The oil-rich delta
region of southern Nigeria - called Niger Delta - is larger than 70,000
square kilometers with a population larger of over 35 million people - larger
than the population of Saudi Arabia, Belgium, Australia, Greece, Netherlands,
Austria, Romania, Hungary, and United Arab Emirates - made up of 40 ethnic
nationalities and collectively producing over 2.2 million barrels of crude oil
per day.
I have to restate
here for the purpose of emphasis - the population of the people of the Niger
Delta is larger than that of all our African neighbours - Chad, Niger,
Cameroon, Benin Republic, and Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mali, Malawi, Zimbabwe,
Rwanda, and many more. If the Niger Delta region were an independent country,
its population would place it as the 39th most populous nation in the world, a
position between Canada (36 million) and Morocco (34 million) on the global country-by-country population list.
The people of the
Niger Delta with the crude oil resources exploited from their region are
not a poor people, are not a conquered people, and we are therefore not
beggars. And we could probably be the richest black people on earth, if we
dared to own our God-given resources.
From 1885 to 1893,
the Niger Delta we have gone from being the Oil Rivers Protectorate to the
Niger Coast Protectorate Petroleum Rich Region, these are identities given to
us first because of our riches in Palm Kernel produce to the discovery of crude
oil and gas just before the independence of Nigeria in 1960. Before the British
came and ascribed these nomenclature on the region, we were (and are still are)
the indigenes of an enviable, blessed, rich, and industrious region.
After the
discovery of oil and gas in commercial quantities in the Niger Delta, the
region has remained in the centre of national and international debate with
regards to the pollution and environmental degradation of the region. The twin
issues have been made worse by unimaginable levels of corruption and human
rights abuses of succession of military regimes and the democratic regimes that
followed.
The Niger Delta
are mostly found in the South South political zone of Nigeria. Geographically,
we occupy 7.5% of Nigeria's landmass. Politically, the region is made up of six
states - Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo, and Rivers.
We have
experiences different seasons of oppression and political climate - colonial,
post-colonial, Nigerian civil war (in which we were marked for extermination by
the two armies in the conflict), violent agitations, and non-violent
resistance, and the story is on-going.
The resources of
the Delta region has been used for more than a century, since
the 1914 amalgamation to 1960 Independence, when we were dealt a bad hand
of cards of oppression, neglect, under-development and human rights abuse.
We are a welcoming
and peace loving, yet we have never failed to resist oppression, neglect,
injustice and inequality from the days of Nana of Itsekiri, the Nembe war, the
era of King Jaja of Opopo, to that of Chief Harold Dappa Biriye, Adaka Boro,
and all the way to the agitations of Ken Saro-Wiwa, we have always wanted
fairness, justice, and equitable for all.
During all these
times, our peaceful and humble ways and obvious loyal commitment to the
continuity of Nigeria as a country has been willfully misread as weakness or
even deadly desire on our part to sacrifice our people, region, and resources
to keep the corrupt enterprise called Nigeria going.
When in 1998, the
oppressive and extremely corrupt regime led by the late General Sani Abacha was
dismantled following the unexpected death of the head of state, a supposed
democratic government was ushered in the next year. General Olusegun Obasanjo
(Rtd), a former military ruler who had just been released from prison took up
leadership of the country as president based on the 1999 Constitution and there
was high hopes for a new era of democratic rule.
But, the 1999
Constitution wasn't the constitution agreed upon by the 350 ethnic
nationalities in Nigeria. Rather, it was a military decree signed into law by
General Abdulsalami Abubakar. The military-produced document begins "We,
the people", then proceeds to say the people agreed on a united Nigeria
and prescribe laws to govern the people, who never agreed to the document
in the first place. It is a fraud to pass off the 1999 Constitution as a
democratic framework for the country.
I have always
maintained that the problems staring Nigeria in the fact, that threaten our
unity, are are written in the 1999 Constitution which the military government
handover over to a military general as the basis for him to rule the country.
The Niger Delta
people expected things to change in favour of the region, politically, when
Obasanjo took over power, but what we were handed was continued genocide. We
were cruely handed Odi, Odioma, Gbaramatu, Ayekoromo, and others.
The Niger Delta
Development Commission, a supposed developmental intervention agency, turned
out to be a puppet controlled from Abuja using people from the Niger Delta
region as willing political and economic pawns in the hands of the federal
government working against the collective good and development empowerment of
the very people the agency was created to serve.
Though the NDDC is
being presented as an agency for the Niger Delta people and region and managed
by the Niger Delta people, it is actually a political power
tool manipulated and controlled by the political system today known as the
'cabal'.
What did we get
from democracy? The calls for resource control which galvanised into a globally
recognised movement during the Abacha years was frustrated, the oppression and
neglect of the Niger Delta region continued which snowballed into the armed
agitations. Only then, did the issues that had been placed before past leaders
of the country receive some attention.
President Obasanjo
again offered something, a truce to enable the output of oil to rise again from
the creeks of the Niger Delta, he succeeded. Then we had to deal with the
unconstitutional ambition for 3rd term, NDDC became the cash cow for driving an
illegality driven by the raw ambition of one man. Funds meant to go into the
Niger Delta was diverted to fund the unholy agenda. The Niger Delta and Igbo
people are still paying the price for the failure of the 3rd term, as they are
seen as being responsible for the failure.
There is, indeed,
a political cabal, that takes a hold of any elected or military government, it
either controls the government to its selfish benefit or brings the government
down. The Niger Delta has been at the receiving end of this cabal. The policies
and system of long established decisions of never allowing either political or
economic power to leave the control of "the cabal" which is made of
one minority ethnic group from the North driven by the draconian philosophy of
the military profession.
The cabal won't
permit a government with aims different from its selfish aims to hold power at
all costs to rise and fix Nigeria by addressing the very unjust system that the
cabal feeds off of.
Boko Haram, the
Fulani herdsmen militia, boldly killing, destroying and raping their way from
Kaduna to Warri in the past 6 years, the kidnapping of under-aged Christian
girls of South South origin, forcefully converting them to Islam, renaming
them, and married them off to Muslim leaders and truck pushers are all criminal
and terrorist enterprises funded and protected by the cabal.
In May 2015 the
President Muhammadu Buhari-led All Progressives Congress government was sworn
in, 1 year and 5 months later, the Niger Delta people are worst off than they
have ever been since 1960.
In my opinion as a
Niger Deltan, amongst over 35 million Niger Deltans coming from 40 ethnic
nationalities owning the resources known as oil and gas, and others yet to be
discovered, we the Niger Delta people have made too many sacrifices that no
other groups of peoples have made for Nigeria or will ever be willing to make.
And this is for a country dubiously created 100 years ago for selfish economic
reasons. By 1914, the people of the Niger Delta had been living in the
territory as free and independent nationalities for hundreds of years, it is
therefore nothing to be ashamed of, if we decide today to re-appraise our terms
and conditions of continue stay in a union that has no regard for us as equal
partners in nation building, but rather sees us as tools to serve.
The Niger Delta
region and her people, and the people of the South East have been referred to
as the 5% that did not vote for the President Buhari lead APC government and
were told not to expect what the 97% who voted for him will get.
At home and abroad
the people of the Niger Delta, Igbos, and some selected outspoken Yorubas have
been singled out and made to undergo media trials by the Muhammadu Buhari
government. They have been branded thieves and looters of the treasury and
denied their fundamental human rights.
The Niger Delta
region is under constant threat of having the political will of the people
overturned by the courts. Nearly 18 months after the 2015 elections and re-run
elections, my beloved Rivers State is without full representation at the
National Assembly, House of Representatives and State Assembly. All this, is a
bid to frustrate the will of the Rivers people embodied in Governor Nyesom
Wike. A political party and a democratic leader is meant to serve the people not
punish the people.
The devastation
and destruction of the Niger Delta people's environment, by International Oil
Companies and their 60% federal government partners is probably the worst and
most unacceptable sacrifice the people of the Niger Delta reLegion have had to
make to sustain Nigeria. And it is one that we will continue to make until we
take our destiny into our own hands.
The Niger Delta
ecosystem and the people's livelihood has been destroyed by the careless and
wicked method of exploration and exploitation of oil and gas has been
undertaken since the discovery of oil and gas in the Niger Delta in 1957.
It is estimated
that 25% of our mangrove has been destroyed! Our rain forest is nearly if not
all destroyed all 7,400 square kilometers.
Oil spills in
communities destroy crops; aquaculture which contaminate our drinking waters
and farm soil destroying our livelihood, taking away our basic human right to
feed and provide for ourselves and family. In the 90% agrarian and fishing
communities of the Niger Delta, our fish and crops are destroyed by the
activities of the federal government and their international oil major
partners.
Experts have
predicted that the environmental degradation in the Niger Delta region, if it
continues at the current pace, our land and waters will become uninhabitable in
less than a generation.
l personally
believe this unfortunate trend has been the strategy of the born-to-rule power
dealing cabal all along and the silence and inaction of the Nigerian government
has encouraged it, in fact, actually promoted it. To either kill us off or make
the region uninhabitable, either one of each will produce the desired outcome -
unfettered access to our oil and gas (by any means necessary).
Respiratory
problems, asthma, skin, stomach, and lung cancers, are some of the common
health issues prevalent in the Niger Delta. Access to clean water, air and food
is denied us as a result of the environmental abuses.
Gas flaring
minimum of 3.5billion cubic feet of associated gas is flared yearly in the
Niger Delta by the oil companies and their federal government partners,
ironically the governments are obliged to protect us from these abuses. Gas
flared in the Niger Delta is the equivalent of 25% of the UK's gas consumption,
which is the equivalent of 40% of Africa's gas consumption as of 2001 (15 years
ago) (Source: Wikipedia.org).
The federal
government and oil companies are wasting a minimum of US$2 billion per year of
Niger Delta wealth. It is cheaper for them to flare than to commercially
separate viable associated gas from oil so they flare not minding the cost to
the people and the Niger Delta region. They are killing us slowly to,
ironically, save money.
It is therefore my
considered opinion that this is the reason oil companies take their headquarters
to Lagos State, and not because of insecurity caused by the Niger Delta people.
They have the knowledge of exactly the health hazards they have created for us,
according to the UNEP report we have a death sentence hanging over our heads.
Our children have no future even before they are conceived.
Climate Justice in
its study estimates that the exposure to benzene would result in 8 news cases
of cancer yearly in Bayelsa State. Is it worth it? So that Kano State can
collect allocation for its 44 LGA while Bayelsa State gets less than 1/5th
of that for its 8 LGA.
l can say with
confidence that more than 95% or 97% of our people in the Niger Delta region
believe that the call for restructuring and resource ownership rather than
threaten the unity of Nigeria seems to be the last post for the unity of
Nigeria. I make my observation as a Niger Deltan, I don't claim to speak for
all the ethnic nationalities, and I have been a strong advocate for all ethnic
groups to speak for themselves.
As recently
confirmed by Nigeria's minister of state for petroleum resources, Dr. Ibe
Kachikwu when he presented a roadmap for the development of the nation's oil
and gas industry at the Presidential Villa Abuja on Thursday the 27th of
October, 2016 that President Buhari will meet with some stakeholders from the
oil rich region on Tuesday, November 1.
*Being a part of contribuition by Annkio Briggs, a
daughter, servant, and respected leader of the Niger Delta. She is a leading
voice in the struggle for human rights and environmental justice in the
oil-rich region. Connect with her on Facebook.
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