N’Delta: Lamentations Of A Deprived People

There are two kinds of injustice in the Niger Delta. The first is the one that Nigerian country inflicts on the people of Niger Delta. We are denied our rights of existence, our right to own our God-given resources to solve problems associated with our difficult terrain and to develop ourselves in the comity of states.

That was a quote from a speech by the Executive Governor of Rivers State, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC, USA in 2009.

That speech situated the extent of denial inflicted upon the people from the oil producing communities who grease the wheels of the Nigerian nation with the petro-dollars accruing from their degraded and impacted backyards and creeks.

In this instance, we are not talking about deprivations and denials inflicted upon the people by colonialists but that from Nigerians who have used their numerical, political and economic advantage to deny the people of the Niger Delta of their deserved benefits that could ordinarily come to them.

The situation reminds one of Walter Rodney’s lamentations in How Europe Under Developed Africa. In this case, the Wazobia nation is not only under developing the Niger Delta but emasculating the people.

Late Ogoni rights activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa saw it a long time ago, campaigned against it and paid the supreme price for the cause. Nothing has changed since then.

In this piece, I have decided to concern myself with the plight of the people of Rivers State who are wallowing in abject poverty while their territory which supplies over 40 per cent of the nation’s wealth is being plundered and devastated.

I was amused (indeed amazed) a few days ago when the INTEL conglomerate organised a conference on the Nigerian Content Act of 2010 designed for the oil and gas industry in Nigeria.

This is a law designed to enable the indigenes, particularly from the oil producing communities, to participate in the operations of the oil industry. It is now about to be cornered by high-flying corporate organisations like INTEL owned by the same set of Nigerians who have over the years benefited from the oil money sapped from the blood of Rivers people.

Ironically, companies like INTEL are not known to have done anything significant for the Rivers people.

Only a few days ago, the Federal Executive Council gleefully announced that INTEL had won the contract to develop the fourth phase of Onne Port with the sum of about $300 million and is allowed to recoup the cost and profit for God knows length of time.

Already, INTEL controls a significant proportion of land and property in that axis of Rivers State and is also a major player in the oil and gas industry.

While the neighbouring people of Okrika and Eleme fight over insignificant chunk of land, like Frank Fanon said in The Wretched of the Earth: “Internalising their frustration”, some other Nigerians are stealing their land and making millions of dollars out of their God given resources. Haba.

No voice has cried out of Rivers State against this modern day economic slavery.

Still on the Nigerian Content Act, which from the beginning was warped in design and content; it has to be amended to read as the Local Content Act in which case it could be properly captured as a legislative attempt to right the wrongs inflicted on the people of the oil producing communities.

Let the right of participation be exclusively bestowed on the people of the oil producing communities who, on their own volition, could allow other Nigerians to do business with them.

By the nature and form of Nigeria’s political economy, the Nigerian Content Act, in its present context, is another tool of the dominant Nigerian class of ethnic bigots to snatch the God given rights of the oil producing communities of Rivers State. This must be prevented by all means.

The Nigerian Content  Development and monitoring board established by the Act has started operations but on a wrong note. The Board failed to establish an office in Port Harcourt despite the fact that it is the nerve centre of the oil industry which the board is expected to service.

The board for whatever reasons has subjected contractors from Rivers State to operate from Yenagoa.

While it is not the intention of this writer to suggest that the headquarters of the board should not be located in Yenagoa, it is imperative and absolutely necessary to demand that Port Harcourt, by its status as the capital of the oil industry, is eminently qualified to have an office of the board sited in it.

Allocation of oil blocks is ironically one area of business activities in the oil industry the people of Rivers State have been short-changed. While it is a common (dramatic?) scene for regular travelers of the Abuja air route to hear some itinerant Nigerians of Wazobian extraction exchange banters exclaiming “I am going (to PH) to inspect my oil field, no such favour comes close to Rivers people.

Before someone shouts “Moni Pulo,” one would ask; if the black gold is located in say Kano, Sokoto or any such place, can any one from this part of Nigeria be graced with the favour of being granted an oil field or block.

It is however the other way round in the present state of affairs. It is rare to find Rivers people who own oil blocks. This is an area, if properly addressed, could improve the economy of the people with opportunities for employment and development.

Even Rivers State as a political entity and with 40% of oil production in Nigeria has no asset in the oil industry. Indeed, it is the only state in the Niger Delta region that is denied this opportunity. The state-owned Treasure Energy Resources has no oil block while its counterpart in Bayelsa (Bayelsa Oil Corporation) is actually involved in oil and gas exploration and production activities in Nigeria and operates marginal fields.

Indeed, a report on the 21st of September 2011 in Sweetcrude, said that the Bayelsa Oil Company Limited and Century Exploration and Production Limited, a member of the Century Group of Companies, have sealed a farm-in agreement on the Atala field in Oil Mining Licence (OML) 46. The field is owned by Bayelsa Oil.

Wither Rivers State?

Rivers State, like Bayelsa, was offered an equity of 5% in the Brass LNG. The offer provides a seat for Rivers State in the Board of the Brass LNG. For inexplicable reasons, the Rivers State offer is held up by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, though work is progressing on the project. The direct benefits of this project in terms of employments and contracts are unjustly and unjustifiably being denied the state while Bayelsa is already benefiting from the same project.

Government’s scandalous policy on liquefied gas production for domestic use seemed to confirm the deliberate punishment being meted on the people of Rivers State despite being the source of the oil from which gas is extracted. Is it not out of this world that cost of domestic gas produced in Bonny, Rivers State is cheaper in Lagos and Abuja than in any part of Rivers State, including Bonny? There is need for us to insist that this jumbling of economic principles that deny the rights of the people must change. There is need for economic justice and equity.

One battle the people of Rivers State must fight (not by arms) is the enactment of the Petroleum Industry Bill. The bill, which in its original form, tried to correct the injustice inflicted on the oil producing communities has been pushed underground.

The people must insist that the bill must resurface with the original provision that 10% of oil revenue must go to the oil producing communities. Unless we stand firm on this no other people would do it for us. It is our right. These are the lamentations of a people deprived who must stand for their rights.

Martins is a seasoned journalist and a former General Manager of the Rivers State Newspaper Corporation

Amabipi Martins