From Africa Recovery, Vol.13#1 (June 1999), page 15 ( part of article "Nigeria: Country in Focus")

Delta communities protest neglect

Press for government aid, oil company compensation

By Kingsley Kubeyinje and Tony Nezianya, Lagos

Angered by years of perceived neglect by the Nigerian government and multinational oil companies, communities in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta have periodically erupted in protest in recent years. Again, beginning in October 1998, youths in the Delta began a new round of widespread protests, including occupations of oil installations and even kidnapping of oil workers, sometimes leading to violence and loss of life. Through such dramatic action, they hope to attract the government's attention and win compensation from the oil companies.

Nigeria gets about 90 per cent of its petroleum from the sprawling Delta in the south, an area inhabited by "minority" ethnic groups such as the Itsekiris, Urhobos, Ijaws, Ibibios, Ogonis, Kalabaris, Efiks, Ikwerres, Ilajes and Ibibios.

In spite of the enormous resources it generates for the national coffers, the Niger Delta is perhaps the least-developed area of the country. Less than 5 per cent of federal oil revenue is spent directly on the oil-producing areas. The Delta therefore lacks good roads, electricity, potable water and good schools. Communication facilities are few and far between. Unemployment is high because the rivers, creeks and streams which provide people with their main source of livelihood -- fishing -- have been extensively polluted through the activities of the more than a dozen oil companies operating in the area.

Poverty and neglect

"The producing areas are mosquito-infested swampy farmlands, where the villagers eke out a living on fishing and farming," explains Mr. U.J. Itsueli, chief executive of a Nigerian company, Dubri Oil. "Often, the rivers they fish and the land they farm are disturbed or even polluted. Yet, this is an environment that produces the nation's wealth, that has been driving the engine of this country's development."

And when inhabitants leave their impoverished villages, adds Mr. Itsueli, they see "smooth multi-laned highways, skyscrapers and mansions. They know the wealth that produced these comes from them and they are not sharing in it. They are not stakeholders."

Mr. Bloke Booboo-Thomson, a human rights lawyer in the oil city of Port Harcourt, told Africa Recovery, "It is unbelievable that in this area, there is no potable water, no road to many of the communities from where crude oil, the main foreign exchange earner for the country, is derived."

As a result of massive gas flaring, the Niger Delta also is afflicted by acid rain. "The effects of acid rain are very much evident on roofs, cars and metallic objects in the area," says Mr. Tombara Aye, a leader of the Ijaw community in Bayelsa State.

Troops and promises

In the face of the widespread protests in the Delta region, the previous military governments cracked down hard, imprisoning -- and in the notorious case of acclaimed writer and Ogoni leader Ken Saro-Wiwa -- executing leading political activists. More recently, thousands of troops have been dispatched to the Delta.

Over time, however, the Nigerian government also has come to appreciate the enormous problems facing the oil-producing communities and has made some efforts to address them. In 1989 the government created the Oil Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission (OMPADEC) as an agency responsible for development in the oil communities. OMPADEC gets 3 per cent of the federal allocation (N13.6 bn in 1998).

The government also set up the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) to finance infrastructural projects. The PTF gets a certain percentage of the profits from the local sale of refined petroleum products. Unlike OMPADEC, the PTF was not set up exclusively to cater for the oil communities, but undertakes projects in all parts of the country.

The oil communities themselves, however, clearly do not consider OMPADEC and PTF to be sufficient. OMPADEC in particular has been criticized for its wastefulness, massive mismanagement and corruption. In its less than 10 years of existence, OMPADEC has been re-organized three times. And the future of the PTF looks uncertain since the death last year of former President Sani Abacha, the fund's founder.

Company projects

Nigeria lacks legislation compelling oil companies to contribute to the development of their host communities. General guidelines on maintaining safe environmental practices lack teeth and are merely appeals to the major oil firms to be socially responsible. Nevertheless, the government, through appeals, has had some success in making oil companies appreciate the need to be "good corporate citizens." The protests of the communities in the Niger Delta also have had an impact.

Royal Dutch/Shell, which experienced numerous disruptions in production at its facilities in Ogoniland during the crisis there in 1993, has now come to acknowledge that the oil-bearing communities are critical to its overall operations. The company put the value of its community assistance programme at $32 mn in 1997, and argues that among other expressions of its commitment, 57 per cent of its total workforce is recruited from among the local communities and it gives preference to indigenous contractors.

The company also has set up the Shell Community Development Initiative, under which oil communities now have a say in deciding projects to be sited in their localities, according to the company. Among other oil companies, Chevron likewise has executed a number of community-based projects, such as cottage hospitals, school construction and equipment, potable water, town halls and jetties, and scholarships for children from the host communities.

In 1995, Shell and the other oil companies set up the Niger Delta Environment Survey to assess the level of environmental degradation and potential of the area.

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