#MYONEKOBO
Call them Niger Delta Avengers, Ijaw Peoples Avengers, Jonathan's Defeat Avengers, whatever you choose to call them, this villainy, brigandage, economic sabotage and blowing up of pipelines must stop, "he who burns down his father's house inherits ashes". It must be known that the greater number of our people lampoons and repudiate the violence in the Niger Delta. So, stop branding the Niger Delta people as villains and war mongers because we are NOT.
Call them MASSOB, IPOB or Biafrans, there is the need for equity, fairness and justice within the Nigerian State, the right to peacefully agitate is inalienable and the use of extremely deadly force to deny unarmed citizens of the exercise and expression of such right is terrorism. Justice, equity and fairness is the only weapon that truly can.
Call them Herdsmen, Fulani Herdsmen, Marauding Herdsmen, Malian/Chadian/Libyan Herdsmen or whatever, the time to repudiate their villainy with the same promptness that we do the others is now. Use the law as the weapon to check impunity.
To the Federal Government and my Dear President, dialogue rather than warfare is the way to go, in the short run, there must be far reaching effort at giving every part of this Union a true sense of belonging. Your appointing protocol and governmental engagement of staff and persons must be inclusive and uniting. And the imperativeness of massive infrastructural development and the restructuring of the nation cannot be overemphasized.
As I did when I went unshaven for 7months in 2014 calling for dialogue with the Haramists to stem insurgency in the North East, the repudiation of violence and violent reprisals\military action remains my forte. Military action is expensive, military action kills one vista of hate and opens a new chasm of hate, military action leads to loss of innocent lives and destruction of properties, and oftentimes deals unimaginable collateral damage.
It is a huge historical lie and fallacy to say that "you do not negotiate with terrorists". The US did with the Taliban, the UK did with the Irish Republican Army IRA, talks are ongoing everywhere in the World to etiolate terror, you can't shoot terror out of existence, you can talk terror into extinction.
To me it is never late, can never be late, and will never be late to raise the greatest weapon against villainy, and that weapon is Love, dialogue and proactive albeit peaceful engagement.
It is better to jaw jaw than to war war.
God bless You.
Christopher Mustapha Nwaokobia Jnr
DG CHANGE AMBASSADORS OF NIGERIA CAN.
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Twitter: @CNWAOKOBIAJNR