By
\nFamous S. Eseduwo
\nPolitical Science Department,
\nUniversity of Nigeria Nsukka<\/p>\n
Being A Paper Presented at the
\nInternational Conference on the Nigerian
\nState, Oil Industry and the Niger Delta
\nUnder the
\nSub-Theme: \u2018The State and Civil Society\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What is really happening in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria? Hostage-taking\/kidnapping\/sea piracy; gas flaring, oil spills; and military checkpoints here and there as if there is any on-going civil war or anarchy; Who is actually fighting who in the Niger Delta region; and who is right or wrong in the present circumstances of violence, oil, hunger, blood and fire? Perhaps the most fact-finding
\nquestion would be; what are the causes of the spiral of violence in the Niger Delta Region? \u2013 Petroleum prospecting and State violence?
\nAccording to Hillary Benn (2004:1), the United Kingdom \u2019s Secretary of State for International Development, \u201cnatural resources need not be sources of conflict. Let them be sources of economic growth, community partnership and goodwill\u201d. But the case of the Niger Delta Region seems to be different, as the region has witnessed different scales of violent conflicts since 1966 to date i.e. precisely after ten years of the discovery of crude oil in the region. The dynamics of petroleum prospecting, State violence and militant activities in the Niger Delta Region came to limelight when the Isaac Boro-led Niger Delta Volunteer Service (DVS) struck in 1966, followed by the Ken Saro\ufffeWiWa-Led Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) (1992), the Aleibiri Demonstration (AD) (1997), the Kaiama Declaration (KD) (1998), the Opia\/Ikiyan Invasion (OII) (1999), the Odi Massacre (OM) (1999), the Asari-Dokubo-led Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force (NDPVF) (2004), the Gbomo-Led Movement for Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND) (2006), the Joint Task Force (JTF), and a host of other faceless militant groups too numerous to mention. One may ask, therefore, whether the legend of the Niger Delta crisis vis-\u00e0-vis petroleum prospecting in the region and attendant State violence is a struggle for ownership rights of the world-class natural resource (crude oil)? If the answer is in the affirmative, then Section 140(6) of the 1963 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has already given a leading judgement towards resolving conflicts of ownership rights, as the Constitution clearly stated that: All minerals both solid and oil, found in the continental shelf of a region in Nigeria, belonged exclusively to that region, and for the purposes of exploitation of minerals, including mineral oil, the continental shelf of a region was deemed to be part of that region.
\nThe provisions of the above constitution were circumvented by the oil companies and the Nigerian government and as such, new decrees were promulgated to protect only the rights and interests of petro-businesses and the Nigerian Government. Such decrees include the Petroleum Decree of 1969; the Offshore Oil Revenue Decree of 1971; the Land Use Decree of 1978; Section 44 (3) of the 1999
\nConstitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria; etc. These decrees instead of coming to resolve existing controversies over ownership rights of land and natural resources therein, have given a solid backing to multi-national oil companies to pollute the Niger Delta environment in varied degrees without proportionate compensation, and also strengthened the use of State violence on the oil\ufffebearing people of Niger Delta at the slightest instance of protest\/demonstration against petroleum prospecting activities.
\nDeprived, unemployed, hungry and angry youths of the Niger Delta Region decided to pick up arms against oil companies operating in the area \u2013 Shell, Elf, Chevron, Mobil, Agip, Texaco, etc by initially asking them to stop petroleum prospecting in the region since their operations with attendant sophisticated technologies have not only caused the inhabitants their farmlands\/fishing creeks but also short-changed the less sophisticated technologies for survival with highly sophisticated technologies, without providing alternate sources of livelihood. The Nigerian Government, so alarmed by this development, as it severely threatens its rent-collection and mono-cultured economy, in the face of a fast paralyzing oil industry, resorted to unleash further violence on the oil-bearing people of Niger Delta in assuring the petro-businesses of maximum security of personnel and oil installations. In the process of State security of multi-national oil companies, many Niger Deltans have been killed, maimed, harassed, molested, extorted, raped, and several villages and communities have been sacked by the Nigerian security operatives attached to oil companies and deployed to the Niger Delta Region, generally.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":219,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"product_brand":[22],"product_cat":[21],"product_tag":[],"class_list":["post-215","product","type-product","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","product_brand-digital-books","product_cat-book-store","first","instock","sale","downloadable","virtual","sold-individually","taxable","purchasable","product-type-simple"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madeeasyconsult.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madeeasyconsult.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madeeasyconsult.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/product"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madeeasyconsult.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madeeasyconsult.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madeeasyconsult.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"product_brand","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madeeasyconsult.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_brand?post=215"},{"taxonomy":"product_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madeeasyconsult.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_cat?post=215"},{"taxonomy":"product_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madeeasyconsult.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_tag?post=215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}