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The Bitter Truth And The Way Forward. by Julietekekwe1: 9:33pm On Jun 11, 2016 |
In 1993, the Ogoni people stopped the federal
government and Shell Petroleum from drilling
crude oil in their four local government areas of
Rivers State. It has remained so for twenty three
years now. Ogoni is probably the only ethnic
nationality in Nigeria that has successfully dealt
with the FG and Shell. Because of the notoriety
of the Ogoni people and the international
embarrassment Ogoni has caused the FG in the
past. The federal govt has been mindful of using
force against them as a way of drilling their
crude, like it has done in other Niger Delta
communities.
Both Shell and the FG have tried every possible
means to resume oil production in Ogoni land.
Some years ago the FG, after using its divide and
rule tactics (bribing of Ogoni chiefs), sent
another company in the name of Belema Oil to
resume production. The Ogoni people chased the
company away.
Two years ago, after the Ogoni people dragged
Shell to an international court for the damages
caused by over 2,000 oil spills in Ogoni land by
Shell, Shell agreed and paid a £55million
settlement fine money to Ogoni people. Despite
this N16billion payment to the people of Ogoni
by Shell and their willingness to clean up Ogoni
land, the Ogoni people have still denied Shell
access to resume oil production in their land.
The Ogoni nationality are probably the only group
in the Niger Delta that have asserted full control
over their crude oil and they have done this for
twenty three years. The Ogoni people have
confirmed that the crude oil belongs to them and
not the Federal Government.
Part of their condition for resumption of oil
production is that the Ogoni Bill of Rights (OBR)
be acknowledged and implemented by the FG.
The OBR is a document that highlights the
aspirations of the Ogoni People. Part of their
aspiration in that document is true federalism
that will guarantee the autonomy of the Ogonis
in matters that concern their resources,
economy, politics, etc. The Ogoni Bill of Rights is
a document that reflects true federalism for the
Ogoni people yet the FG have refused to
acknowledge it.
While the FG have continued to ignore the OBR
and environmental degradations in Ogoni Land, it
is doing everything possible to resume production
so as to increase its national revenue. Part of
the FG recent effort to resume production is to
flag off a $1billion Ogoni clean up project in
which it did not make any budget for nor has it
awarded any contract for. Many international
observers have condemned the FG for its refusal
to deal with the Ogoni people with sincerity.
The Ogonis have argued that they would rather
use their oil rich land for farming only and allow
the crude oil waste beneath than allow Shell/FG
drill the crude and pollute their lands and yet
deny them dividends from the exploration. They
cannot be feeding the whole of Nigeria while
they and their land remain degraded and poor.
This has been their argument.
One of the irony of the Ogoni situation is that
despite the fact that Ogoni has refused to
contribute to the national revenue of Nigeria, it
has continued to receive from the revenue. This
is so because Nigeria is a skewed and criminal
federal state. The money that Ogoni land alone
once contributed to the national revenue monthly
was higher than what some states combined
were contributing to the national revenue, yet
what Ogoni received was pollution and more
pollution. Their conclusion was that they have
nothing to lose if they stopped contributing. They
were right.
Today, if the whole of Niger Delta stops
contributing to Nigeria's revenue via crude oil
sales, they will still be entitled to getting
allocations from Nigeria. As long as there is
money to share at Abuja, all states must share it
irrespective of where the money is coming from.
This is the irony of Nigeria's federalism. This is
one way lazy states have benefited from Nigeria
for so long and I think it is time for the whole of
the Niger Delta to act lazy like the Ogonis so
Nigeria can see what exactly is wrong with our
federalism.
Oh yes. This is why I also want the Niger Delta
Avengers to continue their campaign of 'zero
production'.
We need to sit down and design a new Nigeria.
Intellectualism could take us two decades to get
Nigeria to sit down and discuss but with the
Avengers, its a matter of months and a national
sovereign conference will be called upon. This is
the language Nigeria understands. Lets speak it.
To be continued... |
Re: The Bitter Truth And The Way Forward. by psucc(m): 9:40pm On Jun 11, 2016 |
Back from ban but not. bored. It rather strange that while Nairaland is a product of freedom of speech and expression, its demigods aka Mods are madly insane against expression of one's feelings and opinion. I hope this madness must stop. |
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