NIGERIAN ENVIRONMENTAL AND CIVIL SOCIETY GROUPS WRITE PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH
ON US OIL POLICIES IN NIGERIA'S NIGER DELTA

ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS ACTION/ FRIENDS OF THE  EARTH, NIGERIA;
#214, USELU-LAGOS ROAD, UGBOWO, BENIN CITY; NIGERIA

July 11, 2003

Dear President George Bush:

You are visiting our country at a time of profound economic and political crises. The neo-conservative agenda which you so powerfully represent, putting profits before living people, is wasting lives, aborting liberties and destroying livelihoods.

For four decades and more, we have watched the Western oil companies operating in our country reduce the once ecologically-balanced and life-sustaining Niger Delta to a veritable nightmare, flaring death-dispensing gas into the atmosphere of local communities, mangling fishing waters and farmlands with oil from old and broken pipelines they have refused to maintain and repair, cutting down forests and abolishing fresh water sources. We have seen them march alongside Nigerian soldiers they pay with blood money, into  villages and hamlets killing, maiming and raping young men and women whose only crime is that they dared raise their voice to protest the wanton destruction of their lives and sources of livelihood. When people and their habitat die, Mr. President, the world dies too.

We would like to state our total opposition to your plan to further militarise Africa by setting up new military bases in Ghana, Senegal, Mali, Equatorial Guinea, Sao Tome and Principe and Kenya as well as expanding America military presence in Djibouti. Reports in the international media, including the Wall Street Journal and The Guardian of London say the target of this massive military deployment is to protect oil fields in the Niger Delta of Nigeria. We insist that the resolution of the Niger Delta crisis can neither be found in militarism nor legalism but in political dialogue with the local people who matter the most.

We call on the US government to:

• rethink its oil and foreign policy because it is driven by the interests of  powerful corporations:
• stop playing politics with hunger and promoting Genetically Modified (GM) products;
• halt its plan to deploy United States troops to the Niger Delta:
• withhold further support for the West Africa Gas Pipeline Project until the concerns of the local communities have been democratically resolved; and
• support democracy in Nigeria as matter of principle, not out of convenience.
  
  

 Sincerely,

  (Signed):

Nnimmo Bassey, ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS ACTION (ERA)

Dr Beko Ransome-Kuti, CENTRE FOR CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNANCE (CCG)

Alfred Ilenre, ETHNIC MINORITY AND INDIGENOUS RIGHTS ORGANISATION OF AFRICA

Abiye Kuromiema, RIVERS STUDY GROUP

Kingsley Kpea, CHIKOKO MOVEMENT

Felix Tuodolo, OGELE CLUB

Asume Osuoka, OILWATCH AFRICA NETWORK

Chilos Godsent, PAN AFRICAN YOUTH MOVEMENT

Comrade Che Ibegwura, RIVERS COALITION

Kingsley Chinda, PUBLIC INTEREST LAWYERS LEAGUE (PILL)

Chief (Mrs.) Ekaette Ebong Okon ITAM WOMEN ASSOCIATION, Itu, Akwa Ibom State

Steyv Obodoekwe, JOURNALISTS COMMITTEE FOR MEDIA RIGHTS AND DEMOCRACY (JOCMERID)

Dimieari von Kemedi, OUR NIGER DELTA

Emem Okon, NIGER DELTA WOMEN FOR JUSTICE (NDWJ)

Adewale Adeoye, JOURNALISTS FOR DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS (JODER)

Patterson Ogon, IJAW COUNCIL FOR HUMAN RIGHTS (ICHR)

Popoola Ajayi, GREENPEOPLES ENVIRONMENTAL NETWORK

Annkio Opurum-Briggs, AGAPE IS A BIRTH RIGHT