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omoabike: Since I joined this forum I often refrain from making comments on issues bordering on ethnicity or region, because most times, such discussions eventually turn into avenue for name-calling and insults rather than for information sharing. However, I decide to comment on this issue because I am passionate about this and I think both sides to this discussion have valid points that are worthy of considerations.
For disclosure, I am Yoruba but I am not here to represent the Yoruba views or to bash the North, South East or the South-South but rather to add my own view as a stake holder in this matter because I am a Nigerian in the oil and gas industry and I believe I have some insights that I think are worth sharing.
I do agree with DaLover, that one of the things you can credit OBJ government for is the fact that his government was able to force the Oil majors to start having Field management and development planning studies in addition to some aspects of Production Design in the country.
This provided jobs for thousands of Geosciences and Engineering graduates who hitherto had not been opportune to have jobs. Any graduate of Geosciences in the late 1990s and early 2000s would tell you that this local content component of the oil industry laws helped in providing jobs for them. I am a living example of that.
Those of us who were not employed by the big oil service companies were employed by small indigenous servicing firms created by retired former Oil Majors employees.
Hitherto what has been happening is for the Oil Majors to carry out such studies in Houston, The Hague, Aberdeen and Alberta. The complaint had been that Nigerians are not qualified to do these jobs. This is what made the government to get serious about the PTDF scholarships for Nigerians.
(Disclosure I am not a recipient of this scholarship, but I know friends from all over Nigeria who had gone to the UK and US on PTDF scholarships)
It is incorrect to say that London does not have headquarters of Oil Companies. Shell and BP have headquarters in London even when most of their oil field is in the North Sea.
Having said this, I think the Niger Delta people clamoring for relocation of installations to the Niger Delta may have genuine premise for the request. However, I think rather than asking for forceful relocation, the plan should be to ask what it is that the companies see in Lagos that may be lacking in the Niger Delta of today and find ways to provide such.
It is in this light that I supported Amaechi while I was staying in Port Harcourt. I do believe he is ready to tell the people the home truth on how Rivers State could transform into a better and more business friendly society while at the same time providing infrastructures on the ground that are conducive for business to thrive .
Cities that become hub for businesses such as oil and gas have to be cosmopolitan and ready to accept outsiders as the oil and gas business is a global one. Houston, Aberdeen and even New Orleans are known for their cosmopolitan nature.
Every Nigerians would attest to the fact Lagos is unequal to all other states in terms of infrastructures. Although the whole country is lacking much needed infrastructures, Lagos by far, definitely because of its former status as the Federal capital, has more infrastructures way above what other states can provide at the moment.
The management of these oil companies sees Nigerian politicians in general and Niger Delta politicians in particular as an inept and corrupt bunch. So any politicians that would take them on must be ready to be above board in the provisions of services whose absence they could use as excuse for not being physically on the ground in the Niger Delta.
I do believe that the Niger Delta can and should get better deals from oil and gas exploration and production, but my I am of the view that the region as the rest of Nigeria would require visionary and courageous leaders to be able to creatively bring this about.
It may seems irrelevant, but please read the link about the Bafokeng people in South Africa. The community is seating on an estimated 40% of the world economic Platinum deposits.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/12/world/africa/12safrica.html?ref=africa
It is the kind of leaders like the Kings of Bafokeng that I am talking about.

Nonsense. Uyo remains more peaceful than Lagos, so stop talking poo.

So, here we have it, Obj, a yo.robaman, preventing the oil tanks in the Niger delta from operating, and making the whole east pass through hell by buying fuel at a higher price than normal. So you see, many of us knew that OBJ was a tribalist Yoruba man.



The fear of justice, is behind the reason ACN would team up with the North. They want to hold unto their post civil war spoils they took from Niger delta. But they shall fail.