From Africa Recovery, Vol.15#4 (December 2001), Briefs page
Nigeria seeks to ease tensions in oil delta
On 10 December the Nigerian government and the UN Development
Programme opened a three-day conference on the sustainable development
of the oil-rich Niger Delta wetlands. Since 1970 over $320 bn
worth of crude oil has been exported from the region, accounting
for some 90 per cent of Nigeria's hard currency earnings and making
Nigeria a major world oil-producing country. But the 7 million
residents of the Delta are among Nigeria's poorest, and protests
against the perceived injustice of extreme poverty in the midst
of vast wealth have often disrupted oil production - threatening
the country's economic lifeline and provoking violent clashes
among local communities, and between activists and the authorities.
The meeting brought
together community leaders with members of the government's newly
established Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) for dialogue
on a delta-wide programme to create jobs, build infrastructure
and ease the frustrations fueling unrest. "Farmers and fishermen
of this agro-rich region have largely been deprived of their means
of livelihood through extensive pollution of their rivers and
farmlands," Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo told delegates.
"I pledge to seek immediate solutions to the many problems
which have so long beset the region." The NDDC, made up of
the governors of the oil-producing states, has announced it will
spend $3 bn over the next 10 years on development projects in
consultation with local elected officials and civil society groups.
Exposed oil pipes outside
a home in Nigeria's Niger Delta region.
Photo: ©Michael Fleshman
The NDDC proposals fall short of community demands for greater
resource control, however. On the final day of the meeting, members
of the militant Bayelsa Youths Federation stormed the NDDC office
in the Bayelsa state capital of Yenagoa to denounce the commission.
Police broke up a similar protest a week earlier by the National
Youth Council of the Ogoni People, whose activists forced the
Shell oil company to withdraw from the Ogoni region of the delta
in 1993.
Highlighting the continuing environmental problems that arouse
so much local anger, the government's Department of Petroleum
Resources reported that in the week between 26 November and 2
December alone, the delta experienced 18 separate oil spills involving
the discharge of over 2,500 barrels of crude oil.
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