lugard: The Years of Authority 1898-1945”, p128)

Here is a glimpse of what the British Treasury took from Ijaw territories in the midst of unprovoked British hostility. Ijawland yielded more dividends than the entire British West Africa:

According to Dike, the RNC (Royal Niger Company) enterprise in the Niger Delta in the nineteenth century earned England Two Million Pounds. That of the Gold Coast, the Gambia and Sierra Leone totaled 600,000 Pounds only. As a result, the Niger Delta Region was declared the British Oil Rivers Protectorate in 1885. Its expansion into the Niger Delta hinterland, the new Niger Coast Protectorate from 1893 gave the company a near monopoly of the palm oil economy. Colonial records show that within the time under review, the revenue from the Niger Delta Region exceeded government budget. In the year ending 31 March 1901, the budget of 210, 780 Pounds was exceeded by 687 Pounds. The Custom dues alone from the region were 91.70% of the total budget for that year (see Ebiegberi Joe Alagoa and John Horace Enemugwem’s “Ernest Sisei Ikoli, 1893-1960: Pioneer Nigerian Journalist and Nationalist,” Onyoma Research Publications, 2015, p. 28).

Era of Blackmail as Instrument of Ijaw control, 1970-2026: Exactly eighty-eight years to the day Lugard gave his last warning to the Sokoto Caliphate for violating treaties it signed with Queen Victoria, Sultan Dasuki connived with General Ibrahim Babangida, Professor Jubril Aminu and one corrupt Justice Gusau to sentence the Ijaw-born Professor Tam David-West to life jail for bribery. They accused him of accepting a cup of tea and wrist watch from a white man interested in doing petroleum business in Nigeria (see “$57m tea, wristwatch : How IBB jailed me for offence I didn’t commit –Tam David-West,” The Sun newspaper, https://thesun.ng/57m-tea-wristwatch-how-ibb-jailed-me-for-offence-i-didnt-commit-tam-david-west-2/, Retrieved Monday 16th February 2026).

In truth, they feared Professor David-West would spill the beans on how northern generals and their emirs stole Ijaw oil blocks. Recall in January 1984, the new military junta of General Muhammadu Buhari had appointed Professor David-West Nigerian Petroleum Minister. The academic knew too much and the resource-plunderers sent him to Bama prison in Borno State where another Ijaw nationalist called Charles Okah is being illegally imprisoned for life.

The climax was when the Defendant won his appeal. In his own words, “Finally, my case was appealed. The Chairman was the late Justice Dahunsi Coker of the Supreme Court. The Appeal Tribunal found me completely innocent in the judgment delivered on August 8, 1991. I won the appeal. The Appeal Tribunal Chairman was Justice Dahunsi Coker. The judgment said there was no iota of corruption and that everything they said about me about Stinness was a lie.”

As with Professor David-West, so too Alison-Madueke who served as President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s Minister of Petroleum Resources, 2009-2015. To better understand the thick conspiracy against her, we rely on Bolouere Opukiri’s well researched “Diezani Alison- Madueke’s Case: A Story That No Longer Holds Its Shape” that essentially corroborated “THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS “DIEZANI LOOT” posted by Mike Ozekhome’s Chambers, https://mikeozekhomeschambers.com/there-is-no-such-thing-as-diezani-loot/, Retrieved Monday 16th February 2026).

For ten years after leaving the petroleum ministry, the Federal Government and the British harassed and probed Alison-Madueke for bribery. In those ten grueling years her record has passed all integrity tests but that did not hinder the resource-plunderers from dragging her to the Southwark Crown Court, the UK, hoping that a slip of tongue on the part of the Defendant could do the trick. But with each state witness called, Alison-Madueke emerges cleaner and better.

It is not necessary replicating here the bogus charges leveled against her. But patriotic Ijaws’ stand remains constant: Alleged misdeeds by Kola Aluko, Jide Omokore and Benedict Peters can never be charged against her. Alison-Madueke is innocent until proven guilty. On at least two occasions, DAM’s request to be joined as a defendant in criminal cases in Nigeria to face charges and prove her innocence have been denied. Of course, the pretext for her endless arraignments on the eve of every presidential election cycle is to frighten Dr. Jonathan from going for a second term as Nigerian president.

Concerns on the Alison-Madueke Trial.

One, there is no political action without beneficiary. One does not have to be a political scientist to know that the President of Nigeria Second Tenure Election is the ultimate beneficiary in the rebooted trial of Alison-Madueke. The target of this witch hunt is Dr Jonathan. Until this country ceases to exist, let it be on record that Dr Jonathan has his constitutional rights to run for the presidency of Nigeria in 2027, if he so desires.

Two, it is not true that Aso Rock has succeeded in pocketing the Ijaw nation by giving a handful of Ijaw ex-militant leaders pipeline surveillance contracts. Ijaws are a resolute people who can take a stand and defend their position; as evident in our recent history of the past five hundred years presented above.

And three, patriotic Ijaws fault the supine approach of the Ijaw National Congress, INC, and Ijaw Youth Council, IYC, to the Diezani matter. Their empty declarations only embolden resource plunderers. If political solution is the answer, as IYC Secretary-General Maobuye Nangi Obu thinks, what stopped the powers that be from applying it in the past ten years this innocent lady is being harassed? Did political solution free Professor David West, Charles and Henry Okah? Therefore, we demand the INC in the UK to discharge its duty to the Ijaw nation by formally entering the case as affected party and counter-sue Agip and Shell for corruption, bribery, genocide and environmental terrorism against Ijaws.

Akamande is leader of Thought Izon Ebe, Phone +234 703 846 3111; Email: oweiak@yahoo.com; writes from Port Harcourt.

Kabowei Akamande (Author).