A Basket Case?

Efforts at securing a fairer deal are as old as the discovery of oil. The first of such lay behind Sir Henry Willink’s Commission (1958) recommendation that the area deserved special developmental attention by the Federal Government. This was even before crude oil became a critical factor in Nigeria’s development. Two years later, the government established the Niger Delta Development Board, NDDB, to manage the developmental challenges of the region. The special area was defined as Yenagoa Province, Degema Province, the Ogoni Division of Port Harcourt and the Western Ijaw Division of Delta Province.

But in its seven years of existence, the NDDB achieved little before it expired, following the military coup in 1966 and the Civil war in 1967. After the war, the government showed no interest in addressing the developmental needs of the region. Rather, it decided to use the substantial revenue from oil production in the region to fund a massive rehabilitation and reconstruction programme in various parts of the country. Even with the quadrupling of oil prices in 1973 and the subsequent oil windfall, there was no deliberate attempt to devote part of the wealth to alleviate poverty in the Niger Delta. Agitation continued to grow. And in 1980, the administration of Alhaji Shehu Shagari (1979/83) set up a Presidential Task Force–popularly known as the 1.5% Committee–and 1.5% of the Federation Account was allocated to the Committee to tackle the problems of the region. Though the committee existed until early years of the military regime of General Ibrahim Babangida (1985/93), its impact was measly. Increased discontent and restiveness nudged the regime to set up the Oil Mineral Producing Areas Commission, OMPADEC, in 1992. Three per cent of federal oil revenue was allocated to the commission to address the needs of the oil-rich region. While OMPADEC raised expectations at the outset, such were shattered by inefficiency, political interference and corruption.

For the seven years that it existed, OMPADEC completed many projects but left numerous abandoned or unfinished projects, most of which were not aimed at poverty reduction, and massive debts. With OMPADEC’s death came the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, established in December 2001 by the Obasanjo administration. For this, the government was widely applauded. The NDDC was mandated “to offer a lasting solution to the socio-economic difficulties of the Niger Delta Region” and “to facilitate the rapid, even and sustainable development of the Niger Delta into a region that is economically prosperous, socially stable, ecologically regenerative and politically peaceful.

The law setting up the commission provides for generous funding sources, including Federal Government contribution, which was to be equivalent to 15 per cent of the monthly statutory allocation due to member states of the commission from the Federation Account; oil and gas processing companies’ contribution of 3 per cent of their total budget; 50 per cent of the ecological fund allocations due to the member states and miscellaneous sources, including grants-in-aid, gifts, loans and donations. The member states are Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo, Imo, Ondo and Rivers.

But NDDC’s impact has remained grossly inadequate, partly due to poor funding. Late last year, the commission’s Managing Director, Mr. Timi Alaibe, at a retreat of senators in Port Harcourt, revealed that a sum of N224billion is being owed the NDDC over seven years. “In most cases the NDDC got N26 billion annually instead of N93billion,” Alaibe disclosed. The disclosure suggested that the immediate past administration, like others before it, showed little seriousness in developing the Niger Delta. Hints of such have already manifested under the current regime of President Umar Yar’Adua, which has continued to mouth the resolution of the Niger Delta crisis as one of its cardinal objectives. The current government has refused to release the N224 billion, arguing that the money has expired. According to the President, the seizure of the funds was hinged on the administration’s policy of returning all unspent funds to the treasury. Yar’Adua categorised the withheld sum as unspent fund and said releasing it will go against its policy. The government’s position drew no applause, as observers insist that though the money was budgeted for, it was never released and cannot be regarded as unspent fund.

The government’s attitude will most definitely hurt the realisation of the Niger Delta Masterplan, advertised by the Obasanjo administration as the broad-spectrum cure for the region’s ailment. Curiously, the Masterplan was also adopted by Yar’Adua. On account of these failures, just compensation and resource efficiency are far from being realised. Thus, economic, cultural and environmental degradation persist despite countless decades of protest. But now, full-blown chaos has erupted. Nuhu Ribadu, former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, once argued that the conflagration in the Delta could consume Nigeria. “What is happening in the Niger Delta is not being taken seriously and is very sad. It may actually end up being bigger. If we are not careful, chances are that 140million Nigerians may end up like a Liberia or Sierra Leone or Somalia,” he warned. The rhetoric of insurgency is as heavy on economic exploitation as environmental claims. Niger Deltans complain of frequent spillage from deteriorating decades-old pipelines which has devastated fishing waters and farmlands.

Oil companies insist that the vast majority of spills that have occurred in recent years are the result of sabotage by oil thieves and other groups trying to extort compensation payments. Thus, the frustration emanating from the lack of attention given to environmental degradation and perpetual exploitation by the oil industry has yielded a sturdy resentment of the corporate world. “NDDC is not funded the way they funded the Petroleum (Special) Trust Fund or the Federal Capital Development Authority. This is unacceptable to the people of the Niger Delta,” said Joseph Evah of the Ijaw Monitoring Group. Aside from setting up interventionist agencies, government has also adopted diplomacy. Former President Obasanjo met with Mujahid Dokubo-Asari of the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force, while the Yar’Adua government has also met with militants, youth leaders and other stakeholders in the region. Yet, the spate of unrest has shown no signs of abating. This has led to a decline of daily oil exports of 2.5 million barrels per day by 10 per cent.

The danger posed by this is not lost on the Yar’Adua administration, which has already launched another initiative in the shape of a proposed Niger Delta Summit. But even that has begun attracting doubts. The choice of Professor Agboola Gambari, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, as head of the Steering Committee for the summit has been rejected by many Niger Delta groups, which have argued that the region has capable men who can do the job handed to Gambari. They have a notable supporter in Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka.

The Federal Government explained that Gambari was picked because it reckons that his international profile would attract international attention to the summit. Not many will agree with that. The Niger Delta does not need an introduction to the international community. Its pains had been shown to the world by the late Ken Saro-Wiwa and his Ogoni kinsmen. As recently as 2006, 65 Nobel laureates, comprising the Commission of Nobel Laureates on Peace, Equity and Development in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria, visited the beleaguered region. The laureates proposed, among other things, that oil companies in the Niger Delta states publish audits of their revenues and establish a “Community Investment Fund”, earmarking a percentage of gross revenues directly to local community organisations working in the fields of health, education, micro-credit, and infrastructure development. They also asked oil companies to clean up oil spills, eliminate gas flares, and provide special compensation to communities devastated by environmental degradation; as well as train and hire residents from affected populations in the Delta region. All these, including an increase in allocations to oil-producing states, have been suggested.

However, they have not received adequate consideration from the government and the oil companies. Demand for increased allocations has proved very hard to push through, given the unitary structure of the Nigerian state and strident opposition from the Northern part. The latter brought the 2005 National Political Reform Conference to an abrupt end, when South-South delegates staged a walk-out over Northern delegates’ opposition to their agitation for an upward review of the subsisting derivation formula. South-South delegates asked for 50 per cent, as opposed to the 13 per cent currently given to oil producing states. But under the subsisting constitutional arrangement, that is not a possibility.