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

Continued from last Monday May 31, 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 want 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.

The crises in the Delta region require being fully and practically resolved in a way that will achieve environmentally-sound and socially-equitable SCD in the region. To do so by virtue of the internationalisation of petroleum resources-development operations, the need arises for the FG to implement internationally recognised norms, standards and practices designed to enhance the resources development to SD in the region. In this regard, improved CI is required to be practised in conformity with the globally identified need and the widely accepted principles of PP in environmental decision making, espoused in Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, 1992, and elaborated in the Aarhus Convention of 1998 on participation. Considering therefore Nigeria’s responsibilities in the context of the ongoing worldwide participation explosion, her National Assembly is required to enshrine provisions in her emerging petroleum law to improve environmental democracy in a way to enhance sustainable petroleum development and SCD. The improvement of CI towards SD of petroleum resources and SCD in Nigeria’s oil-producing areas is an idea whose time has come. Consequently, the author advocates the emergence of a truly democratic and socially just and equitable FRN in which, regardless of elected, selected and/or appointed representatives, ordinary citizens are guaranteed the right to participate in decision making processes to enthrone transparency, accountability and responsibility in governance, towards achieving SD in their communities, local government areas, states and the entire federation. Regarding compensation and other payments or revenues being derived by individuals, families and community groups from the MNOCs and other extractive industries, there is urgent need for Nigeria to initiate pro-active and practicable measures, in order to ensure that such revenues are made with the knowledge of all interest groups in the affected resources-producing areas. The reasons for such payments or revenues should accordingly be published within a stipulated time, in the interest of the general public. Governments are also required to be prudent and transparent in the management of the revenues accruing to them from extractive industrial operations, so as to be properly accountable to the governed. The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) Act, 2007, should therefore be amended to incorporate these and other necessary measures, in order to make governments (including traditional governments) and other representatives and agents of resources-producing communities, to be duly and fully accountable to the citizens, especially those excluded from participating in decision-making processes. The enforcement of these and other needful transparency measures require the efforts of civil society activists and groups and judicial activism in the country.

10.2 Improved Community Involvement Enhanced by Greater Citizens’ Empowerment in Decision Making and the Stakeholder Perspective

The questions designed to address the crises in the Delta region are aimed at identifying the existing forms or measures of CI in petroleum development in the communities of the region. The author examines whether or not these forms or measures of CI are capable of fulfilling the globally-recognised need and widely accepted principles of PP in environmental decision-making, so as to suggest necessary improvements. Focused on the stakeholder theory in business relations, the author identifies three major stakeholders of the petroleum development business in Nigeria. As indicated in Chapter 1, these stakeholders are the oil-producing communities and the JV partners of the business (ie, the MNOCs and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), representing the FG for and on behalf of the FRN).

Studies are continually revealing that the results of development proposals are better when the affected, concerned and interested members of the public are empowered to participate in the decision-making process of such proposals. There is thus no alternative to interactive CI in petroleum development in Nigeria, the lack of which is the root cause of the marginalisation and poverty in the Delta region and hence the crises in the region. Similarly, there is no alternative path to Nigeria’s prosperity than greater citizens’ empowerment in the country’s decision-making processes. As the oil-producing communities are stakeholders (of the petroleum development business in Nigeria), whose interactive involvement cannot be ignored or undermined in the decision-making process of the business, so are the entire citizens of Nigeria stakeholders whose interactive involvement in the governance of the country cannot be ignored or undermined.

10.3  Identified Forms and/or Measures of Community Involvement in Petroleum         Development in the Delta Region and other Related Issues

The author identifies two main forms or measures of CI in petroleum resources development in the Delta region. Including other instances of CI, these are designed to enable citizens of the resources-producing communities to make input into the ancillary decision-making processes of the resources development projects sited in the communities. The main measures of CI are those statutorily designed by the FG, and the CSR or industry-driven measures designed by the MNOCs operating in the region. For example, the EIA process identified in Chapter 5 and the public objection hearing system identified in Chapter 6 are statutory forms of CI designed by the FG. Another form or measure of CI designed by the FG is the Nigerian (Local) Content Policy (NCP), which involves the generality of Nigerians. The NCP evolved from the FG’s economic self-reliance policy based on equity participation of Nigerians and Nigerian businesses in all spheres of Nigeria’s economy, especially in the petroleum and other sectors of the economy dominated by foreigners, was designed to enhance the industrial development and advancement of the country as a sovereign entity. Other forms and measures of CI identified are those increasingly being designed by the MNOCs to fulfil their social responsibility (CSR) initiatives following those of their parent companies and groups, such as their sectoral groups. Most of these initiatives are designed outside and introduced into Nigeria by individual companies (such as Shell Nigeria) or by individual corporate groups (such as the Shell companies in Nigeria, of which NLNG is a part). CSR measures, increasingly designed by the MNOCs to address the crises in the Delta region, include Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) entered into with host communities. Other CSR measures mentioned in passing in Chapter 6 include the involvement of professional CBOs in the EIA process of development projects in the communities, and the employment of the services of land-owning families and communities to provide surveillance services to protect the MNOCs’ oil and gas installations. These three measures are discussed in Chapter 9. Other measures discussed in Chapter 6 include the National Content Plans of the MNOCs, as exemplified by the NLNG Local Content Plan designed from the Shell (ie, Shell Nigeria) Nigerian Content Policy (NCP). The Shell Project-Advisory Committee (PAC) system is discussed in Chapter 6 as a voluntary CI measure. Other voluntary CSR measures identified in Chapter 7 include the engagement of local NGOs and other community-based organisations such as community development committees (CDCs) to execute the Community Developments (CDs) and other community relations (CR) initiatives of the MNOCs in the oil-producing communities. The main CSR CI measures discussed in Chapter 7 are the Shell Nigeria stakeholders’ workshops, the NLNG stakeholders’ workshops, and the Niger Delta Environmental Survey (NDES) initiated by Shell Nigeria and almost entirely funded by the MNOCs under the umbrella of the Oil Producers’ Trade Section (OPTS) of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Also, the FG is involved in the NDES. This makes the NDES a hybrid form of CI in petroleum development.  

To be Continued