Daily Independent Online.
*
Tuesday, June 22, 2004.
‘Blame UN, FG for N’ Delta
environmental crisis’
By Akanimo Sampson
Bureau
Chief, Port Harcourt
The
United Nations (UN), the Federal Government of Nigeria as well as the
government of oil-producing states and the transnational oil and gas
corporations have again come under the hammer over the socio-economic and
environmental crises of the Niger Delta region.
Chairman
of Oilwatch Africa, an international environmental human rights group, Nnimmo
Bassey, told Daily Independent in an interview that
the UN was now running a corporate agenda, while the country’s central
and oil-producing state governments have abdicated their responsibilities to
corporate organisations.
He
alleged that key issues that would impact positively on the oil communities all
over the world no longer feature prominently on the UN agenda. "Rather, it
has become an organisation for companies to showcase their wares while
government officials are into endless talk without action," Bassey said.
The
environmental rights activist said severe pressure has already been placed on the
peoples of the Niger Delta by factors such as climatic change and the
concomitant sea-level rise and unpredictable weather patterns.
"Unfortunately
for the region, governments and oil and gas corporations resist sound
environmental practises in the Niger Delta, because they want to ensure that
they grab much resources as possible and reap the most profits with little or
no expenditure on their part," he said.
Bassey
further stated that, "where
the resource at stake is non-renewable and would soon be exhausted, the
exploiters are less keen about caring for the environment. The nature of the
oil industry is such that it is intrinsically hostile to the environment and
the people who live on it."
According
to him, the exploration stage is characterised by opening of the rain forest,
mangrove swamps and sundry seismic activities, which he said are injurious to
the local people, the waterways, wildlife, the fauna and flora.
“The
opening of these areas invite a multiplicity of other invaders, such as illegal
loggers, to plunder the resources of otherwise self-sustaining societies,"
he said.
According
to the activist, "the exploitation stages as well as the transportation
stages are more harmful. What with the criss-crossing of lands and creeks by
petroleum pipelines, massive oil spills that are never adequately handled,
pipeline explosions, and unbridled repression of the local people by security
forces."
He
averred that indiscriminate gas flaring has been the lot of the people of the
Niger Delta for about 42 years now. "The effect of gas flaring has been
traumatic continual noise, acid rain and retarded roofs and lung disease."
Bassey
claimed that while 76 per cent of Nigerian children attend primary school, the
percentage in the Niger Delta has dropped to 30 - 40 per cent.
“Unemployment runs as high as 50 per cent in Port Harcourt, the most
urbanised centre in the Niger Delta, a city that has the highest cost of living
in Nigeria. Housing is in short supply and the occupancy average is four to six
persons in a room measuring less than 10 sq meter. More than 50 persons may
share a toilet in the average multi-family compounds, Bassey contended.
He,
however, pointed out that climatic change results in greater rate of
deforestation, saying this in turn leads to more climatic change. “It is
a vicious cycle. Viewed the other way, climate change simply means greater
poverty and deeper hunger for the people,” he argued.
Evidence
provided by the environmentalist shows that the spectre of rising sea levels
due to global warming is more ominous for the Niger Delta, naturally considered
a subsidence-prone territory. Environmentalists in the region argue that the
net rise in sea level will be excessive. Measurements at the site of a tank
farm showed a subsidence rate of more than 2.5 centimetres a year. A one-meter
rise in sea level could flood a land area as large as 18,000 sq. kilometre and
force millions of people to relocate. It is estimated that up to 80 per cent of
the population in such areas would have to relocate when this scenario plays
itself out.
For
now, studies have shown that because of the low gradient of Nigeria’s
coastal zone, inundation due to sea-level rise may extend many kilometres
inland and up to 100 kilometres in the Niger Delta. For instance, the Atlantic
coastline of Lagos was reportedly between some two kilometres from the end of
Marina in the early 1960s. Today, the walls are licking the edges of the road.
This sort of incursion means that the entire Nigerian coastline is at great
risk.
