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N’ Delta: Challenges of sustainable development (2)
…Continued
from Friday
Poverty in the
Niger Delta (Cont’d)
Industry
and Energy Operations Division, West Central Africa Department in their report
on “Defining an Environmental Development Strategy for the Niger Delta
vol. 1 (IEOD 1995) has the following as a summary:
“The
Niger Delta has been blessed with abundant physical and human resources,
including the majority of Nigeria’ oil and gas deposits, good
agricultural land, extensive forest, excellent fisheries, as well as developed
industrial base, a strong banking system, a large labour force, and a vibrant
private sector. However, the region’s tremendous potential for economic
growth and sustainable development remains unfulfilled and its future is
threatened by deteriorating economic conditions that are not being addressed by
present policies and actions. There is urgent need to implement mechanisms to
protect the life and health of the region’s inhabitants and its
ecological systems from further deterioration.”
The
obvious questions people continue to ask is: Why do the indigenous people of
the Niger Delta continue to remain poor? Why is the per capita income of the
Niger Delta people not the highest in the country? The answers are obvious.
Wealth
is a creation of the environment. Wealth could simply be seen as the conversion
of the environmental components (resources) into units of exchange be it U.S.
Dollars, Pound Sterling, Dutch Mark, Naira etc. Wealth cannot be created out of
a vacuum; it must come form resources or existing property.
This
is the reason Rao noted that it is rather naïve to believe that
Sustainable Development can be viewed as a meaningful approach when it is
formulated totally independent of income distribution policies. He added that
ownership of resources and the processes of accumulation of resources under
varying ownership regimes, or more generally, property rights and legal
entitlement regimes are critical and have direct implications for Sustainable
Development.
Even
in the story of nations, environmental factors are known to be critical factors
in civilisation of kingdoms and the rise and fall of empires. It is known from
ancient history that the Nile River contributed significantly to the early
Egyptian civilization. Also the Indus River is known to play a key role in the
civilization of Southwest Asia. The Mayan civilization in the Western
hemisphere began to flourish around the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, and collapsed
rather suddenly during the 10th century, a period which also coincided with
temperature rise and climatic change in the region.
Also,
the collapse of the Mali Empire in Africa in the 14th century was attributed to
severe changes in climatic factors. Al Gore in his book, ••Earth in
the Balance,•• highlighted the connections between civilisations
and environmental climatic conditions and changes.
From
this analysis, it is clear that sustainable development in the Niger Delta with
a preponderance of polluted and degraded environment, can only be possible if
those who control the resources of this country see the area as a special area
that need special attention and injection of enormous financial commitment. But
do they have the political will to do so?
The Willink
Commission
In
the 1950s, the minority ethnic groups in Nigeria expressed deep fears of
political domination and marginalisation by the majority groups. These
agitations were well pronounced in the Niger Delta areas. As a result, in
September 1957, Alan Lenox-Boyd, MP, Secretary of State for British Colonies
appointed Sir Henry Willink as Chairman of a special commission, popularly
known as he Willink Commission. Other members of the commission were Gordon
Hadow, Philip Mason and J. B. Shearer.
Following
the report of the commission, during the 1958 Nigerian Constitutional
Conference, the British Government proposed that the Niger Delta be declared a
“special federal territory.” Unfortunately, this proposal was not
carried out, because it will not serve the interest of the majority ethnic
groups, which were the major lieutenants to the colonial masters. Instead, it
was called a special development area and the Niger Delta Development Board
(NDDB) was created in 1959 by the proclamation of the Governor-General, J. W.
Robertson. Theoretically, the Board was meant to develop this special
development area.
This
NDDB passed through a lot of reforms, which more or less were like a
“movement without locomotion.” Examples of such reforms are: (i)
Niger Delta Development Board (NDDB) Act 1961 (ii) Niger Delta Basin
Development Authority Decree 1976.
Again,
as if the Niger Delta people were getting anything reasonable, the Federal
Government in 1973 established two additional River Basin Authorities by military
decree, namely the Chad Basin Development Authority and Sokoto-Rima Basin
Development Authority. In 1979, there were some changes in the River Basin
Authorities through Decree 1979. The decree added eight new River Basin
Authorities, bringing the total to 11.
From
1970 to 1983, the Federal Government spent N2,154,958,354.00 on the 11 River
Basin Authorities across the country. Out of this, only N6,662,210.00 (i.e.
0.31%) was spent on the Niger Delta River Basin Authority as a Grade D Board,
while the Sokoto-Rima Basin Authority which was placed on Grade A received
N650,670,441.00 (i.e. 30.19%) of the total allocation. The three River Basin
Authorities that were meant to serve the interest of the Niger Delta people,
i.e. Benin-Owena River Basin Authority, Niger Delta River Basin Authority and
the Cross River Basin Authority received a total sum of N157,214,464.00. This
is 7.3% of the total allocation for developing river basins in the country. The
amount is just about 24.16% of the allocation to the Sokoto-Rima Basin
Authority alone.
From
the revenue allocation to the River Basin Authorities, the political challenges
for sustainable development in the Niger Delta becomes very clear. (See table
below).
Evolution of the
oil industry
Interest
in the exploration of oil in Nigeria started by a German company, Nigeria
Bitumen Corporation (NBC) in 1908. The company was given license to exploit
bitumen around Araromi in Ondo State, but later preferred to explore for crude
oil. After some unsuccessful drilling, the company wound up about 1910.
Shell
D’Arcy, the forerunner of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC),
came into the country in 1935 under the Mineral Oil Ordinance No. 17 of 1914.
They drilled their first set of well around Owerri in Imo State. All the wells
were dry wells. The company then moved down into the Niger Delta.
On
August 3, 1956 oil was struck in commercial quantity at Oloibiri Well 1, at
Itokopiri Ogbia, in the Oloibiri Oil Field Area of Bayelsa State. This
discovery was the turning point, and some months later, oil was also discovered
in the Ogoni area of Rivers State. These discoveries attracted other oil
companies into country. The bulk of the oil is found in the land, swamps and
offshore coast of the Niger Delta State.
From
1957, when the first tanker of oil was exported from Nigeria till date, oil
grew from irrelevance to occupy a central state in our economy. Oil at the
moment contributes more than 90% of the GDP of the country. The current oil
production figure in Nigeria is about 2.0 to 2.5 mbpd (million barrels per
day), which is 8-8.9% of the total 28 mbpd produced by the Organisation of
Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). At today’s price of $54 per barrel,
Nigeria is earning between $108million and $135million daily, approximately
N5.5billion daily. Shell Petroleum Development Company alone accounts for 50%
of this production.
Obviously,
the issue of Sustainable Development for such a high risk and
environmentally-degrading industry, which paradoxically is the economic nerve
of the country, is subjected to considerable uncertainties. The national
interest overrides the needs of he poor inhabitants of the Niger Delta where
the oil is mined. In practical reality, the interest of the rich and bourgeois
class even overrides the interest of the nation.
Since
Sustainable Development hinges on poverty reduction or wealth creation in a
clean and safe environment, which appears to be at variance with the oil
industry practice in Nigeria, Sustainable Development appears still far-fetched
in the Niger Delta.
Oil-related
development agencies
As
at 1956 when the NDDB was established, crude oil was not a major factor for the
economy of this country. The Niger Delta River Basin Development Authority was
therefore set up to look into the special development needs of the Niger Delta.
From the 70s, earnings from petroleum became the mainstay of the national
economy, hence the agitation for the area to be given special consideration in
its development from the crude oil earnings.
It
response to such agitations, the Federal Government reluctantly set up various
bodies to handle the development needs of the region. In most cases, these
bodies were established after major crisis to placate the agitators. The
following bodies have therefore been saddled with the responsibility of
developing the Niger Delta at various times:
•Establishment
of Special Fund for the Oil Producing Areas by Revenue Act of 1981.
•Special
Presidential Task Force for the Development of the Oil Producing Areas on the
1.5% Special Fund (SPTF) 1989.
•Oil
Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission (OMPADEC) Decree 1992.
•Niger
Delta Development Commission (NDDC) Act 1999.
With
four intervening agencies specially established to use a part of the oil
mineral revenue to develop the Niger Delta, one will ordinarily feel that the
Federal Government is interested in the infrastructural development of the
Niger Delta. However, the allocation of funds appears to tell a different
story.
At
present, NDDC is complaining of inadequate funding, which was the fate suffered
by previous agencies. In the case of OMPADEC, the commission was entitled to 3%
of the oil revenue by law. It was expected therefore that from 1992-1995, the
commission should have received N72b. On the contrary, only N11b was received,
that is, 15.28% of the expected revenue was actually paid to OMPADEC while the
Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) that did little or nothing in the Niger Delta
received N346billion from 1994 to 1997.
The
1.5% Special Presidential Task Force story was not better. The office of the
agency was in Lagos, the Federal Capital then. The operators, most of who were
not indigenes of the Niger Delta, simply stayed in Lagos to award contracts
with almost no supervision. This resulted to almost 100% abandonment of projects
and the whole money disappearing into thin air. To me, the intervening agencies
are far becoming albatross around the neck of the Federal Government.
The Niger Delta
Question
We
have so far raised a number of issues about the Niger Delta. The Niger Delta
has rich mineral oil and gas deposits, rich fisheries, rich forestry, fertile
soil, high potential for tourism etc. It is therefore questionable conceptually
to think-tank on the Niger Delta Question in which invariably is the poverty
question. However, the Niger Delta is populated with numerous small tribes,
which consider themselves as independent city-states. The Niger Delta Question
is therefore synonymous with the minority question in Nigeria and the rest of
the world.
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