INTERNATIONAL BITS AND PIECES - PART 2 SATURDAY A.M. 10/17/98
Oil Wars
Africa News Service
14-OCT-98
Lagos (Tempo, October 14, 1998) - Youths in Nigeria's oil-producing states protesting the neglect of the Niger- Delta by successive Nigerian governments and the multinational oil companies operating on their land, take over oil installations and effectively cripple exports.
HENRY UGBOLUE writes that the youths are poised for full-scale war
No doubt, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, Nigeria's latest military ruler is a man with eyes on history. Close associates of the General readily swear that unlike Generals Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha before him, Gen. Abubakar desires rather desperately to end his tenure as a hero. "He wants to shatter the records of both Generals Murtala Muhammed and Olusegun Obasanjo," an associate of the Head of State confides.
He may be right.
Barely days after Gen. Abubakar assumed the reins of power, prison doors were thrown open and hundreds of political prisoners and detainees held indefinitely behind bars by the very brutal Gen. Abacha were left off the hook; Abubakar's seemingly liberal mien has rubbed off on the nation's security system, dissolving the charged atmosphere that characterised the Abacha era and sweeping aside a few of his collaborators.
Overtures to the international community have begun ending the isolation of Nigeria by the civilised world.
With the transition timetable out, parties have since been formed and are awaiting clearance from the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC).
On the economic front, Gen. Abubakar has equally taken the bull by the horns.
In an apparent bid to alleviate the sufferings the Abacha years unleashed on the nation's workers, Gen. Abubakar early last month announced an upward review of the pay package of Federal civil servants, pegging the minimum wage at N5,200 per month.
State governments have equally been asked to effect increases in the earning of workers in their employ. Yet, failure looms for the Abubakar regime.
Escalating crisis in the nation's oil-producing states, analysts have predicted, would in a matter of weeks, completely strangulate Nigeria's economy.
In the last two weeks alone, analysts estimated that Nigeria lost N8. 3 billion in oil sales owing to the raging war between youths in the oil-producing states of Delta, Rivers, Bayelsa and Akwa Ibom and multinational oil companies operating in the Niger Delta.
In Nembe, Rivers State, Shell last week closed 10 oil-flow stations, reducing its oil output from Nigeria by more than one-third.
Officials of Shell say the flow-stations were closed following attacks by members of the Nembe community.
They estimate that the crisis in Nembe milks the economy of 300,000 barrels of oil production per day. "It's community problems that have forced the closure.
We will have to have negotiations with the local community before we can restart production," Cerris Tavinor, a spokeswoman for Shell in London told Bloombery International News Service last week.
She assures that no long-term customer of Shell in the international oil market would be immediately affected by the crisis in Nigeria's Niger-Delta, though the spokeswoman quickly adds that "Shell could not give indication of when production would resume." The flow-stations closed last week bring to 15, the number of shut flow-stations feeding Shell's Forcados and Bonny export terminals.
The escalating violence has equally forced Eni, Italy's largest oil company to shut down pipelines and cut production by 120,000 barrels a day. Attacks on export terminal pipelines, Agip officials said last week, forced the company to suspend its Brass rivers loadings. "We have informed the government of their demands, which we can't meet, as they are beyond us. But we are also trying to make them see reasons and allow us to resume operation," Reuters quoted an Agip official as saying.
Shell and Agip are partners in a joint venture involving the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and France's ELF, which produces a little under half of Nigeria's entire output.
Lost production of 420,000 barrels a day in the last eight weeks at Shell and Agip represent about 20 per cent of Nigeria's daily output of 1. 98 million barrels. In the last few days, the hitherto depressed price of oil has jerked up slightly due to a fall in Nigeria's output.
Analysts and watchers of the global oil market say if the huge losses continue for another one month, the Abubakar regime risks "financial drought." Shell and Agip continue to contend with leaking oil pipelines that have created unprecedented oil spillage.
Shell's flow-stations located in the Niger-Delta area provide about 39 per cent of the over 800,000 barrels per day of oil the company produces in Nigeria under normal conditions. But the troubled youths from the oil-producing areas are anything but bothered.
In fact, indications emerged last weekend that they are poised for full-scale war with the Nigerian authorities and the oil companies.
Last Friday, the Ijaws, under their national umbrella body, the Federated Niger- Delta Izon Communities issued a press statement urging all the embassies in Nigeria to ask their citizens working in oil companies in the zone to leave, saying they can no longer guarantee their safety as from Monday, 12 October.
In a letter sent to the Head of State, Gen. Abubakar, conveying the same message, the Ijaw youths threatened to commence a full-blown war in their bid to take back "what is rightly ours." A portion of the letter which was signed by one Kennedy Omibebe and copied the Ambassadors of the United States of America, The Netherlands and the British High Commission read: "Our youths currently occupy flow-stations in Delta, Bayelsa and Rivers States and they will be there indefinitely." A day before the letter was written, Ijaw youths seized the operational base of an oil services company, Nigerian Dredging and Marine Limited, at Opukushi, Bayelsa State, crippling operations of the waterways Southwest of Warri.
Four days earlier, an helicopter belonging to Shell was highjacked and held hostage by Ijaw youths in Warri.
And while the threat letters from the Ijaws were landing the doorposts of designated embassies last weekend, Mobil Producing Unlimited, another oil giant operating in the Niger-Delta, reported that equipment estimated at millions of dollars were lost when "a mysterious" fire on Saturday gutted the company's largest warehouse located at the Qua Iboe Terminal in Akwa Ibom State.
The fire, TEMPO gathered, damaged equipment meant for the OSSO Condensate Project currently being handled by Mobil for the NNPC.
With over 90 per cent of Nigeria's foreign earnings coming from crude oil sales, the Niger-Delta unarguably is the mainstay of the nation's economy.
Yet, this region which is the goose that lays Nigeria's golden eggs is perpetually marginalised, hence its restiveness.
The no-war-no-peace situation in the Niger-Delta deteriorated immensely between 1994 and 95 leading to the "judicial murder" of the Ogoni minority rights campaigner and novelist, Mr. Ken Saro-Wiwa by the brutal regime of General Sani Abacha.
Saro-Wiwa's death did not subdue the people of the oil-producing states. "They killed Ken (Saro- Wiwa) thinking that would cow everybody in the Niger-Delta. How mistaken.
In every Ijaw home, in every Ogoni home, there is at least one Ken Saro-Wiwa," an Ogoni chief once boasted. He may have exaggerated but the current flare ups in the Niger-Delta amply testifies that the chief may be near the point.
The latest uprising in the Niger-Delta, TEMPO's investigation shows, is essentially rooted in the demand of the Ijaws for another local government in Warri, in Delta State.
Fred Omare, spokesman for the protesting Ijaw youths warns, "We suspended hostilities in 1996 to allow the Justice Alhassan Idoko Commission of Inquiry to do a good job. But months after the Commission finished its job, the government has not deemed it fit to act. It shows (the government) just want us to remain in crisis. If that is their wish, we are now set for full-scale war," an Ijaw youth told this magazine in Warri.
Indeed, the Justice Alhassan Idoko Commission on the 1996 Warri crisis submitted its report to Col. John Dungs, then military administrator of Delta State last year.
Ijaws alleged that the government is "afraid" to release the findings of the commission because it favoured the Ijaws. "They want us perpetually marginalised even here in Warri. They are afraid to implement the recommendation of the commission. Why? They are afraid of the Ijaws, that is the short answer," adds Frank Omare, the leader of the Ijaw youths.
During a recent visit to the Olu of Warri, Ogiame Atuwatse II, the military administrator of Delta State, Commander Walter Feghabor, was told by the Olu that Warri was under siege: "We must state that calm has remained elusive due to the state of lawlessness and total disregard for the rule of law." The Olu blamed Ijaw youths and informed the administrator that they (the Ijaw youths) had converted a building in Warri to their headquarters and christened the place 'Aso Rock.
"It is worrisome that the seat of power of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has an illegal duplicate in Warri to the knowledge of law enforcement agents," the monarch lamented.
A rattled Feghabor left with a promise to "look into the Warri crisis." No one has heard from the administrator. The Ijaws say they are tired of waiting for the government and have decided to take over oil installations in all Ijaw lands until the government meets their demand.
"Our people will not leave any of the flow- stations until our demands are met and if any of our people is either arrested or killed, we will blow up all the flow-stations in retaliation," Omare vows.
But late last week, things got out of hand as Ijaw youths in neighbouring Rivers, Bayelsa, Ondo and Akwa Ibom took over oil installations in their areas and tabled their own demands even as they insisted that the demands of their kith and kin in Delta State be met first.
"The youths know that oil business is big business and that money from oil produced behind and beneath their houses are being used to develop other parts of the country while they continue to live in abject poverty and squalor," asserts Chief Joshua Fumudoh, president of Ijaw National Council in a chat with TEMPO.
In Nembe, the Ijaw youths have reiterated their demand that Shell takes over the construction of the Yenegoa-Kolo-Nembe road project from the Federal Government "and complete it with our share of the derivation fund." The Ijaws in Nembe also are demanding that Shell electrifies the town and "puts in process, the immediate direct employment of one-hundred and fifty qualified Nembe people." They also want Shell's assistance in putting in place a mass transit system.
However, of utmost importance to the Nembe people is their demand that the Bonny Light (brand of crude oil) be renamed Nembe Light.
"Nembe produces one-hundred and seventy thousand (170,000) barrels of crude oil daily and has the popular 'Bonny Light' not Nembe Light.
She is visited with the worst forms of environmental degradation and pollution and economic deprivation . . . even in name she is denied her produce," reads a portion of a letter to Shell by Nembe youths.
Informed sources in the Niger-Delta said last week that Nembe youths would not have joined in the current crisis in the Niger-Delta "if Shell had not scuttled negotiations" with Nembe communities earlier in the year.
This magazine gathered that negotiations between representatives of Ewelesuo community in Nembe Local Government Area of Bayelsa State and Shell went awry following the presence of armed policemen invited by Shell.
The talks, according to the environmental newsletter, Niger-Delta Alert, were called by Shell against the backdrop of the closure of the Nembe Creek's 3 Flow Stations by local youths on Thursday, 5 March.
"We walked out of the meeting because of the intimidating presence of the armed policemen," the youth leader to the meeting, Mr. Terry Thomas told Niger-Delta Alert.
he NEWS magazine, about six weeks ago, in its cover report-'Guerrilla War in Niger Delta'-seems to have correctly predicted the escalation of the war against the oil multinationals.
The report gave an investigative insight into the militant guerrilla tactics employed by the youths in the oil communities and their resolve not to retreat, but to fight on never to surrender.
Shell's complexity in the tension and distrust that rule the hostile relationship is undeniable.
In 1993, Shell supported the military attacks that unleashed a reign of terror on the Ogoni settlement of Korokoro. After years of denials, Shell just this year accepted that it funded the pogrom and militarisation of Ogoniland, especially the invasion of Korokoro five years ago. Indeed, the Ogonis are not left out in the current flare ups in the Niger- Delta. Group-Captain Sam Ewang, Rivers State Military Administrator ignited the fury of the Ogonis.
At a recent meeting with chieftains of Shell led by the company's General Manager, East, Mr. Chris Haynes, Ewang advised Shell to prepare for resumption of exploration activities in Ogoniland where conflicts forced it to withdraw in 1993. The Ogonis did not take kindly to Ewang's invasion of Shell.
The Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) replied Ewang less than 48 hours after.
In a statement signed by its General Secretary, Mr. Nwibani Nwako, MOSOP said it would be suicidal for Shell to return to Ogoniland.
MOSOP reiterated its position that oil exploration activities would not be allowed in Ogoniland until the Ogoni Bill of Rights is honoured by the Nigerian government.
The group reminded Shell that it has not forgotten its role in the deployment of soldiers to Ogoniland "which resulted in the death of many and raping of our women." Firmly, MOSOP warned Shell to resist the temptation to return to Ogoniland, "especially when Shell's activities have been noticed in Boma oil field." Mr. Brian Anderson, Shell's managing director is, however, sure that the coast would soon be clear for Shell to do business in Ogoniland again.
"As a law-abiding company, we have been paying royalties to the Federal Government as required by law.
A plan of action to assuage the aggrieved Ogonis is being worked out," says Brian.
Considering the raging anger of Ogoni youths, especially towards the oil companies, analysts have faulted Anderson's optimism.
The Ogonis are, however, currently busy preparing for a decent burial for their late hero, Mr. Ken Saro-Wiwa.
Forcibly, they have demanded for the body of the late novelist.
"Abubakar says he is reconciling but we are saying you will be alienating the Ogoni nation if you don't release to us the body of Ken Saro-Wiwa for a decent burial in Ogoniland," a MOSOP chieftain asserts.
Mr. Ken Saro-Wiwa who was hanged at the Port Harcourt Prison was believed to have been buried within the prison compound. "As long as his body is not lying in peace in Ogoniland, Ogoniland will remain restive," the MOSOP official adds.
In this season of war in the Niger-Delta, the Ogonis, this magazine gathered, are preparing to mount a huge campaign to have the body of Ken Saro-Wiwa exhumed and returned to his ancestral home-Ogoniland.
With various interests at play, analysts doubt that Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar would be bold enough to tackle headlong, the current crisis in the nation's oil-producing states, by addressing the fundamental demands and thorny issues that have been consistently raised over the years.
Chief among the consistent demands of the people in the oil-producing areas are a new revenue allocation formula based on derivation, development of social-economic infrastructure and the reclamation of devastated lands among others. "This money is made from the resources God has blessed this people with. God has a way of balancing things. He gave them the oil for a purpose, they are demanding greater involvement in the spending of the money and nothing is wrong with that," Femi Ojo, a petro- chemical engineer opines.
The oil-producing states currently are entitled to five per cent of the country's total oil earnings. But at the 1994 National Constitutional Conference, delegates from the Niger-Delta had argued for 50 per cent of the nation's oil wealth. This is, of course, was draft constitution that 13 per cent of oil earnings should go to the oil-producing states. The money, it was decided, would be released to the Oil Minerals Producing Areas Development Commission, (OMPADEC).
Indications, however, are that the Federal Government which has never been comfortable with the 13 per cent of oil earnings allocated to oil-producing areas would overturn this recommendation.
"The current vacillation on the 13 per cent meant for OMPADEC which is as a result of unnecessary pressures by the hawks is now causing trepidation.
Those who viewed the N19 billion allocation to OMPADEC from 1992 to December 1997 as big money should take a glance at CBN's reports," offers Maikphobi Okareme in a contribution to Vanguard newspaper's debate on the fate of the people of Niger-Delta.
"What is N19 billion allocated to OMPADEC in six full years compared to N125 billion in less than four years donated to Petroleum Trust Fund?" he queried.
Okareme threatens that "the centre shall not hold if the 13 per cent imbroglio is not resolved in favour of the oil-producing communities." This government's neglect, coupled with strong arm tactics to shut them up, more than anything else, over the years seems to have emboldened the oil companies in their less than sincere dealings with the communities in the Niger-Delta. "If the Nigerian government does not care for its people, what else do you expect from the oil companies. Neglect too," offers Lionel Jonathan, a lawyer and leader of the Nembe Youth Movement in Port Harcourt.
For instance, Shell is said to be particularly notorious for its history of pollution of the waters of the Niger-Delta. "Shell has recorded over a thousand oil spills in the oil-producing states since it commenced operation in Nigeria," Chief Eregbane reveals in a TEMPO interview. Agip, Mobil and Chevron have equally been blamed.
Sola Omole, Chevron's General Manager, Public Affairs, however, insists that this comp-any's environmental records are almost faultless. "We must admit that in our line of business, as in other lines of business, accidents can occur . . . However, if an accident occurs, we have the capability to deal with it quickly before it can impact on anybody negatively," he says in an interview with TheNEWS, a sister publication.
On its part, Shell blames the rage in the Niger-Delta on the Nigerian government.
Mrs. Precious Omuku, Shell's Corporate/External Relations/Manager in a paper she presented recently at a function, insists that Shell has done enough for the people of the Niger-Delta: "Our expenditure on community relations (in the Niger-Delta) rose with the increased demands.
From about $2 million in the 1960s, the figure rose to about $32 million in 1997.
Between 1992 and mid 1997, SPD (Shell) provided about 950 various projects in the Niger-Delta." The problem in the oil-producing areas, she continues, is twofold: "With the revenue distribution on the barrel of oil unchanged, how much of government's statutory responsibility can the oil companies take?" Many of the country's communities, she says, lack what should otherwise be basic socio-economic infrastructure.
"Since they (oil-producing areas) contribute most of the country's oil export earnings . . . they should not only have more visible government presence in terms of socio-economic development, but also have a larger share of revenue than the existing national revenue allocation formula allows them," the Shell image-maker opines.
But that is not the case.
The government and oil-producing giants such as Shell and Agip, continue to pass the buck.
In the last two months, Gen. Abub-akar has made efforts at easing tension in the Niger-Delta, but these token concessions do not seem enough appeasement to assuage their feelings of neglect and deprivation.
He has directed the military administrators of the nine oil-producing states to take over negotiations on behalf of aggrieved oil communities.
The directive, Aso Rock explained, is aimed at reducing friction between host communities and oil companies.
A high-powered Federal Government delegation headed by Flag Officer, Eastern Naval Command, Admiral Victor Mbu, recently visited the Niger-Delta on a fact-finding and peace initiative mission. The visit perhaps led to the restructuring administrator of OMPADEC.
Late last month, Gen. Abubakar ordered the withdrawal of military men from Ogoniland. The soldiers had invaded, occupied and unleashed mayhem on Ogoniland in 1993 in the wake of oil crisis there.
Colonel Dauda Komo, former military of Rivers State called the soldiers in Ogoniland Task Force on Internal Security, (TFIS). Gen. Abubakar equally ordered the release of the 21 Ogoni youths detained indefinitely by the Abacha regime. Yet, not many in the Niger-Delta are enticed by Abubakar's overtures. "We are tired of tokinistic overtures. We are fed up with frivolous promises by government. We are set for anything now if our demands are not met," Omare, the militant leader of Ijaw youths, threatens. But he is not alone.
Last weekend, the Niger-Delta people under the umbrella of the Niger-Delta Volunteer Force (NDVF) threatened to declare a Niger-Delta Republic if the Federal Government fail to drop "its plans to eject the Ijaws from their own property and land." The warning came on the wake of speculations that the Federal Government may have resorted to a military option to douse tension in the Niger-Delta.
As in the past during the Ogoni struggle when the military option failed, though it left many dead and several injured, it is destined to fail again.
This time, most of the militant oil-producing areas are only accessible by water not by land.
The youths, trained in the art of fighting like guerrillas in the swampy waters are deft at hiding under the waters before springing surprise attacks are certain to contain or defeat government troops.
Currently, the atmosphere is tense and the little battles may soon mature into full-blown wars and bitter confrontations.
Meanwhile, Nigeria continues to lose about N5 billion weekly from a sharp fall in production, a development, if not contained, is likely to plunge the nation into serious financial squeeze. The battle line is drawn and government must opt for dialogue and concrete actions before the oil-producing areas engulf in a full-blown war. Additional reports by Sunday Dare, Okafor Ofiebor, Tony Egbulefu, Ayodele Ale, Segun Olanrewaju, Yemi Tella and Friday Olokor.
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