Ex-PANDEF Scribe Challenges Niger Delta Leaders on Restitution
By Naija Governance Desk
Former Pan-Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) spokesperson, Ken Robinson, has placed the burden of the Niger Delta’s underdevelopment squarely on leadership failures and ethical lapses, arguing that meaningful progress will remain impossible without restitution, accountability, and a radical change in values.
Robinson made the remarks in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, during the launch of his book, The Zacchaeus Manifesto, where discussions focused on ethical responsibility, resource justice, and leadership conscience in the oil-producing region.
“The book is about leadership and transformation,” Robinson said. “Until leaders and citizens change their ways and their actions, this country will remain the same. Government has to change its ways for things to work.”
He noted that Nigeria’s challenges are not due to a lack of ideas or resources, but a persistent culture of self-serving leadership, particularly in regions that generate national wealth.
Robinson also disclosed plans to institutionalize the book’s principles through a grassroots initiative called the Zacchaeus Movement, aimed at reshaping leadership values from an early age. The programme will be implemented in partnership with schools and education authorities across the Niger Delta. “We’ll be organising book banquets in collaboration with schools and ministries of education,” he said. “It’s a movement we want to drive to engender personal change.”
The debate took a sharper tone during a keynote address by Chief Onyeche Promise Obinna, a traditional ruler in Etche Local Government Area, who accused Niger Delta leaders of betraying the region by misappropriating its oil wealth. “As natural beings, when you take what doesn’t belong to you, you owe nature,” Obinna stated. “That is why some of our past leaders die mysteriously. The best thing to do when you owe nature is to pay back nature.”
Obinna argued that the region’s challenges are largely self-inflicted, with some leaders forming alliances with external interests to shortchange the Niger Delta in revenue derivation and resource control. He called for public restitution and apology, urging leaders to emulate the biblical Zacchaeus by returning stolen resources “fourfold” and investing deliberately in development-oriented institutions.
“Our leaders must not only repay what they have taken but multiply it fourfold,” he insisted. “They should establish foundations that promote development, skills acquisition, and capacity building.”
Reviewing the book, former Vice Chancellor of Rivers State University, Professor Barineme Fakae, said The Zacchaeus Manifesto confronts corruption and inequality by grounding leadership reform in ethical and moral responsibility, drawing on Christian ethics to challenge leaders to embrace restitution, accountability, and social responsibility.
For attendees, the event reframed Niger Delta development as not merely an economic or political struggle, but a moral reckoning demanding that leaders first make peace with their people before seeking justice from the state.
