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Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2004 17:11:37 +0000

A Weekly Electronic Forum For Social Justice In Africa
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THE CAMPAIGN CONTINUES! SUPPORT THE CAMPAIGN ON THE PROTOCOL TO THE AFRICAN
CHARTER ON HUMAN AND PEOPLES' RIGHTS ON THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN IN AFRICA

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CONTENTS: 1. Highlights from this issue, 2. Editorial, 3. Comment and
Analysis, 4. Letters, 5. Pan-African Postcard, 6. Conflict and Emergencies,
7. Human Rights, 8. Refugees and Forced Migration, 9. Women and Gender, 10.
Elections and Governance, 11. Development, 12. Corruption, 13. Health, 14.
HIV/AIDS, 15. Education, 16. Social Welfare, 17. Racism and Xenophobia, 18.
Environment, 19. Land and Land Rights, 20. Media and Freedom of Expression,
21. News from the Diaspora, 22. Advocacy and Campaigns, 23. Internet and
Technology, 24. eNewsletters and Mailing Lists, 25. Fundraising and Useful
Resources, 26. Courses, Seminars, and Workshops, 27. Jobs, 28. Books and
Arts

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2. Editorial

OIL AND CORPORATE RECKLESSNESS IN NIGERIA’S NIGER DELTA REGION
Joel Bisina
Nigeria is Africa's largest and most complex country, with a population of
120 million people from over 250 tribes. The vast, swampy terrain of the
Niger Delta region supports almost 20 million people, many of them in
isolated communities only accessible by boat. The Niger Delta serves as the
economic nerve center of the Nigeria Federation with its vast oil deposits.
Presently, crude oil accounts for about 85% of the nation's revenue. Oil
from the Niger Delta accounts for 20% of oil supply to the US, and has
become increasingly important from a strategic perspective as conflicts
continue in the Middle East.

However, this “blessing” has become a curse for the people of the Niger
Delta. They have suffered environmental devastation, economic poverty, and
constant conflict. To make matters even worse, political considerations and
greed on the part of a corrupt government have kept many of the earnings
from these vast reserves from returning to the Niger Delta to help restore
the region.

Since the discovery of oil and the production in commercial quantities in
1958, the people of the Niger Delta have known no peace. Today, violent
inter tribal and inter communal conflicts, arms proliferation, ethnic
militias and illegal bunkering (theft of crude oil directly from pipelines)
have become synonymous with the region.

Economic activities related to oil and gas has placed the government's
security emphasis on the need to produce oil and gas most effectively and
efficiently. This type of security consideration ignores the impact on other
environmental and human resources such as waters, forests, fish and the
climate of the area. The youth of the region, a vibrant and energetic
generation who should be supporting the productivity and the future of this
area, are instead being continuously cut down by bullets from security
operatives under the guise of the war on terrorism. Communities are razed
and extra-judicial killings are the order of the day.

>From the days of the hanging of playwright and prominent environmental
rights activist Ken Saro Wiwa and nine other Ogoni individuals by the then
military regime of General Sani Abacha, to the Odi holocaust and the burning
and destruction of Awor and Fenegbene by the present Obasanjo
administration, the story has been the same.

When oil production activities are intensified or activated in a very
dedicated manner, riverbank erosion results, gas flares occur frequently,
forests are cut down, rivers and streams are dredged, turned into canals or
blocked and then polluted. Farms and sacred lands are not spared either;
they may be acquired for oil and gas development or polluted, as production
gets under way. Anything that is seen to obstruct or have the semblance of
serving as obstruction to the free flow of oil is uprooted and destroyed,
whether it is a human being, a community or a stream.

Compounding the plight of the people of the Niger Delta is the issue of
environmental pollution. Oil production and dredging have caused acid rain,
fouled the air and the water, and caused widespread and dramatic erosion.
Whole communities have watched their lands erode away. Fishing and farming,
the traditional occupations of these people, is no longer viable. This
situation has caused poverty, hunger and desperation among these peoples,
who are struggling to eke out a living.

The issue of ownership rights is key. Federal laws automatically transfer
title to any land where oil is found to the federal government without
adequate compensation to the landowners. This gives the federal government
the right to enter into an unholy alliance with multi national oil companies
in the name of joint venture operations at the exclusion of the people. The
result is that the federal government and the multinational oil corporations
share the resulting revenue on a ratio of 60:40 percent with nothing left
for the landowners. In addition, oil spills and other ongoing problems
caused by the oil production are not attended to, so the area is left in
much worse shape than before the oil reserves were found.

Underlying this complex and fraudulent economic arrangement is the issue of
ethnicity and tribalism. There are 250 ethnic nationalities in Nigeria, with
the Yorubas, Igbos and the Hausa/Fulani of the west, southeast and the north
comprising the majority tribes. The minorities of the Ijaws, Itsekiris and
other nationalities inhabit the oil rich Niger Delta region, which is swampy
deltaic terrain, and is completely cut off from development, modern
industries and social infrastructure. Educational opportunities are limited,
and the closest health care facility is about three hours by speedboat.

Because the government tends to be populated by people who originated from
the majority tribes which do not happen to be located in the delta, they
have created a formula for sharing the revenues from oil production that
favors other regions, further increasing the poverty in the delta and
creating anger and conflict between the delta tribes themselves. Trust
amongst the tribes has been eroded, while hatred and suspicion have grown,
as they are made to believe that they are enemies to one and another by the
divide and rule and divide and exploit attitude of an insincere national
government and its dubious multi national collaborators.

The combination of these factors creates a potential powder keg. Because
Nigeria is the largest nation in Africa and considered the leader in
political and economic issues, any eruption could have a deeply
destabilizing effect on both the continent and the global community. By
providing the world a more complete understanding of the real story behind
the impact of the oil discovery and production during the last 45 years in
Nigeria, perhaps we can find the resources to address these issues before a
major eruption occurs.

* Joel Bisina is a peace activist and founder/Regional Director of the Niger
Delta Professionals for Development (NIDPRODEV) a non-profit organization
working on the communal and inter tribal conflicts in the oil rich Niger
Delta Region of Nigeria.

* Please send comments to [log in to unmask]

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3. Comment and Analysis

TAKING CONTROL OF AFRICA’S RESOURCES
Eno Anwana
>From the slave trade era of the 15th century to the crude oil era of the
20th century, Nigeria's natural resource history has been fraught by a
systemic cartel of merchants whose primary agenda was in the amount of
natural resources they could garner from the country. In their exploitative
ventures they raided whole communities, introduced internecine wars and
conflicts, and ignited a raging fire of habitat degradation and
fragmentation.

Historical records tell of the fact that the plundering of African natural
resources fuelled the industrial revolution of Europe. Energy demands in the
20th century brought on the search for crude oil wells worldwide and Nigeria
was not left out. From 1956, when the first oil well was successfully
drilled in Nigeria, scrambling for Nigeria's resources by the Europeans took
on a new dimension.

The oil boom era of the 1970s saw the downward plunge of the agricultural
sector. There was a complete paradigm shift from the nation's then agrarian
culture to an oil driven culture, moving ultimately from renewable natural
resources to un-renewable resource trade. From the 70s through to the early
80s we witnessed a drastic drop in local food production. Importation rates
of foods and finished products increased dramatically and our foreign debt
escalated rapidly, bringing the economy to a crisis. During this period,
from 1958 to 1983, we recorded $101 billion in estimated oil revenue
earnings.

A plethora of environmental problems exist as a result of the oil trade.
Communities where certain resources are harvested - in particular oil and
gas - bear the impact of exploration and exploitation, while gains are
shared to other areas that contribute next to nothing to national oil
revenues.

In addition oil communities are impoverished and lack basic social
infrastructures and amenities. One region in Nigeria which has borne the
brunt of natural resource exploitation is the Niger Delta. This region
played a key role in the country's economy in pre-colonial and colonial
times and still maintains a primary position in present crude oil trade.

The Niger Delta: The Battlefield For Resource Control

The Niger Delta has featured in global discourse as a region plagued by
non-violent demonstrations, violent protests and intra communal wars over
resource control. The source and underlying causes of agitation in this
region must be clearly understood by the global community in evolving
effectual management strategies.

Agitations within this region take root from early colonial trade relations
with the British incursion into the area. They made treaties with vulnerable
communities, plundered resource capital and introduced a subservient
cultural pattern. Communities only benefited by giving-up their farmlands in
exchange for ridiculous gifts. In those days, resistance came through such
visionary leaders like King Jaja of Opobo and Nana Olomu. These leaders, as
recorded by Nigerian historians, led their people in the struggle to rescue
their natural economy from the greedy control of the British who had devised
a “divide and rule” machinery of control over the people.

Control over the natural resource capital of the Niger Delta people is
mirrored presently by the operations of the oil multinational companies, who
defraud whole communities of their livelihood sources, paying ridiculous
monetary compensation in exchange for a devastated coastal ecosystem.

The oil companies make up the largest industry in the Niger Delta region.
Despite this, unemployment levels are still high, especially in the rural
areas where oil and gas reserves exist. In this region exist oil well
reserves (17.9 billion barrels) and gas wells (3.4 trillion m3),
contributing about 80% of federal government revenue.

Despite this vast coastal wealth, GNP per capita is below the national
average of US$280. Pollution of coastal corridors and wetlands is a
recurrent disaster. Gas flaring has become a notorious pollutant of the
local communities of the Delta. Oil spills and gas flaring have destroyed
whole fishing communities, reducing needed fishery resources, terrestrial
vegetations and compromising the health of local people in and around oil
installations.

Nigeria's resource base includes a vast network of rivers, floodplains and a
rich rainforest network, with vast deposits of minerals. However about 95%
of natural forest cover has been lost to deforestation, leaving 5% contained
in the Southeast region. While dams upstream are a constant headache and
threat to the rich coastal biodiversity, deforestation ravages the teeming
rainforest ecosystem.

The Nigerian Government And The Challenge Of Sustainability

In a country where agriculture accounts for about 40% of GDP and oil
production and exports (exporting over 2 million barrels/day) ranks 6th
world wide, government's management structure and environmental action plan
is essential to maintain balance and reduce abuse. The question here is what
has been the role of the Nigerian government in the management of its
natural resources?

To attempt an answer, one can say that even though the legal framework and
institutional structure for natural resource management is firmly
established, it still lacks the strength and drive which natural resource
management deserves.

Government response to environmental problems and the nagging problem of
unsustainable resource exploitation has been rather slow. Compromises in
deals with multinational companies have crippled the implementation of
“goodwill” national policies and laws. The management structure at best is
fragmentary, and there exists similar government agencies carrying out the
same functions, often times leading to conflict between government agencies
and stakeholders.

A satisfactory environmental condition would mean developmental projects and
resource utilization meet with clearly stated developmental benchmarks,
whose implementation is sustainable. For projects to be considered
sustainable as contained in Agenda 21 of the Rio declaration three key
aspects of development must be integrated into project planning and
implementation: economic growth, social equity and ecological integrity.

Historical trends in the Delta have shown that industrial activities in the
Delta have negated this all-embracing principle, in the scramble for
resources. Indigenous people, their laws and customs have often been
sidetracked. Sustainability must therefore be redefined in this region and
companies' licenses to operate must be revoked when found guilty. The
country does not lack policies and laws, but the gap is in its
implementation and policing of resource utilization.

Resource depletion has far reaching multiplier effects and its importance is
underscored by communal agitations and high national poverty statistics. It
is instructive to evolve stringent measures to “checkmate” the eclipse of
our collapsing life support systems. We can't afford to put new wine into
old wine skin.

The issue of local content has to do with the active participation of the
local indigenous people in decision-making processes. Local people are the
best managers, they have over the years evolved methods and approaches in
natural resource management that have preserved certain classes of
biodiversity and we need to learn from them.

For sustainability, they must be integrated in all developmental issues,
especially those that impact on their existence. In ensuring active
participation of local stakeholders in project management and development,
ideals of Community Based Resource Management (CBRM) can be adopted. A case
is in promoting indigenous protected areas. In the Southeast region several
lakes and forests exist, designated by local nomenclature as sacred areas.
Indigenous laws and customs have protected biodiversity in these areas over
the years and we can start by integrating and institutionalizing these areas
into our system of protected parks or areas.

True federalism and sustainability can only be obtained by ensuring that the
needs and aspirations of local communities are first considered before
economic gains. Trade-offs are necessary to maintain equilibrium in
developmental conceptualization, and in respect of sustainable development,
social equity cannot be overruled, but rather sustained.

Africa and the Way Forward

The New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) could through its review
mechanism ensure that African countries comply strictly on the issue of
indigenous active participation in decision processes. But the question we
must ask is: how sincere are participating African countries on moving the
ideology of NEPAD forward? Can NEPAD be a panacea to our dependency on
western donors, who dictate the tune of our development? Or would we be
strong enough as a people to wield the weapon of resource control and
management by Africans to the hungry western world?

We must evolve strategic alliances with other African nations to find long
lasting solutions for the management of Africa's vast bank of natural
resources. The question of capacity building then arises. Capacity building
in natural resource management would mean a network of indigenous people who
are able to exchange needed information and technology without barriers. In
addition would be the function of resource tracking: we must insist on
predetermined certification of forest and coastal land goods and services,
which could serve as a monitoring device for products obtained from these
ecosystems.

My concluding thought on sustainable natural resource utilization and
development in Nigeria and Africa as a whole, is in our corporate
realization that for us as Africans, our greatest weaponry against the
incursion of the developed economics is our bank of natural resource
capital.

It's time we as a race refuse the lies of the western world and shun greed
and mismanagement of both human and natural resources. We must encourage all
Africans to imbibe the culture of proper management of our contested
heritage. This must be clearly understood and articulated by the current
crop of leaders as they promote the African Union through its NEPAD
initiative.

* Eno Deborah Anwana’s major interest is the sustainable management of
Africa's vast wealth of natural resources by Africans. Since 2002 Anwana has
worked in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria on a MacArthur funded project
focusing on the wise use of natural resources and sustainable development.
Anwana is affiliated with Nigerian's foremost environmental NGO called The
Nigerian Conservation Foundation, a membership based NGO.

* Please send comments to [log in to unmask]

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