| Oil Chokes
Rights in Niger Delta
By
Toye Olori
THE NIGER Delta which spans five Nigerian
states suffers a cruel dilemma: located on some of the world’s
richest oil reserves, the region remains among the poorest
in the country.
Unless government radically changed the way
in which it controlled and managed the black gold, the region
would continue to threaten instability in the rest of the
country, said Austin Monday, president of the Rivers Economic
Development Forum (REDEF) at the Commonwealth Peoples Forum
yesterday.
He said unless government develops the Niger
Delta region, it posed the greatest single and immediate threat
to the peace, stability, socio-political and cultural cohesion
of the region.
Different ways needed to be found to ensure
that the oil revenues filtered into the region from whence
it came to encourage “human, infrastructural, social
and economic development,” the meeting heard.
In addition, the environmental consequences
of the oil prospecting also required a firmer green hand.
‘’In view of the natural and livelihood
disrupting character of oil prospecting and extraction activities
in the region, the need to address the special environmental
and developmental situation in the area has for decades been
recognized but not adequately addressed,’’ argued
Monday.
Absolute ownership by the National Nigerian
Petroleum Company (NNPC) was not working and activists want
the federal government to consider moving toward a United
Style system where land-owners control the leasing of the
oil-lands and benefit the national fiscus through the tax-base.
“I believe landowners should manage
their resources as it is done in the United States and pay
tax to the Federal Government. If the government can adopt
the political system of the US, I do not see any reason why
it can not emulate what the US does in its resource distribution,’’
said Pastor Timon Ehudu, also of REDEF.
A new plan was necessary because in spite
of commissions, policies and programme initiatives in the
Delta, most had failed because of the reluctance of the larger
regions and ethnic groups to truly commit the nation’s
oil resources to the development of the area. Instead, oil
revenues were disproportionately used in other states, charged
Monday.
Mortality from the effects of oil spillage
meant that the life expectancy rates were lower in the Delta,
added Ehudu. He added: ‘’Today we cannot boast
of education in the region, our desire is that the government
should give free education at all levels to our children.
“There is no job opportunity for our
youths and that is why there is restiveness and crisis in
the area. When youths have job, they will raise families and
think of providing for them and use their time to do meaningful
things, they will not be getting into trouble. They have problems
because they are idle.’’
Ehudu also blamed the multinational oil companies
for the crises in the region. ‘’In order to achieve
their selfish interests, oil companies especially Shell manipulate
things and go through traditional rulers to whom they pay
peanuts to lie against their people even when there is genuine
spillage because of rusted pipelines, they deny such things
happened.”
Shell is the oldest oil company in Nigeria
producing from 31,000 square kilometers area of the Niger
Delta. The Rivers Economic Development Forum is a leading
NGO in the Delta and its programmes are aimed empowering the
indigenous people. These include skills training; micro-credit
and business training models as well as leadership training.
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