WHO IS MARGINALIZING THE NIGER DELTA?

The United States Energy Information Administration estimates that Nigeria has more than 22 billion barrels in proven reserves, with 159 oil fields and about 1,481 oil wells in operation. What rubs off as good news is that these massive oil deposits predominantly located in Nigeria’s Niger Delta region, have generated billions of dollars in revenues for the country. The flip side is that the more than five decades of commercial oil extraction in the oil-rich Niger Delta has brought oppressive levels of impoverishment, recurrent conflict, human rights abuses and despair to more than 20 million people living in the region.

The concept of development as currently theorized and propagated around the world is over-laden with a plethora of buzzy catchwords such as “participation”, “inclusion”, “involvement” and so forth. What these latter-day mantras simply emphasize is that persons directly affected by any social or economic problem play vital roles both in the exploration and implementation of solutions to matters that directly bear on their welfare. Same is true of the Niger Delta, where what started as local agitations against recurrent oil pollution and social insecurity in the late 90s have snowballed into well-funded global campaigns for corporate accountability and environmental justice.

Aside from the huge sacrifices they made, including arbitrary executions, the likes of Ken Saro Wiwa, Ledum Mittee, Nnimmo Bassey and a host of advocates from the oil-rich region blazed the trail, using every channel of popular expression to draw global attention to the marginalization of the Niger Delta people, and in particular, the dire environmental conditions in which locals live. Shortly afterwards, tough-talking, AK47-wielding “freedom fighters” later joined the fray, deploying every violent tactics in the books to ‘fight for their rights” and for that of their people. But that was then!

Ever since President Goodluck Jonathan of Niger Delta origin mounted the saddle of leadership, thanks to a silver lining impelled by the demise of Nigeria’s former president Musa Yar Adua, the loud screams of marginalization have significantly waned. With a “son of the soil” at the helm of affairs, the gargantuan problems of the region have soothingly disappeared from the minds of both freedom fighters and a host of former campaigners. Not only that, the gains of freedom fighting pales into insignificance when compared to multi-million dollar maritime surveillance contracts that provide steady flow of cash to ex-fighters, and keep them tight-lipped for the time being. Political appointments favouring many sons and daughters of the Niger Delta into highly-coveted public offices provide additional icing on the cake of deliberate amnesia to the region’s unaddressed woes. By the way, this new regime of see-no-evil-speak-no-evil is consistent with the African proverb that “one does not talk while eating”.

As of today, the whole scenario playing out in the Delta is steeped in a sour blend of comic relief and theatrical absurdities. For instance, the same actors that once used kidnapping, hostage taking, assassination and attacks on oil installations to press their demands have suddenly become ‘change agents” and advocates of “non-violence”. Part of their born-again civic duty is to attack and hush all voices of dissent, especially those objecting to the never-seen-before levels of corruption, incompetence and under-performances characterizing President Goodluck’s leadership.

The saddest dimension to this trend is how the constantly-shifting dispositions of former freedom fighters is now affecting the general psyche and priorities of an average Niger Deltan, especially the most visible Niger Delta voices on the social media. It is now, very rare to find Niger Deltans participating meaningfully in any discussion focusing on oil pollution, environmental sustainability, community development, climate change and adaptability, including oil sector reforms. Within all these “uninteresting” topics lay the potential answers to the major challenges facing the Niger Delta today. This is my distasteful observation as a regular commentator on the social media who also coordinates an online discussion forum with a strong participation of diverse stakeholders and commentators from Nigerians living in different parts of the world. But should one out of genuine concern, start any conversation that touches on Goodluck Jonathan’s sorry leadership, including his wife’s never-ending excesses, the Niger Delta cyber-soldiers hastily swarm in in their numbers, cursing, abusing, attacking and questioning the critic’s impetus to do so. The critic would be lucky if his generations unborn are spared from the sea of invectives. This is the new order!!!

The veiled message is simple: “Our son is the president. Our problems are now over. We are now, a truly liberated people. Oil companies are now free, like the birds of the air, to operate unhindered. Oil pollution is now the least of our problems. In fact, as long as our son remains president, we are okay!”… Nothing illustrates the present level of complacency more than the January 2012 Chevron Nigeria Limited’s oil rig fire explosion on the off-shore facility in Koluama village, Brass Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, which lasted for several weeks, causing extensive damage to the flora and the fauna, with grave implications on the ecosystem. Rather than yield to community concerns and demands for remediation, the oil giant presented consumables and other relief materials to them. Some of the items include “bags of rice, garri, beans, tubers of yam and cows, jerry-cans of groundnut oil, palm oil, frozen fish, chicken, cartons of beverages, cartons of tin tomato, bags of salt and sugar”.

Beyond these perishable trivialities, the affected communities have neither been compensated nor the oil company held accountable for their wrongdoings till this day! Despite the massive environmental damage in Koluama village, there are no loud protests, no legal action against Chevron Nigeria Limited, and no sanctions slammed on the oil giant, even though a daughter of the Niger Delta is the chief regulator of the Nigerian oil and gas industry! This is beyond belief! Perhaps most telling is that just weeks after the incident, Chevron Nigeria Limited went ahead to drill a new well-head within the same community, for its gas production ventures.

It must be stressed that the Niger Delta voices on the social media do not constitute a fair representation of the entire genuinely-committed community advocates, NGOs and traditional rulers working in even the hardest-to-reach creeks and locales to overturn decades of environmental and social injustices. But yet, the rapidly-fading tears of marginalization shed by the region’s most visible actors and voices continue to send out very negative signals about the real nature and scope of the struggles they once led. One such bad signal is that it portrays the people of Niger Delta as incapable of understanding and solving their own problems, contrary to the tenets of development. It further shows them as a people incapable of sustaining rational struggles amid dangling carrots and tempting apple pies.

One thing is clear: the Niger Delta can no longer complain of marginalization. However, they must be reminded that self-inflicted marginalization is another form of suicide. With the generous hindsight gained from the “shrinking campaigns” and the ‘robustly blind-supportism”, it is not hard to tell where the real blames of marginalization lie. Like an Igbo proverb says, ‘the mot that eats the corn lives inside the corn”.

http://victoriaohaeri./2013/07/15/who-is-marginalizing-the-niger-delta/