News, Commentaries

JODEL BLAMES FG FOR POVERTY IN NIGERIA

JOURNALISTS for Niger Delta (JODEL), a media group concerned with the affairs of Nigeria’s oil and gas region, has blamed the persistence of extreme poverty in the Niger Delta, and other regions of the country on what they described as “the neo-liberal policies” of the Federal Government.

The media group also hit at the multinational oil and gas corporations operating in the Niger Delta, claiming that their grabbing of natural resources, such a water and land helped to worsen the poverty situation in the region.

JODEL Co-ordinator, Akanimo Sampson, claimed in a statement in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, on Monday, that the Nigerian state and the multinational corporations have continued to appropriate the lion’s share of the benefits of the country’s natural resources, leaving the resource-endowed regions with pollution and deterioration of the environment.

“As a result of the neo-liberal policies of the Nigeria government, the gap between the rich and the poor has grown spectacularly since 1999. The Nigerian people now live in a world where more than half of the world’s population is poor and one-sixth, close to one billion people, very poor”, JODEL said.

Continuing, the group added, “this is a world in which 24,000 people die daily of hunger and poverty-related diseases. In the Niger Delta area, 90 per cent of the indigenous people are poor, and more than 60 per cent, very poor.”

According to the group, “one of the most striking aspects of the neo-liberal reform policies is that, not only the rich are getting richer, but the very corrupt rich, the billionaires and the multi-millionaires, are the fastest-growing sub-group. Shockingly, this worrisome development is accepted as normal”.

“We are of the view that the aspiration of the south-south geo-political zone for the 2007 presidency should begin with a redefinition of development that is people –oriented. And so, the real issue is the oil region, is how to replace the dug-out canoes with small motorised boats.

“Many people in the Niger Delta do not even have boats. For the poor, they have dug-out canoes which they made themselves, while the very poor own nothing. Real development in the Niger Delta therefore requires a significant transfer of the resources from the Nigerian state-oil corporations alliance, to the poor. A situation where the oil companies and the international banks go on making billions while the poor and the very poor of Nigeria have a dollar or two per day is no longer acceptable to JODEL as a pro-people organisation”.

“Beginning from 2007”, the group went on, “we would like to see our country define “progress” more from the standpoint of popular participation. This should take place at all levels of socio-economic and political life. The citizenry should participate in micro and macro-economic decisions, in ecological sustainability as well as protection of natural resources, human rights, food security, equity, cultural and biological diversity.”

“For us in JODEL, we see progress as an increase of the well-being of families, and communities in the rural and urban areas. Popular participation is therefore, the most important principle at achieving tangible progress”, they said. ENDS.

AKANIMO SAMPSON
PORT HARCOURT

NIGERIA: LNG’S PARTNERSHIP OF DISCONTENTS

GIANT oil and gas corporations operating in the Niger Delta area Nigeria’s main oil and gas basin, are still largely responsible for the communal conflicts in the volatile region. They are also largely responsible for the extreme poverty and underdevelopment of the peoples of the oil region. The truth is the interests of the multinational corporations and those of their host communities do not necessarily coincide.

In the Ekpeye axis of Rivers State, trouble is currently brewing between the Ogbo-Odioku-Anvunugbokor-Ubeta communities, and the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) company. The natural gas giant is claiming to have spent more than US$11 million on community development. The NLNG said it spent the money in providing over 1000 scholarships to students in tertiary institutions, 3.5 kilometres Rumuji road, 7.1 kilometre Ogbo-Ubeta road, four passenger boats with total capacity of 100 to ease transportation problems in Bonny, numerous water boreholes, renovation of schools, hospitals and community town halls.

These are not all. The company also claimed that the US$11 million was equally used in providing electricity power supply in Bonny, in partnership with the Anglo-Dutch supermajor, Shell, and the American oil giant, ExxonMobil; two roads in Bonny, renovation of Finima market, a cold store and shopping mall for Bonny women, and some US$4.5 million on micro-credit scheme.

But the company’s on the 7.1 kilometre Ogbo-Ubeta appears to the splashing dirt’s on the good boy image of the NLNG. For the royal fathers, leaders and youths of the Ogbo-Odioku-Anwunugbokor-Ubeta communities, @NLNG lied on the Ogbo-Ubeta road project.

Before now, the LNG company had allegedly promised the local people that they will do something about the Ogbo-Odiokuj-Anwunugbokor-Ubeta road, complete the Ubeta water scheme ,renovate the Government Secondary School, Ubeta as well as rebuild the dilapidated Ubeta Primary School.

Ubeta community is however, the main operational base of the NLNG is Ekpeye. “The NLNG has not in anyway impacted positively in Ubeta community since 1997”, Chief Napoleon Agihuo, the royal father of Ubeta, said. His Ogbo counterpart, Chief Nwobueze Agi, Chief Alex Abidhi, of Odioku, and that of Anwunugbokor, Chief Innocent Ekwelogwu, all agreed.

Going by the testimonies of these community chiefs, it appears all that the LNG company has done with regard to the Ubeta water project has been to put in place a borehole, Braithwaite water tank and some steel structures. The water project which the community described as a “while lie” is however, being paraded by the company as a “model”.

The other sources of discontents in Ekpeye include the fact that out of the over 1000 scholarships the company claimed to have awarded to students in tertiary institutions, the Ekpeye communities can hardly identify up to five beneficiaries of the NLNG scholarship scheme. According to them , “we have been demanding for a quota system on the scholarship awards to host communities without success. NLNG and its staff alone know the secret# of how their beneficiaries pass their examinations. The communities are also boiling that they have no contractor whatsoever working for the natural gas giant.

Piqued by their marginalisation in the scheme of things at the company, the Ekpeye people seems to be bracing for a fight. “We have used all avenues to dialogue with the company yet NLNG is not interested to partner with us. We will no longer continue to sit in limbo and watch our people being cheated and exploited”, they said.

While the NLNG officials in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, claimed on Monday, that the company was doing all that it could to assuage the feelings of the Ekepeye people, the communities said they were no longer comfortable with the operations of the liquefied natural gas company.

Their major source of discomfort is said to be the September 4, 2005 NLNG pipeline explosion at Okrika, a major Ijaw clan in Rivers State. A local Port Harcourt newspaper reported that the pipeline explosion claimed the lives of 11, and that residents around the area were evacuated due to the “wild gas fire” which reportedly engulfed an area of some 27 square kilometre.

Consequently, the Ubeta community is currently living in fear. The NLNG facility there is right inside the community and is surrounded by mud and thatched houses, a major indicator of the poverty level in the area. While the company makes millions from the area, there is no single health institution and no fire service to handle emergency health cares and to contain a possible gas fire in future.

The NLNG is being promoted by the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Shell, Total, and Agip. The NLNG is generally believed to represent Nigeria’s largest private sector financing transaction. Around US$10 billion have been injected into the liquefied natural gas venture. ENDS