The PIB Passage: The Niger Delta And The Ungrateful Nigerian State
The black gold known as crude oil was first discovered in Oloibiri community, in the present day Bayelsa State in the heart of the Niger Delta, South – South in the year 1956 after nearly about 50 year of exploratory activities. All that Oloibiri have to show to her children today is the relic of a rusty and an abandoned well-head coupled with a degraded environment. Oloibiriremains a reference point today as similar fate await all other oil bearing communities in the Niger Delta as a result of the insensitivity of the industry players in the plights of the host communities.
Perhaps, the people of the Nigerian oil bearing enclaves should be comfortable with polluted and environmental degradation while the Nigerian state continue to expropriate her oil and gas resources that was freely given by God for the wellbeing and prosperity of the inhabitants in whose earth bowels the black gold is found. Gas are flares in the Niger Delta, people get sick. Bath and drinks from acidic rain, properties get worn out and corroded owing to polluted atmospheric vapor. Bore hole is neither a solution as the underground water sources are contaminated while the Federal government generate monies as fines the Multinationals and take all the monies to a distributive pool in Abuja. For years now and counting, children born in the city of Port Harcourt which is enveloped with soot occasioned by exploratory activities are beginning to become accustomed to it. In all of these, the Federal government is simply not bothered about the soot that is seriously posing health risks to the inhabitants of one of her major cities which incidentally is the headquarters of hydrocarbon activities in Nigeria. The Buhari Presidency has dissipated more energies in a futile attempt togalvanize World powers to recharge the fasts shrinking Lake Chad while little attention is paid to the region that earned the nation about 90% of her foreign exchange. The much talked about Ogoni clean-up exercise is yet to achieve any tangible result.
Thursday, the 1st day of July was a day the Nigerian State and her people openly showed its disdained towards the generous people of the Niger Delta. The Speaker spoke glowingly of the 9th National Assemblyover the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB). Both the Speaker and the Senate President were seemingly engaging in self-glorification like lizard that fell from a tree and decided to applaud itself. However, they failed to mention that at one time, President Buhari withhold assent to the PIB passed by the 8thAssembly. Meanwhile, the many setbacks the PIB suffered following years of legislative macabre dancein the last thirteen years after its first introduction in 2008 were simply as a result of Northern legislatures opposition to the creation of Host Communities Development Trust Funds. They successfully frustrated its passage in the pasts, waiting for when an amenable Northern President will be in power for a Northern version of the PIB to be easily foisted on the people which was exactly what they did.
The passage of a paltry 3% in the bill for host communities was not only appalling and insulting but a clear representation of the mindset of the Nigerian State and her people towards the plights of the people of the oil-rich Niger Delta. Most of the suffering are occasioned by years of exploratory activities. Recall that clause 240 of the bill had proposed five percent of the annual profit of oil companies for host communities only to be slashed to 3& on account of a motion moved and seconded by a Northern Senators and overwhelmingly voted for by Northern Senators through a voice vote. The Senate President successfully suppressed every opposition to the 3% by Senators from the Niger Delta states and they were stampeded into concurring with the Senate and thereby betrayed their people. Imagine Senator George Sekibo been prevailed upon to the point that he withdrew his called for division of the Senate on the 3%.
It is now clear that the political leadership of the Nigeria South especially those of the Niger Delta extraction would always and easily betrayed their people when its matters the most. While all of it were playing out, the South Western and South Eastern Senators stayed aloof making it appears like a Niger Delta and Northern Nigeria issue.
While the people of the oil bearing enclaves continues to suffer the disproportionate burden and benefit of oil and gas exploration, the Nigeria North remains the greatest beneficiary. And this obsession for oil continue and the North keeps insisting that its funded the exploratory activities in the Niger Delta from its Groundnut revenue, a lie repeatedly told and sustained over the years. But in reality, not a kobo of Northern Nigeria money went into prospecting and producing of oil. It is and remain a delusional lie often told repeatedly by Northern elites to their children to justify an insatiable addiction to the Niger Delta oil. Rather, it is the proceeds from Niger Delta oil that NNPC has always utilized in oil prospecting in the Nigeria North. In spite of the huge expenditure, we have had little or no success at all. From the Lake Chad Basin to the Gongola Basin, Sokoto Basin To Bida Basin, Benue Trough to Bauchi State, the stories are the same, yet the National Assembly has legalize a wasteful venture through the creation of the Frontiers Exploration Fund to be funded by 30% of the profit of a propose National Oil Company and 10% of Prospecting Mining License. As always, we are told that it is not only the Nigeria North that will be benefiting from it but Anambra Basin and Ogun state too which is not in the North.The same people who are devoting huge sum forexploration in frontier basins will turn round to mock the Niger Delta that oil will cease to be relevant in 30years’ time, another hypocrisy. Perhaps, people needs to be reminded that the disappearance of the Kano Groundnut Pyramid was never as a result of any investment in oil exploration in the Niger Delta by the Nigeria North, because the pyramid as at then was already part of history having been eaten up by the surging homeless children that dotted the landscape of the Nigeria North.
The mid-stream Gas Infrastructure Development fund in the bill is for the country entirely. Take a look at the already developed and ongoing gas infrastructuresacross the country, they are mostly outside the Niger Delta. Nigeria is yet to build a gas pipeline linking Warri-Port Harcourt-Uyo like in the ongoing Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) gas pipeline. Most of the gas-powered electricity generating plants are outside the Niger Delta.
From the onset, they used skewed laws and policies to deprived the people of oil bearing enclaves simply because they are predominantly minorities and those whom have benefited from the oil the more are always in control of the clouts of state. No Nigerian leader from independence showed any concerted efforts at ameliorating the plights of the people of the Oil bearing enclaves. Rather, the Nigerian state have always been on the side of the IOCs in its subjugation of the people. Not even one, until Late President Musa Yar’Adua came on board that he displayed genuine sincerity at addressing the Niger Delta question but death would not let him. If President Yar’Adua in his wisdom proposed 10% for host communities during the conception of the bill, what then changed that the Buhari led APC shamelessly felt that what is good for the host communities is 2.5% and the APC dominated National Assembly ended up passing a ridiculous 3% into law.
The Nigerian state and her people were bold to arriveat that conclusion because over the years, all that the Niger Delta people have gotten as benefits of oil and gas were only what was decided and given to them and not what they wanted. Oil discovery and production in the Niger Delta heralded the pains and suffering of our people with unimaginable destruction of our flora and fauna. No amount of monies could redeem the irreparable damage to our land/body of water and mitigate our pains. Couple with the environmental degradation suffered, the blood of our people wasted in the pursuit and insatiable quests for fossils fuel by the Nigerian state shall in many years to come form part of our bleak history. One of such was the unjustifiable murdered of Ken Saro Wiwa. Our land remains aheavily militarized society which now shape the upbringing of children in the region. Cumulatively, the negative impacts of oil and gas exploratory activities is unimaginable. It is the major cause of poverty in the area owing to its destruction of the people means of livelihood.
Going forward, the Niger Delta people should not only reject the 3% for host Communities but demand for equity participation through production sharing arrangement and not until that is achieved, every sonsand daughters of the oil bearing enclaves should know that their wellbeing is of no important to the ungrateful Nigerian State and her people. Our people should reject crumbs that are always thrown at them.
Our hope in a one united and indivisible Nigeria that our fathers supported during the 30 months-longed civil war in the 60’s was completely dashed as the bill negate against our decade longed clamour for equity, fairness and justice in the distribution of oil and gas resources. We only do hope that the PIB will not renew further agitation in the Niger Delta and expose the region to another years of prolong conflagration.
The resounding uproars over the 3% across the Niger Delta should be enough to make the Minister of State for Petroleum, Timipre Silva and all the legislatures from the zone to reflects on the role they individually and collectively played in betraying their people. History definitely shall not be kind to them. The most worrisome part is that the youths of the region of today are equally joining their political elites to fail. Every one of them are so possessive of the NDDC that they have fail to take advantage of the opportunities around them, hence, crimes fester in the region and cultism becoming an acceptable norm.
We must as a people prove the perception of others about us wrong, love ourselves and begin to demonstrate the capacity to dispense justice and do things that only brings prosperity to our people. Enough of the killings and lamentation. Against the back drop of what transpired on the floor of the Senate, it is now obviously clear that what is still of utmost important to the Nigerian State is the continuous flows of oil with an unhindered access to gas from the bowel of our land but not our wellbeing and development of the host communities. The ungrateful nation drilled, sold and depended largely on our oil for the pasts sixty years and now, plus our gas resources but would rather see us not rising beyond collecting pittance.
COM. MSIGEKII NWI-AERA NACY Write from Abuja