Participation In Petroleum Development …Towards Sustainable Community Development In The Niger Delta

Continued from last Monday May 24, 2010.

The book “Participation in Petroleum Development, Towards Sustainable community Development in the Niger Delta” by Eseme-Alabo Dr. Edward Bristol-Alagbariya is essential for key oil industry experts, administrators, scholars and students who wants to gain further insight on how the Niger Delta can benefit from oil exploration and exploitation. The Tide, beginning from this edition, run excerpts of the book. Enjoy it.

Part F Conclusions

Chapter 10

Key Issues, Findings And Recommendations

10.1 Key Issues

One key issue of this book is how community participation, considered as ‘community involvement’ (CI), is discussed as an aspect of public involvement (PI, ie, citizens’ or public participation (PP) in environmental decision making, so as to examine the role of corporate responsibility and impact assessment (IA) regarding petroleum development in Nigeria, in order to enhance sustainable community development (SCD) in the oil-rich ethnic minority Delta region. 

Citizens of the Delta region, the main producers of petroleum resources in Nigeria, have for over five decades of the resources development operations in their communities been concerned about the adverse effects of these operations on the environment in the region, their welfare and the well-being of their future generations. One of their major concerns is the right to properly (ie, interactively) participate in Nigeria’s affairs, especially those that concern them directly, in a fair, just and equitable manner. They are aggrieved that the existing measures of CI in petroleum development are incapable of generating SCD in the region. 

Based on continuing effort by the United Nations (UN) on the environment and development designed to achieve SD, which effort led to the Stockholm, Rio de Janeiro and Johannesburg (SRJ) Conferences, PP in environmental decision making is increasingly becoming a fundamental aspect of policy, law and state practice in global nations. Due to the ongoing worldwide ‘participation explosion’ (ie, the globally recognised need for PP, especially the need for PP in energy and major natural resources [oil and gas, and mineral resources] development projects), participation is increasingly becoming an accepted cost of doing business, towards environmentally-sound and socially-equitable SD in resources-rich developing countries. As a result of the adverse effects of petroleum development in the hitherto calm and peaceful communities of the Delta region, citizens of the region started in the 1990s to agitate against these effects on the environment, themselves and their future generations. Protracted community agitation, protests, conflicts, resistance movements, and so on, otherwise referred to as ‘crises’ in the Delta region, reveal that the neglect, marginalisation and oppressive measures being occasioned on the people of the region in the Federal Republic of Nigeria (FRN) are associated with the fact that they are minorities who are not empowered to influence or direct decision-making processes in the federation. Consequently, bills of right, charters, accords, resolutions and other related demands, declarations and pronouncements are being made by various ethnic groups and communities of the Delta region. These pronouncements, which began with the Ogoni Bill of Rights of 1990, include the Kaiama Declaration of 1998, the Resolution of the First Urhobo Economic Summit, the Warri Accord, the Aklaka Declaration of the Egi People, Oron Bill of Rights, the Demand of the First Niger Delta Indigenous Women’s Conference for Women of Bayelsa State, the Declaration of the Ikwerre Rescue Charter, and the Declaration of the Niger Delta Bill of Rights. These pronouncements do not only express the environmental, socioeconomic and political concerns of the people of the Delta region regarding adverse effects of petroleum development; they also represent the views and aspirations of the people on how the FRN ought to be properly governed, especially regarding petroleum development in the region. Thus, whilst focusing on the true Delta region, this book identifies it as the South-South ethnic minority region of the FRN and thereby distinguished it from the artificial Delta region created by the Niger-Delta Development Commission (NDDC) Act, 2004 (formerly Cap. 6 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria [LFN] 2000). 

The history of resistance movements in the Delta region dates back to the period of British imperial incursion in pre-colonial Nigeria. The British colonial era marked the beginning of the marginalisation and neglect of the people of the region in decision-making processes, contrary to those prevailing in the people’s traditional social systems identified in Chapter 4. The degree of neglect and marginalisation suffered by the people gave rise to resistance movements against the British colonial government and thus the reaction of the government against such monarchs of the Niger Delta as Dappa Pepple of Bonny in 1854, Jaja of Opobo in 1887, Nana Olomu of Itsekiri in 1894, Koko of Nembe (Brass) in 1895, and Overanwen of Benin in 1897. Other resistance movements of the Delta minorities at that time included such mass protests as the women’s riot at Igwenga (popularly called the Aba women’s riot) of 1929, and the Akassa Raid of 1895 spearheaded by King Koko. During the Nigerian regional era, from 1939 to 1967, when the will of the three major ethnic groups reigned supreme, resistance movements of the Delta ethnic minorities against the right to be heard in the Eastern region led to the formation of the Cross-River-Ogoja (COR) state movement led by the Hon. Justice Udo Udoma, and the movement for the creation of Rivers state led by the Rivers Chiefs and Peoples’ Conference (RCPC). There was also the eastern regional ethnic minority political party known as the Niger Delta Congress (NDC) established by Chief H. J. R. Dappa-Biriye, and the Isaac Adaka Boro’s 12-Day Niger Delta revolution of 1966. Thereafter, in the 1990s, dominant resistance movements against the adverse effects of petroleum development in the Delta region included the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP). Ongoing umbrella resistance tagged the ‘resource-control movement’ – a name coined from the deliberations and networks of Southern Nigeria Governors – has become the order of the day in the region. This umbrella movement, for improved PP or CI in the decision-making process of petroleum development in the Delta region is being championed by militant youth groups such as the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) and the Niger Delta Volunteer Force (NDVF). Although the resource-control groups do not have a common set of pronouncements, key among their demands is the enthronement of true fiscal federalism, enhanced by stable, transparent and accountable democratic governance, based on equity, social justice and fair play, between and among the diverse ethnic groups and citizens. The resource- control movement is, in effect, based on the fact that various constitutional and political development dialogues (from the 1953/54 Nigeria Independence Constitutional Conferences [NICCs] to date) have not sufficiently addressed the plight and predicaments of the Delta ethnic minorities; thus revealing the failure of such duly constituted dialogues in the country. Hence, as expressed in Chapter 2, there are calls by several citizens and citizen groups for a Sovereign National Conference (SNC), in order to decide Nigeria’s future.   

As Africa’s largest oil-producing and the world’s eighth largest oil-exporting country, Nigeria’s economic back-bone is petroleum resources development, which accounts for 95 per cent of its export earnings and 80 per cent of its revenue. Considering the contributions of these resources to the Nigerian and global economy and as a source of huge profits to the multinational oil companies (MNOCs) operating in the country, the significance and consequences of the crises in the oil-rich Delta region cannot be over-emphasised. These crises constitute a great source of concern in Nigeria and the international community. It is obvious that Nigeria’s future is inextricably linked to what her governing authorities do or do not do to resolve these crises.

To be Continued