| Urhobo Historical Society |
Road Map to
Peace in
By
Senator David
O. Dafinone, OFR
∞ ∞
∞
The
The Niger Delta region has
a population of 27 million,
covering an area of 70,000 square kilometers, with 5000 communities, 50
ethnic
groups and 250 dialects.
The
region is not only rich in oil and gas, but also well endowed with
other
natural resources like water, timber and other forest resources, wild
life and
sharp sand. It is the third largest wetland in the world, following
after the
Amazon basin in
There
are six states in the Niger Delta, namely; Bayelsa,
Delta and Rivers, constituting the core and original states through
which the
River Niger drains into the Atlantic Ocean, and three others which
include, Akwa-Ibom, Cross Rivers and Edo.
Politically, these six
states constitute the South-South geopolitical zone of Nigeria.
The
significant feature of the Niger Delta is the general state of
underdevelopment, not only by world standards but also in relation to
many
parts of
The
poverty of this region, whilst being the source of the majority of
The
Niger Delta was recognized as a region for a special development
initiative and
attention in the Independence Constitution of 1960. The
Pre-Independence
Constitution also recognized a special right of the region to oil and
gas
resources ownership. Thus, 50% of royalty deriving from the Oil and Gas
exploitation was paid to the Oil Producing Regions or
States.
Hazards
of Oil Exploration and Production (1956 – 2007)
The
hazards of Oil Exploration from Oloibiri
to date
(1956- 2007) have changed the structure of the region from stagnation
to
decay. Over the years, the oil-rich Niger Delta region has been the
backbone of
Yet,
the scourge of poverty in the Niger Delta region is grim with the
people
lacking basic human needs and their environment willfully and
constantly
degraded by the foreign oil companies and the
The
Oloibiri oil wells, for instance, where oil
was first
found in 1956 in Nigeria, became extinct in 1979 after the completion
of the
full circle of exploitation by Shell Petroleum Development Company
(SPDC) and
British Petroleum (BP), a subsidiary of the Royal Dutch/Shell Group. At
that
time, Shell removed pipelines, capped the wells and pulled out of the
community
as if oil was never produced in the area. However, they did not
redress
the damage to the environment as a direct result of their production.
Consequently, the heavily polluted environment of the
This
is not the only incidence of oil companies failing to rectify the
environment
during and after production. I was in the Senate when the
wellhead of Oben 1, one of Shell’s
oilfields in today’s
The
fact-finding mission of the Senate Committee on the Oil Producing Areas
that
visited the affected community discovered that the explosion was caused
by the
company’s negligence. Shell was forced to shut down Oben
1 and it vacated the oil community following the order of the
Committee.
In
1981, Chevron/Texaco’s offshore rig at Finima
was
gutted by fire, again on account of the company’s recklessness. Over
two
million barrels of crude spilled into the surrounding waters.
In
1986, the inhabitants of the old Finima
community
with their traditional sacred sites were all evicted and dumped into a
poorly
artificially sand filled area to allow the construction of the Bonny
LNG. By
1988, the newly created Finima was
flooded, turning
the people into refuges in their ancestral home.
With
the ageing of most on-shore oilfield, the antecedents of Shell in the
extinct Oloibiri field are already being
repeated. The
oil-producing communities have at various times suffered frequent oil
spillages
caused largely by lack of careful maintenance of the flow lines,
persistent
flaring of the gas for over five decades, and the dumping of untreated
toxic
waste generated from oil exploration and production into the creeks,
rivers and
land. As oil exploration and production moves offshore, the Niger Delta
is
increasingly being polluted from both land and sea.
The
Niger Delta region is constantly threatened by a huge loss of
biodiversity.
There is also decline of brackish water (a finite resource and the
basis of
sustainability of the wetland), massive pollution of surface and
underground
waters with increasing presence of lead and mercury.
This
has worsened the attendant health hazards, resulted in a dramatic
increase of
derived savannah in the world’s third largest wetland, and created a
rural land
crisis, the spectre of landlessness, food
insecurity
and constant extinction of aquatic life.
This
combined with other issues arising from poor governance and policy
have partly shaped the structure of the underdevelopment of the
Niger
Delta region.
Governance
in the Niger
The
As
a creation of the Nigerian state, the NDDC serves as an avenue where
the
politics of the state mode of surplus extraction is played out in
concrete
terms through the award of contracts and plum appointments to the
political
elite and their cronies. For a commission that has never been well
funded from
the onset, an allocation of a paltry N69.9billion further
underscores
the perceived unwillingness of the state to enable the body function
efficiently in dealing with the crisis of development in the region.
By
the provision of the Land Use Decree of 1978, the inhabitants of the
oil
producing communities have been turned into squatters in their own
ancestral
homes, as land where oil is explored,
produced,
transported and stored still belongs to the state long after political
independence in 1960.
However,
the oil companies are expected to pay compensation for crops destroyed
and
fishponds polluted in the process of finding and producing oil, but
only at
rates exclusively determined by the Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation
(NNPC) and the oil companies. Even payments made to aggrieved persons
were done
under sharp practices.
Furthermore,
the foreign oil companies have been fermenting inter and intra
community
conflicts in the oil producing communities by playing a divide and rule
game.
This, they have done to essentially undermine the traditional
authorities
opposed to their recklessness. The oil companies have acquired the
notoriety of
not only funneling largesse inclusive of huge cash amounts to the
tribal
leaders, who, in turn, fail to share the benefits with their
communities, but
also inciting some of the youths to rebel against such leaders in an
effort to
save their facilities from attack. The majority of the foreign oil
companies
have become sources of funding for some prominent local leaders
scheming for
political/traditional leadership positions in the communities.
Buoyed
with the financial gratifications from the oil companies, the local
elite
recruit and equip youth leaders with money and weapons to engage in
violence in
order to control the villages and further their narrow political and
social
interest. These groups have grown more powerful and resentful towards
village
chiefs. In some areas, youth groups that did not benefit from the
largesse have
rebelled against local chiefs on ground of collaborating with both oil
companies and the government to oppress and exploit them. While
conflict
entrepreneurship is flourishing, insecurity in the region is deepening.
The
emergence of armed groups across the region is partly a function of the
zero-sum politics in
Desirous
of winning an election, majority of the politicians hire the daring
youths and
have them equipped with dangerous weapons to crush all forms of
opposition.
Socialized into violence, the armed youths can hardly withdraw from
acts of
lawlessness long after elections are over. As a result, with the
slightest
power tussle between and among the local politicians and conflict
entrepreneurs, the youths are mobilized by the local powerful elites
for
action, causing mayhem.
Coupled
with the deepening poverty, underdevelopment, widespread youth
unemployment and
alienation of the people, the insecurity in the area has been
accentuated.
The
proliferation of small and light weapons across the Niger Delta stems
from the
desire of arms dealers - local and foreign - to create a market for
their
products in the country. Evidence has shown that the AK47 rifles and
self-propelled grenade launchers amongst others used in the wars in
The
existence and application of the Mineral Act of 1914; part of which has
been
extracted to form the Petroleum Act of 1969, the Land Use Act of 1978
and the
Land (Title Vesting) Decree of 1993 have directly or indirectly
contributed to
the present state of neglect, under-development and the insecurity of
the
region.
In
all appearances, the root cause of the crisis in the Niger Delta
remains the
denial of the peoples’ right to land and its content, which the above
pieces of
legislations have concentrated on the state. Originally, the current
crisis in
the Niger Delta was a governance crisis and right-based, with economic
agenda
only factored into it following the prolonged period of
underdevelopment.
Naturally,
the recipe for peace in the enclave is fundamentally the return of the
rights
of the people to land and its contents as it was under the pre-colonial
period.
The Repeal of the Land Use Act 1978, the Petroleum Act 1969 and the
Lands
(Title Vesting) Act 1993 are therefore imperative.
The
protracted intransigence in the Niger Delta is an indication that the
military
action is not a viable option for reversing the underdevelopment of the
region
and restoring peace there. This explains in part why the allocation of N444.6
billion in the 2008 national budget for security in the Niger Delta is
placing
undue emphasis on issues that will not further peace in the restive
region.
Dedicating such huge amount to policing the Niger Delta will, as usual,
be
counter productive because the resentment of the Nigerian state and the
oil
companies by the people will continue to deepen.
State
sponsors of terrorism cannot sustain oil exploration and production in
the
Niger Delta. There can be no peace and guarantee for human security in
the
Delta region without social, infrastructural and overall development of
the
area. Government must move away from the current piecemeal approach to
the
crisis and drop its misplaced belief that a military solution can be
found to
the festering violence in the region.
I
do not only share this huge burden of pain, but I also feel challenged
to cause
a restoration of the people’s rights to ownership of land and its
content as it
was under the pre-colonial period. Again, the Federal Government must
ensure
environmental security and allocation of more financial resources to
the Niger
Delta region.
There
is urgent need to reorder the political, social and economic
development of the
Niger Delta area, as a necessary step to redress the numerous
unresolved issues
under the national question.
As
part of the effort to find enduring and practicable solutions to the
protracted
crisis in the oil-rich Niger Delta, the first Niger Delta Peace
Conference was
held in
ROAD MAP TO
PEACE IN NIGER
Taking
cognisance of the prolonged
underdevelopment and
unrest of the Niger Delta region, and concerned about the need to
promote
growth and development of the region, the road map to achieving these
objectives are as follows:
(i.) The
practice whereby entrepreneurs represented by international oil
companies fail
to rehabilitate and ameliorate the hazards from oil and mining
exploration
during and after their cessation of activities constitutes health and
environmental hazards which the nation cannot sustain. International
oil
companies should therefore rehabilitate and ameliorate the hazards
arising from
oil exploration and production in accordance with generally accepted
international standards both in the period of production and after
their activities
have ended. As part of that strategy, foreign oil companies operating
in the
region are required to return the farmland, creeks and wetland, surface
and
underground waters and the entire polluted environment back to
normalcy. The
international community, the home countries and government of the
foreign oil
companies should help to enforce the principles of environmental
sustainability
and laws by prosecuting erring oil companies operating in the Niger
Delta
region.
(ii.) Hostage
taking and abduction of oil workers must stop, as the crisis has not
been
mitigated. Rather, there should be broad based consultations and
dialoguing
between the people, the oil companies and the state and other
stakeholders.
(iii.) The
proposed construction of pipelines from
(iv.) There
is the need to establish a mechanism to protect the oil pipelines. Part
of such
a strategy is the establishment of Pipeline Marshals Commission (PMC),
to be
supervised by the Niger Delta Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
The
Commission should also create jobs for disenfranchised youths, both in
and
those who are already out of the creeks, in order to protect the
pipelines
against further vandalisation.
(v.) There
is an urgent need for the Federal Government, the foreign oil
companies, the
European Union and other countries whose citizens engage in bunkering
to put a
mechanism in place for the control and prohibition of illegal bunkering
that
has turned the Niger Delta into a morass of violence and insecurity.
This will help
stem the rising tide of insecurity in the region.
(vi.) It
is imperative to restore the peoples’ rights to their natural resources
namely;
oil, gas, land, forestry and water-in order to mitigate the struggle
for
resources in the Niger Delta region.
(vii.) The
creation of a Bank for Reconstruction and Development for the Niger
Delta will
also become meaningful and functional after the democratization of the
governance of resource rights of the people. The proposed Bank, into
which all
royalties from the oil companies will be paid, will be the custodian of
the
funds, as well as preventing misuse of
funds now and
in future. The Bank will lessen the effect of corruption in the
disbursement of
such funds, by drawing useful lessons from the experiences of
(viii.) There
is the need for the international community, particularly the World
Bank,
European Union as well as the governments of the home countries of the
oil
companies to contribute by way of grants and subventions to the
development of the
Niger Delta region. This is because the Federal Government cannot
embark on
this project alone as the issue of the Niger Delta is assuming a crisis
point
militating against the world supply of oil.
Conclusion
It
is midnight in Niger Delta and the current methodology being adopted by
treating the matter as an ethnic problem of the Ijaws,
while omitting other nationalities such as the Ogonis,
Urhobos, Ibibios, Effiks,
Itsekiris and Edos
respectively
is not in the interest of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
I
cannot subscribe to the theme that the use of force as a policy can
bring about
lasting peace to the region.
It
is imperative that Nigerians from regions other than the Niger Delta,
who may
feel that the problems of oil producing communities are not in their
backyard
and who may feel a safe distance from the oil communities, should be
reminded
that the Federal Republic of Nigeria is an entity within the
environment; A
decay in part will ultimately affect the whole nation. (Life
and works of Sir Ahmadu Bello – The Sardauna of Sokoto).