June 15, 2005

FOCUS: The Niger Delta and the case for resource control

• Effects of Ozone Depletion on the Ecosystem
- Restriction of tree growth
- Delay in flowering
- Adverse changes in leaf structure
- Adverse changes in plan Vs metabolism
- Dramatic shift in plant populations and in Biodiversity
- Adverse effects on animals especially in vulnerable, early stages of life such as larvae or th eggs of frogs in shallow water.

By Professor I.E. Sagay, S.A.N
Posted to the Web: Wednesday, June 15, 2005

THE VARIOUS DATES SET BY GOVERNMENT AND OTHER STAKEHOLDERS TO END GAS FLARE.

• In 2002 the Ministry of Environment set a gas flare out date of 2004
• Vice President Atiku Abubakar later announced the extension of the date to 2008
• Soon after, Obasanjo announced that the date has been moved backwards to 2004. He later set another date for 2008.
• Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) set a date of 2008.
• Exxonmobil and ChevronTexaco both set a date of 2006
• Nigeria Agip Oil Company set a gas flare out date of 2004.
The picture that emerges is that of chaos confusion and vacillation.

(iii) Absentee Landlordism and Environmental Devastation
(a) Mindless and Destruction Production
There is one and only one cause of the devastation of Niger Delta Communities by the petroleum industry: Absentee Landlordism! The supposed owner of the resource is in Abuja, 800 kilometres away from the resource it claims to own. Its sole interest is in the proceeds of the resource. This coincides with the interest of the petroleum companies. The name of the game is maximum production at the lowest cost to the pocket of the company. This means cheap, crude, reckless and irresponsible extraction process which denies the producing communities the rights to life, livelihood and a future.
Surely this cannot be the intendment of fellow Nigerian communities from the North, East and West.

(b) Production by Real or National Owners
If the real owners were in control of production, their first priority would be a slower, deliberate and initially more expensive mode of extraction. which gives equal attention to the preservation and protection of the environment, as well as the earnings from the resource.

If the real owners of the resource were in control, they would place great emphasis not only or a clean, harmless and environmentally friendly mode of production, they would also institute a programme of cultivating and establishing renewable resources and sustainable development. In short they would be investing for survival and continued development tomorrow.

The Federal Absentee Landlord is indifferent to the fate of the oil producing communities. But it is impossible for the communities to turn their back on their own future and survival as the Federal Government has done. There is a story in the Bible about an incident in the reign of King Solomon. Two women had just given birth to a baby each, in the same environment. One slept badly and crushed her child to death. The other one slept deeply but kept her child at a safe distance. The careless woman woke up first and discovered that she had crushed her child to death. Seeing that the second woman was still asleep she first grabbed the living child and transferred her dead baby to the sleeping woman’s mat

When the latter woke up, she saw the dead child near her and immediately knew that the dead child belonged to the other woman and that the latter had snatched her child. She raised an alarm and tried to claim her child back, but the wicked woman resisted this claim. The parties approached King Solomon for a solution to the problem. Solomon applied his legendary wisdom by proposing to split the living child into two halves so that each claimant could have one half. The wicked mother of the dead child jumped at this proposal. The real mother rejected it outrightly and agreed that the other woman could have the child, instead. She could not contemplate the possibility of her child being killed. She would rather face the pain and trauma of the child going to the wicked woman.

And so it is with the Niger Delta. The Federal Government, the Absentee Landlord is only interested in the dollars coming in from the Niger Delta. It is not interested in the peoples of the Niger Delta and their, lands, waters, forests, air, atmosphere, ecosystems and their future survival. It is prepared to let the Niger Delta die in the process of extorting more and more dollars from the Niger Delta’s Resource IN THE SHORT TIME When In less than 30 years, the oil of the Niger Delta has been completely exhausted, the Federal Government and its oil company partners will pull out lock, stock and barrel, leaving the people of the Niger Delta to wallow in the toxic and polluted environment in their death throes.

By contrast, it is the true mother of the child, the people of Niger Delta that are interested in the survival and development of their lands and peoples, rather than in dollars. SO LET THOSE WHOSE INTEREST COINCIDES WITH THE SURVIVAL OF THE ENVIRONMENT TAKE CHARGE OF THE RESOURCE WHOSE PRODUCTION COULD CAUSE SO MUCH DEVASTATION AND DESTRUCTION. THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND THE OIL COMPANIES MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO KILL THE GOOSE THAT LAYS THE GOLDEN EGGS.

We need not be reminded of the fact that the Ogoni People kicked out Shell from their territory 12 years ago and are happier for it. It is my fervent hope that the Niger Delta Communities will not be compelled to resort to this desperate measure in order to save themselves from a horrendous fate.

What Resources Control Means
(i) Resource Control simply means that ownership of the resource will revert to the real and natural owners who live with the resource and precludes the death sentence of Absentee Landlordism and artificial ownership.
(ii) It means that the producing states and communities will have a decisive say in the granting of Incenses for exploration and exploitation:

(iii) It means that they will monitor the extraction process and ensure that damage to the environment is reduced to the barest minimum and that the best oil fields practices are practiced.

(iv) It means that along with present production of the wasting toxic asset, a programme of substitution will be put in place to ensure that life, livelihood, productivity and sustainable development do not come to an end with the exhaustion of oil and gas.
(v)It means that the present must not eliminate the future.

vi) If the people of the Niger-Delta and the Petroleum industry were not under the yoke of absentee landlordism, the oil companies would not have been allowed to lift unknown quantities of oil without any monitoring and control, compelling the Federal Government to accept a fictitiously and fraudulently low production figure, to the monumental loss of the whole country. (See the startling account of Chief Ayemi Ayeni, a traditional ruler in an oil producing area at page 37 of the Vanguard on Sunday 17” April, 2005 and the candid admission of an official of the Department of Petroleum Resources in his evidence before the Committee on Environment and Natural Resources at the National Political Reform Conference).

What resource control does not mean

(i) It does not mean the appropriation of all the proceeds of the petroleum resources by the producing states and communities.
(ii) It does not mean the deprivation of our non-producing sister communities of Nigeria of a share of the proceeds. It is good to share and the Niger Delta is glad to share the proceeds of its resources with the whole country. But it must be a system based on Justice, which recognises the dilemma of the Niger Delta Peoples and their right to a future.

Mode of implementation of resource control

The mode of implementation of resource control being proposed illustrates the good faith of the Niger Delta Peoples.
The Petroleum Act most be repealed, and a new Act and laws made to accommodate the proposals which follow. Also, section 44(3) and item 39 in the Exclusive Legislative List of the present Constitution giving the Federal Government ownership of all minerals should be deleted. The States and Communities from whose territory and land the oil and gas are produced should be acknowledged the owners of these resources, in all relevant legislation. However, given the role the Federal Government and its agencies have played in the oil industry, I propose the following arrangements for the future management and control of the industry. A Petroleum Affairs Commission should be established, to manage and control the Industry and to takeover the functions of the ‘Minister of Petroleum Affairs’.

The Commission will be composed of two representatives from the Federal Government, three representatives each from Delta, Rivers Akwa Ibom and Bayelsa States, and one each from the other six oil producing States. The chairmanship will be rotational amongst its members and a chairman shall serve in that position for only one year at a time. This body will be charged with all the present functions of the Minister of Petroleum Affairs, including the issuance of permits, licenses, and the conclusion of agreements with oil companies. It will generally supervise all areas of the industry, particularly environmental impact of the industry, enforce environmental regulations and guidelines for petroleum production and promote sustained development in the Niger Delta. Agencies like the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and the Department of Petroleum Resources (the Supervisory arm of the industry) will be under the direct control ~f the Commission. In this manner, true ownership and control of mineral resources will converge

Payments by the Oil Companies will be made directly in dollars to bank accounts specifically opened by the oil producing states for such payments. The states will then pay an agreed tax to the Federation Account for the Federal Government and the 36 States which will be allocated on the basis of the Revenue Allocation formula that is current at any point in time.

Hopefully, with petroleum strikes being expected very soon in the Benue trough, the Chad Basin, Bauchi State and deep off-shore in Lagos and Ogun States, our sister Communities will not have to go through the pain, devastation, trauma and destruction that has been inflicted on the Peoples of the Niger Delta For by the time their own production starts in the nearest future, the concept of Resource control would have come into place in the Niger Delta.

Resource Control and Solid Minerals

It Is interesting to compare and contrast the provisions of the Petroleum Act, Cap 350, 1990 Laws of the Federation as amended in 1998 and the Minerals and Mining Act No. 34(Solid Minerals) 1999.

Whilst both Acts commence with the Federal Government’s totalitarian and oppressive claim to ownership of all mineral resources thus: Control of and property in minerals, in water, etc. vested in the State.
Establishment, etc. of the Mineral Resources Committee.

(i) “The entire property in and control of all minerals, in, under or upon any land in Nigeria, its contiguous continental shelf and of all rivers, streams and watercourses throughout Nigeria, any area covered by territorial waters or constituency, the Exclusive Economic Zone is and shall be vested in the Government of the Federation for and on behalf of the people of Nigeria”, the matter ends on that note for petroleum producing communities, Whilst with regard to solid minerals, the provisions following section 1, constitute a progressive derogation from Federal Government Management and control, in favour of the States, Communities and Local Government in which the Solid minerals are located. For example the Act provides for the establishment of a Mineral Resources Committee for every State of the Federation with regard to the Solid Minerals found in each state of the eight persons in that Committee, 5 be indigenes of that state, and nil of the remaining three could also be indigenes of the state.

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