Fifteen minutes before the year 2007 I heard an odd explosion. I could humour myself by assuming they are just fireworks, after all, it’s a festive season and banger-obsessed children must be at it again. Wrong.
My friend (son of the local chief whose residence hosts my family) seems to know about this. He grabs his jacket, boots and keys, preparing to set out to where exactly I’m not sure of. “I’m coming too,” I inform him. “Very well then, but my father will know nothing of where I’m taking you.” Right.
Well, that was me at the right place at the wrong time. School had reluctantly granted a ten-day break for the holidays and, as my family had agreed, we began a quasi-nationwide tour that eventually led us to a land, the land where I found “The Power of Natural Resources” manifest most brutally: The Niger-Delta area of Nigeria.
A vast wetland region accounting for most of Nigeria's oil wealth, making her the seventh largest exporter in the world and the fifth largest to the US (bigger than Iraq and Kuwait combined), the resource-rich Niger-Delta is an area plagued with administrative neglect, crumbling public infrastructure and services, environmental devastation, high unemployment, social deprivation, abject poverty and endemic conflict.
Simply put, people in the delta have been alienated from their land and natural resources, leaving them frustrated with both the foreign oil companies and governments that have failed to regulate them.
The consequences have been dire: local youth organized into militia groups have clashed with government forces, sabotaged oil pipelines and installations, taken foreign oil workers hostage and masterminded numerous lethal car bombings, demanding the government grant oil concessions to Delta groups, withdraw troops, and release their imprisoned local leaders. They have so far ‘succeeded’ in disrupting Nigeria’s daily oil production by up to 25%, that takes it from 2.5 million to less than 2 million barrels per day. It will be recalled that the threats and activities of these militants helped drive worldwide oil prices beyond the $50 mark for the first time, and the instability there greatly contributed to the record high oil prices on global markets in 2006.
At the stroke of the New Year, the militants struck again, blowing up more major oil pipelines and releasing an expatriate hostage on account of his health and birthday.
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00:00hrs: Happy New Year.
Well-away from the town-centre merriment, he pulls over on a lonely path, asking that we walk through a swampy forest “to meet” his “friends”. Once deep into the woods, I find trucks, aged men making merry, younger men well armed, and a few women catering to them all.
He greets them and introduces me as his “half-brother”.
A man – the foreigner – is obviously the chief celebrant. He looks pale but glad, carrying a smile I bet he has so his captors don’t change their minds. Following my first instinct, I walk up to him, asking why he doesn’t look as upset as a typical hostage would. "I have no animosity toward them at all," he says as though speaking to a journalist. "I've seen their little villages; they're dirt-poor, poor as field-mice." Certainly.
Nearby is a young man, not too different from me except he’s carrying a gun. A woman caring enough to be his mother pours him water to drink, whilst my footsteps push me in their direction, whispering 'Season’s Greetings', to which he responds rather warmly. I ask him if any of what I see here has to do with the infamous Niger-Delta “militants”; if he knows about the explosions I had heard. He chuckles, “are you new around?” “I am a student from Lagos who came to spend the Yuletide here,” I calmly answered. We continue.
The Militant: You see, my brother, I was like you one time. I graduated from university over fifteen years ago. I remember how high my hopes were for the future, how proud I was of being amongst the few from around who were so privileged to find an education. I dreamed of serving my community someday. I came back home to find a life, but fifteen years have gone by and I have never even earned an employment, not to talk of breathing fresh air or drinking clean water. The society is as primitive as our forefathers left them.
Me: I understand, but that explains little about the explosions.
Militant: It does. Look around you. You’re standing on land that is home to over twenty-seven million Nigerians, about 70% of which are adequately poor. Here too lies Nigeria’s primary source of earnings. Underneath the rivers and mud, you must have heard Nigeria has up to 35 billion barrels of oil. But over the past 50 years, the oil production here has meant gas flaring, oil pipes leaking, dredging, acid rain, and the consequences of these things have created villages where people feel a kind of colonial presence. Many of the women struggle to do things like sell kerosine on their front porch instead of fishing. People here survive in mud-huts and eke out a living, traveling in the swamps on dug-out canoes to reach the outside world. There is a very high infant mortality rate. There is terrible disease.
But look over there [pointing toward a very distant glow]. See those high fences and bright lights? That’s an estate exclusively for foreign oil workers. In there are people living in all imaginable comfort. They have electricity. We don’t. They have jobs, clean water and food. We don’t. They have come from abroad to steal our natural resources because corrupt politicians in government share all our oil wealth with them.
Now there is little hope for peaceful improvement. That’s why we’ve resorted to fighting for a greater share of oil wealth for the impoverished local population living without electricity, running water or a clean environment.
Me: But who exactly are you fighting?
Militant: First, we’re fighting the federal government for political neglect nurtured over the years, resulting in a fifty-year history of mismanagement, exploitation, political corruption and violence that has meant few of the benefits which the vast oil wealth has brought to foreign companies and a rich elite in the country have reached us.
Second, we’re fighting the foreign oil companies for environmental harm and gross lack of social responsibility. For decades their operations have impacted adversely on the environment. Oil spills and gas flares in particular have destroyed natural resources central to local livelihoods. You can’t go anywhere without seeing pipes, signs, and gas flares all around you. The horizon is lit by unnatural orange glow, the flames from massive chimneys flare off the natural gas brought up as by-product of the oil, polluting the air, our farmlands, streams and fishing grounds.
What makes it all the more annoying is that they used to control knowledge and information about the environment, seeking to conceal rather than clean up their acts of unsustainable exploitation, with support from state violence threatening numerous lives, while hosts of women, youth and the poor in general suffered most in the process.
Me: Aren’t you generalizing too much? It’s possible that not all of these multinationals exploit resources to the detriment of local people… (Interrupts)…?
Militant: They are all involved! Let’s take Shell – by far the biggest and most significant oil company operating here – for instance, Shell does not flare gas in America or any part of Europe but in Nigeria they do it without even considering the need to compensate the communities who suffer the effects of their flaring. If they are not flaring gas in their home countries or other countries like Britain and Holland, it is wrong for them to flare gas in our homeland and what’s more? Get protesters killed or harassed for protesting over this.
Me: You mean they’ve been harassing and killing protesters?
Militant: You really have no idea what has been going on here, do you? Decades ago, one of our oil-rich communities protested against the effects of gas flaring from Shell’s activities in the area. They had to be changing their roofs and zincs yearly because of the effects of carbon, not to mention the skin diseases and other health hazards. Their just protest wasn’t met with any mediatory effort on the part of the company, rather the police were brought in and the “Iko Massacre” left about fifty people dead.
Similarly in 1995, the Ogoni people, led by Ken Saro-Wiwa, protested that exploitation by Royal Dutch Shell since 1958 had ravaged our environment, polluting fisheries and farmland. They called for government intervention but what happened in return? The military-led government of General Sani Abacha, despite pleas and condemnation from the international community, summarily executed Saro-Wiwa and his cohorts. Once again, Shell lost a golden opportunity to recreate itself – ending up in the wrong side of history as a company lacking in a community-friendly organizational culture. They sent an “observer” to witness the hanging. Since then, our people have been slaughtered in the course of military incursions executed by soldiers sent in by government to guard the robbers of our resources.
Me: Do you think more fighting, sabotage and resentment will help matters?
Militant: I sincerely don’t think so, but what options do we have? If we don’t fight, how can we call the world’s attention to join us in demanding environmental and socio-economic justice, and total liberation of our people?
Keeping quiet only encourages more pollution. That won’t be nice as I personally have already lost my fishing nets used to trap fish in the river along with a night’s catch from the most recent river pollution. I don’t expect any harvests either later this year from my cassava farm which was also affected.
Clean water too is scarce. When we drink what we find, it gives us pain. It worries us; it’s no good. We just manage. We want better water.
Me: If you were to meet with world leaders who could positively influence your situation, how would you utilize that opportunity to bring your people the justice and liberty you claim to seek?
Militant: I will surrender this gun and weep…I’ll ask them: “Who has been appointed to regulate these oil companies?” They have been let loose like wild geese into communities of the world. As they carry out their exploitative operations, “who are they accountable to?”
I’ve noticed oil companies are rarely held to international environmental and corporate social responsibility standards because domestic state officials fear that could undercut revenue base. Leaders here are mostly corrupt; leaving them to regulate influential oil companies means they are prone to compromise general welfare for selfish gains. Besides, who is the State answerable to? The whole thing just seems complicated so I think I will suggest that they simply set up an international body that specializes in enforcing environmental and social responsibility obligations of resource-extracting international companies. This will help not only our own communities but other regions of the world wherein the extraction of natural resources constitutes threats to specific local livelihoods.
As the delta's resources become ever more desirable to thirsty world powers, it is critical that interest and concern for the region from the global community, especially from countries that have profited most from it, is increased.
I’ll also plead with them to discourage oil companies from pursuing development programs that are tied to short-term business needs. Rather, they should focus on long-term social progress that won’t create the counter-effect of aggravating inter or intra-community tensions as the scramble for oil money continues.
If these companies are only seen as a way of sucking the oil out of the ground and not as players that understand that they have to be a part of the solution, the fighting will continue. The oil majors have a duty to recompense those whose livelihoods have been affected by their operations, and they certainly have a moral obligation to compensate those whose culture their processes have destroyed.
Lastly, it is clear that human security holds the key to the problems of the Niger-Delta. By that I do not refer to military security, but the security of our environment and natural resources, of food, shelter, health, and jobs.
Because they are leaders who must have tight schedules, I would probably stop there and say good-bye to them, just like I’m about saying to you.
00:52hrs: Bye-Bye.
With that he shook my hand and ran aboard the truck from which his cronies had been calling out. The last I saw of him was his smile.
So much for a New Year.
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