The people of Kula community in Rivers State are quietly rewriting their terms of citizenship with the Nigerian state. And they need our support.


In this essay, a former Commissioner for Information in Rivers, Dr Austin Tam-George, questions the Wike led administration in Rivers for allegedly working in cahoots with oil majors to further imperil the locals.

By Dr. Austin Tam- George


Kula is an oil-rich community that has been the source of billions of dollars for the Nigerian government and for Shell, the multinational company, over the past 40 years.


But despite its stupendous natural wealth, Kula has no pipe-borne water and children die from all kinds of intestinal diseases.

There is no standard hospital in Kula, and studies show that like in most Niger Delta communities, life expectancy in Kula is twice below the national average.

Children sit on bare earth to learn in roofless and dilapidated schools.

As a fishing community, Kula's once vibrant marine ecosystem is now a paradise lost; a victim of Shell's remorseless environmental pollution.

The Oil Mining Lease (OML) 25 operated by Shell in Kula is the cruelest metaphor for corporate greed.


But Shell is not alone. It is in collusion with a rent-seeking state that seems bent on grinding its own citizens to dust, in exchange for oil rents.

But all that is about to change.

Two years ago, the women of Kula began to occupy the oil platforms in protest against Shell's apocalyptic presence in their community, and to challenge the company's decade-long environmental impunity.


Three decades after the Ogoni uprisings, the showdown in Kula dramatizes once again the crisis of Nigeria's petro-dollar modernity, and our inability to invent a grammar of citizenship based on egalitarianism and respect for community property rights.


But as indigenous people, Belema and other oil-bearing communities have rights which are recognized by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.This momentous Declaration was made on the floor of the UN on September 13, 2007.

Governor Nyesom Wike's so-called mediation effort on behalf of Shell was dubious and politically tainted from the start, and the Kula community is right to reject it.

How could a Governor goad a long-suffering community to barter its rights in exchange for a fraudulent and exploitative "peace" with Shell?

Governor Wike is negotiating a peace process that allows a rapist to return gleefully to a battered and beleaguered victim.

Why did the Secretary to the State Government, Dr Tammy Danagogo, a sensible man by all accounts, permit himself to be part of such a macabre and cynical plot against the people of Kula?


Since 1999, the federal government has allocated over 12 trillion Naira as 13 per cent oil derivation funds to Rivers State.

As Governor, Mr Wike has received nearly two trillion Naira in revenue on behalf of Rivers State, since May, 2015.


What has the Wike administration got to show to the people of Kula, the people of Abua, the Ogoni, the forgotten people of Ogbakiri, Okrika, and other communities in the state, for these oil money receipts?


According to the National Bureau of Statistics, Rivers State has the highest rate of unemployment in Nigeria, and Kula is one of the hardest hit communities.


In Rivers State, school teachers have not been paid for four years by the Wike administration. All scholarships and bursaries are cancelled, and the state's per capita school drop out is the highest in the region on Mr Wike's watch.


It takes a particular kind of moral blindness for a governor to trade off the future of the children of Kula, the way Mr Wike seeks to do through his dangerous collusion with Shell.


Last week, the elder statesman, Chief E.K. Clark was alarmed enough to publicly condemn Mr Wike's outrageous gamble in Kula.


The people of Kula are right to take their destiny in their own hands. They have history and natural justice on their side.


As they try to reclaim their ancestral dignity, the Kula community needs our support. And they need the moral comradeship of the United Nations.

- Dr. Austin Tam- George is a former Commissioner for Information, Rivers State.

https://www.pulse.ng/news/local/opinion-how-gov-wike-sells-the-future-of-kula-community-to-shell/ltsl2tf


Cc

Lalasticlala

Mynd44

When a former commissioner is speaking, is he speaking for his people or for the opposition in the state. We at times find it difficult to understand politicians. They often say different things through the two sides of their mouth at the same time. Yet at times, their mindset is different. My personal opinion from my individual point of view.

When a former commissioner is speaking, is he speaking for his people or for the opposition in the state. We at times find it difficult to understand politicians. They often say different things through the two sides of their mouth at the same time. Yet at times, their mindset is different. My personal opinion from my individual point of view..Abi my people how una see am?

So far on this forum, I have always bn a strong supporter of pdp as I am also a member of same party, that though will not mean that I'm supposed to let sentiment blindfold me into reasoning like majority of those brainwashed cows up north who see no wrong bn done by thier Messiah..
My point bn the fact that I have bn working in the oil industry for almost 10yrs n dat have given me the opportunity of touring almost if not all Niger Delta region.
Seriously there are some area we will go for production n I will feel like shedding tears for the host community, most of them are living like cave men, I still remember one lady in her mid 40's that have only seen a car on Tv n the said tv is not even in her home buh in a bush bar close to an agip flow station. That will sound unbelievable buh I have even witnessed worse. They have billion dollars worth of oil bn pumped off from thier backyards while their kids have no clue of wat education is instead u see them chasing fishes n crayfish while the rest of the kids in portharcourt,Abuja n major cities are leaving them behind.
The army stationed there to gaurd the flow station n the rigs also have made it a duty to multiply the already suffering population by thier indiscriminate impregnating of under aged n old women they can set thier eyes on.
In all this, the state governors have turned a blind eye to the inhuman condition bn faced by these geese that is laying the golden eggs which we all are laying claim to.
Party lines aside, I think the Niger Delta governors both past n present have failed these helpless communities...

Lala pls this topic deserve to be on front page...