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Nigeria's
conflict over oil wealth
By
Jonathan
Power
TFF Associate
since 1991
Comments to JonatPower@aol.com
October 30, 2005
LONDON - In mid 1999 only three
weeks into his first term of office President Olusegun
Obasanjo had to send the army into Warri, an important
oil town, in the Niger delta. Around two hundred people
were killed by intertribal fighting over confused land
ownership.
Obasanjo flew into Warri and
started negotiations between the fighting groups. Six
years later there is now peace between the three tribes
who fought each other the most, the Ijaws, the Urhobo and
the Itsekeri. He also promised to substantially increase
the proportion of federal revenues going to the delta
states.
Nevertheless, sporadic violence has
continued through the Obasanjo era, with the army and
police sometimes responding viciously. Periodically,
panicky articles appear in the local press quoting the
oil companies - in particular Shell, by far the biggest -
as fearing for the lives of their employees and
threatening to shut down their oil wells. Nigeria is the
world's eighth largest oil exporter.
A month ago the federal authorities
arrested a young militant, Mujahid Asari Dokubo, who
enjoyed being photographed with his armed militia.
Protests erupted around the delta. "Five flow stations
were shut down by angry youths. Explosions and gunshots
have been heard. Oil companies had to shut their
facilities. Two Britons have been momentarily kidnapped
while the others feel threatened", reported the Nigerian
newspaper, "The Guardian".
Bad as it sometimes can be it
cannot be compared with the dark days of the dictatorship
of General Sani Abacha, who besides imprisoning Obasanjo
ordered the hanging of one of Nigeria's most illustrious
writers, Ken Saro-Wiwa, who led an organisation which
modestly demanded that a greater proportion of Shell's
profits be channelled into the local
community.
After the execution Shell made a
great effort to change their practice of working too
closely with military and police forces careless of human
rights. Shell's vice president for external relations,
Robin Aram, observed, "There is an emerging consensus
that for peace and stability to be restored to the Niger
delta the communities must view themselves as net
beneficiaries from oil production. Achieving a shift in
perspective is no easy task, given the legacy of past
failures by government, persecution by security forces,
inter-ethnic values and the sense that oil companies have
put profit before principles."
A visitor to the delta, attempting
to measure if there has been "a shift in perspective",
confronts contradictions whichever way he turns. Local
states have much more to spend on development but a
corrupt political and bureaucratic class siphon off much
of it. The militias exist, but in small numbers with
shallow roots. They thrive because the media amplify
their meagre message, and the oil companies, staffed with
nervous expatriates who prefer to live isolated behind
barbed wire, over react. Worst of all the companies have
allowed themselves to be blackmailed, attempting to buy
off the most ferocious militants and most compliant
village chiefs. The media, both local and international,
often appear to ignore the fact that most political and
human rights activists here pursue their causes
non-violently and have no truck with the policies of
blackmail.
Down in the mangrove swamps the
reporter has no difficulty in finding rich oil wells
standing next to fishermen's villages made of reeds and
grass, so frail they look as if the next wind will blow
them down. Yet in Port Harcourt, the oil capital,
building works are booming, much of the popular housing
has been upgraded many notches above the traditional
level, school enrolment is increasing at a fast pace and
potable water supplies are spreading rapidly. The Niger
Delta Development Commission has had substantial success
in training unemployed youth in new skills. All over
there are new roads and electricity pylons. In the towns
the number of small businesses and workshops are
mushrooming, very few of them having their output
measured by the GNP statisticians. The governor, Dr Peter
Odili, is understandably proud of what is underway, yet
at the same time he is building himself a Saddam
Hussein-type palace.
I asked Obasanjo, a religious man,
if it was God who gave Nigeria oil or was it the Devil?
"God", he replied. "However, the Devil is manipulating
it!" But slowly the devil is being exorcised. The federal
government is cracking down on the militias, even as
local politicians deviously try to make use of them. Oil
is being stolen to buy guns, but much less than before.
The oil companies are trying harder but could do much
more. The battle against corruption is making progress
but needs to be more rigorously fought. The human rights
activists claim the situation is much better, even whilst
they uncover new abuses. The progress may be so slow but
it is also apparent. Compared with the days of the
dictatorship it's the difference between day and
night.
Copyright © 2005 By
JONATHAN POWER
I can be reached by
phone +44 7785 351172 and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
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