Oil vs. Communities: The Case of the Niger Delta

May24

Oil vs. Communities: The Case of the Niger Delta

By Hwaa Irfan

It is said that when we become arrogant and feel we are not in need of anyone, Allah (SWT) has a way of pulling the carpet out from underneath our feet. The carpet could be a position, a job, wealth, children, beauty, our bodies, etc., whatever, that crutch/shirk becomes the means by which we are taught a lesson.

The U.S. may have or may not have had such a lesson recently, first with the global economic crisis, and secondly with the current Gulf Oil spill involving British Petroleum.

The U.S’s love affair with oil goes back to World War I where oil magnates like Esso, Mobil, Texaco, and Gulf nurtured stronger relationships with intelligence, and policymakers of Washington. By World War II, those bonds had deepened with national security, aerospace, government services, and overseas constructions services as can be evidenced today in the case of Iraq. In 1943, former President Roosevelt declared the nature of the nations’ relationship with oil, which applies not only to the U.S. when he said:

    “I hereby find that the defense of Saudi Arabia is vital to the defense of the United States” when he allocated funds for this purpose to the Persian Gulf.

Since then, much has been done to widen the sources of what has become the most important natural resource in establishing the world’s nuevo riche, the corporate oligarchy. Oil became the means of establishing national and international dominance.

Because of oil’s importance in politics, and the economy of the West since World War I, the means by which effort is made to find “new” sources of oil, is sometimes deplorable. The Niger Delta is one such case, where communities have been suffering with the participation of its government.

The earth like us is a part of His creation. We as humans are the caretakers of everything of and from the earth, but we continually take from the earth that sustains us, not realizing how much we upset the natural balance until the earth shows its signs. In the process of alienating ourselves from our environment, we develop fears of what was once a part of us. We develop fearful attitudes towards animals for instance, and do everything to annihilate those animals. Sometimes, we are not arrogant enough, and we can recognize when it is time to redress the balance, and sometimes the damage caused on the path to our re-awakening requires much time, patience, diligence and determination.

We too often believe that what happens in one area of the world, only effects that part of the world. We remove ourselves from the responsibility until it affects us directly. For instance the Niger Delta in West Africa is the largest delta on the continent, but has probably no meaning to many of us or holds any value, after all what has it got to do with us! We remove ourselves from the fact that the Niger Delta once provided the Western world with slaves to build its economy in the early period of colonialism, or the valuable palm oil that is used in such products as:

• Cadbury’s chocolate

• Clover Margarine

• T.V. meals

• Readymade pastries

• Nestle confectionary and dairy products

• McDonalds

• Regena Cell Anti-Ageing Cream

• Soma Therapy Products

• Isomer Laboratories (make up)

• Genome Cosemtics

• Earth Therapeutics

• Johnson’s Baby Products

• Soaps

• Washing Powders

• Processed foods

• Biodiesel fuels

The forests of the Niger Delta of West Africa are swamps separated by mangroves, the third largest in the world, from the Atlantic Ocean. These mangroves act as a natural barrier, and protect the vast areas of freshwater. The climate consists of a long rainy season from March – October, leaving only the months of January and February where rainfall is minimal. Those forests balanced the local ecosystem and contributed towards the local economy. The intricate balance between flooding, erosion, and sediment deposits, has been upset by the building of a dam affecting the water-flow, as dams tend to prevent the flow of sediment deposits.

There are many communities as well as languages in the Niger, but the community that defines the Niger Delta is the Ijo/Ijaw/Jos. The Ijaw have lived in the Niger Delta for over eight thousand years as an independent sustainable community. Their world became challenged by the colonial rule of the British in the 19th century, and they have consistently fought for autonomy since British colonial rule.

Before

Before the discovery of oil in the Niger Delta, access to the region was limited with boats providing the main transport. Hence population was small, and the socioeconomic situation evolved around fishing, farming and products of the forest. Means of transaction was through bartering and not money, until the natural food supply of the forests became depleted. From 1949, logging added to the local economy through export, thus the beginning of deforestation with 3,497,549 logs being felled annually.

As globalization creeped in, the people had become fearful of the animals of the forests like the lions, and hyenas to the extent that after sunset, one would not see many of the villagers outside their homes. The 40,000 sq kilometers of forest was the home of those animals. With a growing population, and increased socioeconomic activity, imbalance was creeping in with increased exploitation of the forests natural resources without conservation measures in place. Until drought became a glaring reality in the 1970s – 1980s the forests had supported not only the animals but the local communities as well until they disappeared!

The High Cost of Black Gold

Oil in Nigeria was first discovered in a Ijaw community in 156 in the village of Oloibiri in Baysela State. As a result of that discovery, today one can only find damaged farmlands, polluted rivers, and no potable (drinking water). The leading oil companies are Shell, Chevron-Texaco. The Niger Delta as a whole has sustained must environmental degradation at the hands of multinational oil companies the profit of which has only benefited Western economies and Nigerian officials. Ninety eight per cent of the oil is for export. The governments annual revenue is 80% dependant on oil, and the budgetary expenditure is 70% dependent. As the 6th largest exporter of oil in the world, most of its export goes to the U.S.

The shifting River Niger has been contributing to the sinking of the region, forming the Coastal Barrier Islands. Dr P.C Nwilo of the Department of Survey and Geo-informatics, University of Lagos explained the problem of land subsidence to Louis Achi as:

    “…where you have a large deposition of sediments of recent origin and where you have mining taking place – like oil and gas exploitation.” The subsidence phenomenon in the case of the Niger Delta, the survey lecturer said can be classified into two – natural and anthropogenic”.

    “The ground of the Niger Delta is sinking relative to the sea level or the sea level is rising at the rate of 10 centimetres,” geologist and former Dean of the Institute of Geo-science and Space Technology, Rivers State University of Science and Technology, Professor Dagogo Fubara.

    “In the last 10 years, we determined that within the next 30 years the rise would be about 70 centimetres and if that happens about 40 kilometres of the Niger Delta will submerge.”

Louis Achi writes:

    “Over 30 years of oil development have not brought significant benefits to the region. Resource-use decisions are being driven by a lack of development, poor health, stagnant agricultural productivity, and very limited opportunities in urban areas, rapid population growth and tenuous property rights”.

Oil exploitation of the area has disregarded the requirements of the Niger Delta environment which requires a delicate balance to remain in place. With the digging of canals by multi-national oil companies, the important role of the mangrove has been undermined. The laying of pipelines, creation of transportation corridors, and the dumping of dredged waste has led to erosion of stream banks, silting of water, defoliation of the forests canopy, and death of vegetation. Mangroves take 30 – 40 years to regenerate. Added to this are the numerous oil spills that take place, which in many cases is due to lack of proper maintenance and upgrading of equipment used – this clogs the roots of the mangroves, and literally suffocates the mangrove to death.

Reclaiming the Forests

With the depletion of food stocks from the natural resources of the forests, people began to look elsewhere for food sources. This then provided an opportunity to redeem the situation.

Taking guidance from the Nigerian proverb: “anyone who takes what belongs to a child and raises his/her hand up; when he gets tired must bring down his hand and the child will take back his objects (what belongs to him)”

The people’s Chimerenga (uprising) met with military force which took the form of rape, and destruction of entire villages like Ogoniland. Numerous NGOs have sprung up to let the voice of the people be heard in an attempt to seek change. One of those NGOs was the Ijaw Youth Council, which presented a document “The Kaiama Declaration” detailing the extent at which harm has been done by these companies. In response hundreds of Ijaw youth were massacred by the security. Looking closer at the Kaiama Declaration, we find the seed-bed of so-called “ethnic clashes” today in Nigeria, as a state formed by British colonial rule and the legacy of balkanization. Challenging that legacy is tantamount to challenging the government that has taken responsibility and thus control of that state:

The Kaiama Declaration [extract]:

“Introduction.. We, Ijaw youths drawn from over five hundred communities from over 40 clans that make up the Ijaw nation and representing 25 representative organisations met, today, in Kaiama to deliberate on the best way to ensure the continuos survival of the indigenous peoples of the Ijaw Ethnic Nationality of the Niger Delta within the Nigerian State. After exhaustive deliberations, the Conference observed:

1. That it was through British colonisation that the IJAW NATION was forcibly put under the Nigerian State.

2. That, but for the economic interests of the imperialists, the Ijaw Ethnic Nationality would have evolved as a distinct and separate sovereign nation, enjoying undiluted political, economic, social, and cultural AUTONOMY.

3. That the division of the Southern Protectorate into East and West in 1939 by the British marked the beginning of the balkanization of a hitherto territorially contiguous and culturally homogenous Ijaw people into political and administrative units, much to our disadvantage. This trend is continuing in the balkanization of the Ijaws into six states – Ondo, Edo, Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers and Akwa-Ibom States, mostly as minorities who suffer socio-political, economic, cultural and psychological deprivation.

4. That the quality of life of Ijaw people is deteriorating as a result of utter neglect, suppression and marginalization visited on Ijaws by the alliance of the Nigerian state and transnational oil companies.

5. That the political crisis in Nigeria is mainly about the struggle for the control of oil mineral resources which account for over 80% of GDP, 95% of national budget and 90% of foreign exchange earnings. From which, 65%, 75% and 70% respectively are derived from within the Ijaw nation. Despite these huge contributions, our rewards from the Nigerian State remains avoidable deaths resulting from ecological devastation and military repression.

6. That the unabating damage done to our fragile natural environment and to the health of our people is due in the main to uncontrolled exploration and exploitation of crude oil and natural gas which has led to numerous oil spillage’s, uncontrolled gas flaring, the opening up of our forests to loggers, indiscriminate canalisation, flooding, land subsidence, coastal erosion, earth tremors etc. Oil and gas are exhaustible resources and the complete lack of concern for ecological rehabilitation, in the light of the Oloibiri experience, is a signal of impending doom for the peoples of Ijawland.

7. That the degradation of the environment of Ijawland by transnational oil companies and the Nigerian State arise mainly because Ijaw people have been robbed of their natural rights to ownership and control of their land and resources through the instrumentality of undemocratic Nigerian State legislation’s such as the Land Use Decree of 1978, the Petroleum Decree of 1969, and 1991, the Lands (Title Vesting etc.) Decree No.52 of 1993 (Osborne Land Decree), the National Inlands Waterways Authority Decree No.13 of 1997 etc.

8. That the principle of Derivation in Revenue Allocation has been consciously and systematically obliterated by successive regimes of the Nigerian State. We note the drastic reduction of the Derivation Principle from 100% (1953), 50% (1960), 45% (1970), 20% (1975) 2% (1982), 1.5% (1984) to 3% (1992 to date), and a rumored 13% in Abacha’s 1995 undemocratic and unimplemented Constitution.

9. That the violence in Ijawland and other parts of the Niger Delta area, sometimes manifesting in intra and inter ethnic conflicts are sponsored by the State and transnational oil companies to keep the communities of the Niger Delta area divided, weak and distracted from the causes of their problems.

10. That the recent revelation of the looting of the national treasury by the Abacha junta is only a reflection of an existing and continuing trend of stealing by public office holders in the Nigerian State. We remember the over 12 billion dollars Gulf war windfall, which was looted by Babangida and his cohorts. We note that over 70% of the billions of dollars being looted by military rulers and their civilian collaborators is derived from our ecologically devastated Ijawland.

As a result of the continual outcry, the government formed the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), to tackle the issue of development in the region. As for the multinational oil companies, they have simply removed themselves from the very problem they created by relocating to Port Harcourt, and employing a special arm of the Nigerian Police Force.

“Operation Climate Change” was anon-violent protest by local activists. It was a 10-day program which involved the occupation of oil flow stations, and attempts to shutdown those stations along with the gas flares. This went on for many weeks and affected the oil companies Agip, Chevron, Mobil, Shell and Texaco. Unfortunately, the Shell backed military was ordered to treat this situation as a state of emergency.

In the unrest of 2003 which saw the destruction of many villages, the Pentagon gave two U.S. warships to the Nigerian Navy to protect the oil facilities, and from USAID, $50,000 in blood money or humanitarian aid was given to the International Foundation for Education and Self-Help on behalf of the Ijaw and the Itsekiris. All of this was in response to what was in fact a non-violent protest.

In 2005, the local NGO Environmental Rights Action said:

    “More gas is flared in Nigeria than anywhere else in the world. Estimates are notoriously unreliable, but roughly 2.5 billion cubic feet of gas associated with crude oil is wasted in this way everyday. This is equal to 40% of all Africa’s natural gas consumption in 2001, while the annual financial loss to Nigeria is about US $2.5 billion. The flares have contributed more greenhouse gases than all of sub-Saharan Africa combined. And the flares contain a cocktail of toxins that affect the health and livelihood of local communities, exposing Niger Delta residents to an increased risk of premature deaths, child respiratory illnesses, asthma and cancer”

The blood money offered to the communities that have been torn apart by the government’s lack of concern for the decimation of their environment by multinational oil companies cannot compensate for the loss of what is 95% of Nigeria’s forests. As a result, apart from undermining the local ecosystem, the biodiversity of the region, the food supply of the animals and the local population, and the socioeconomic value of those forests, causing what has been referred to as “ethnic” infighting which has now spilled over into many areas of Nigerian civil society, Nigeria now has to import 75% of its timber.

It was not until 1981 that the government set up a Rural Forest development program, which was revised in 2002 to go beyond laws and legislations. This is possible with its long history in forestry from which technical expertise is available, and the fact the National Forest Advisory Committee is the highest advisory body to the government on forestry issues allowing for civil society participation in forming policy as a part of the process of decentralization, the pressure of which comes from without i.e. the donors, and not from within. Unfortunately, unlike Namibia, Gabon, Senegal and Sudan which are under the same program, the process has been weakened in the case of Nigeria probably due to the oil factor.

It was not until 1991 that the government became proactive on the ground and set up the Cross River National Park as a conservation area to protect the remaining forests. Around Cross River National Park is a buffer zone consisting of 105 villages to protect the Park.

How It Can Be Done

Away from the external forces that have led to a precarious environmental situation in Nigeria, the main force at play in Mali, West Africa, where rivers, and forests do not have the blessings of the wet climate of Nigeria, over 20 forests have completely disappeared. Today, villagers, farmers and NGO’s play a leading role in the reclamation of their forests for farmers have been involved in planting native species. Research assistant, Mory Diallo at a local branch of the NGO Holland-based Wetlands International told IPS:

    “About seven of them have been rehabilitated; four play a major role in balancing the region’s ecosystem.”
    Landowner and leader, Nouhoum Té Tiaw explained.
    “It is forbidden to cut down trees in these forests. But our flocks, particularly sheep and goats, find food there when the water recedes during the dry season,”

The restored forests provide a place for migratory birds from Europe to rest, shelter and a breeding place for endangered wild animals, fisheries have replenished from which even export is possible, and women can repay their micro-loans from their reforestation activities. Local NGO’s contribute towards community building by providing, micro-loans, with problems that prevent reforestation. For instance, unblocking a waterway that supplies water to the wetlands, which can cause tree-death. Supporting regulations which makes it a fineable offence to fell a tree helps to support the community initiative. The fine then goes into a maintenance fund to support reforestation; and in the spirit of Ubuntu:

    “Everyone feels responsible; the communities themselves are demanding local bylaws to protect their environment. These regulations lay out the rules for exploiting natural resources and the sanctions against those who do not respect these measures,” Abdoussalam Maiga, an official at the Wetlands International local office, told IPS.

Sources:

Achi, L. The Niger Delta Region is Sinking http://www.nigerdeltacongress.com/narticles/niger_delta_region_is_sinking.htm

Alagoa, E. IZON: The Historical Perspective http://www.nigerdeltacongress.com/iarticles/izon_the_historical_perspective.htm

Charles, I Models of Nonviolent Civil Disobedience in the Niger-Delta http://chimaubanicentre.org/ebook/IKALAMA%20FINAL%20COPY.doc

Diarra, S. T. Farmers Restore Forests.
Forestry Department Key Characteristics of Forest and Forestry in the Five Case Study Countries http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/AC915E/AC915E04.htm

Ijaw Youth “The Kaiama Declaration” http://www.ijawland.com/kaiama_declaration.html

IPS. Farmers Restore Forests http://www.ips.org/TV/wsf2010/farmers-restore-forests/

Onduku, A The Lingering Crisis in the Niger Delta: Field Work Report. http://www.peacestudiesjournal.org.uk/dl/OilConflict.PDF

World Wildlife Fund “Niger Delta swamp forests (AT0122)” http://www.worldwildlife.org/wildworld/profiles/terrestrial/at/at0122_full.html

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