Niger Delta Human Development Report - UNDP Nigeria - United ...

The phenomenal growth
in urbanization has had
significant social and
environmental impacts,
while the heightened
pace of construction has
created huge demands
for land and
construction materials
Rapid and uncontrolled
mass migration into
cities spawned urban
sprawl, slum housing,
housing congestion,
traffic congestion,
unemployment and a
rise in crime.
People are clamouring
for restitution for all the
damage that has been
done by oil operations;
however, compensation
rarely reaches all those
affected because of the
‘benefit captor’
syndrome.
production or associated industrial activities.
Warri and Port Harcourt are the two most
important examples. Smaller but equally
important towns include Ughelli (Delta
State), Bonny (Rivers State) and Eket
(Akwa Ibom State). The phenomenal
growth in urbanization has had significant
social and environmental impacts.
The heightened pace of construction
activities in the burgeoning oil and industrial
cities created huge and unprecedented
demands for land and construction
materials such as sand, clay and wood. Local
peoples were easily seduced by the lure of
easy money in the growing urban centres.
The large rubber plantations for which
present-day Delta and Edo states were
once noted were abandoned and
subsequently cleared by local people. They
sold the land to speculators in the urban
peripheries and to contractors for quarrying
sand, clay and other materials for
construction. Some local landowners turned
into contractors themselves. Thus, the local
farmers and landowners mortgaged their
future by destroying their land inheritance
and throwing away, perhaps forever, their
means of livelihood.
This period, especially since the mid-1980s
when oil overtly replaced traditional
economic activities in oil-producing
communities, marked the beginnings of the
whittling down of the sense of community
and traditional authority in the Niger Delta
region. Many of the transformations that
took place, including the sale of land, land
use changes, occupational changes, etc.,
were individual rather than communal
decisions. With the benefit of hindsight, it
is clear why land and territorial disputes
between individuals, clans and ethnic
groups escalated from the 1970s onward,
aside from the other well-known struggle
to share the benefits of the oil industry.
Apart from the massive deforestation and
destruction of land, the displacement of
people from rural economic pursuits
coupled with the lure of social amenities in
the cities generated a wave of rural-urban
and rural-rural migration throughout the
Niger Delta region and beyond. Rapid and
uncontrolled mass migration into cities
spawned urban sprawl, slum housing,
housing congestion, traffic congestion,
unemployment and under-employment,
and a rise in crime, to name only a few
consequences.
Loss of Fishing Grounds
Quarrying activities spurred by the
construction boom were not limited to
land; the demand for high-quality fine sand
also led to the mining of river channels.
River sand mining destroys the aquatic
habitat and disrupts the hydraulic capacity
and relationships in the river channels.
Fishing communities suffer as a result—
on top of the destruction caused by the oil
industry. Fishing has become less productive
and profitable in many areas, with reduced
catches and lower incomes compared to
income from oil-related activities. The
efforts of local fishermen to maintain or
improve upon their income levels result in
over-fishing. Many swamps, rivers and
creeks where fish spawn have been
destroyed or polluted.
Land Losses and Shortages
A major socio-political issue in the Niger
Delta region today is access to land. Local
people complain bitterly about having lost
so much land to oil operations. Oil facilities
and installations directly took land and
waterways away from the people. Indirectly,
people have also lost land through pollution,
erosion and land despoliation by quarrying
activities. The scarcity is compounded by
the lack of dry land in the delta.
Land shortage is partly responsible for the
loud protest against the Land Use Act, which
provides compensation for the
appropriation of land—often for oil
facilities (see box 3.5). Most local
participants at one of the focus group
discussions were vehemently opposed to the
Act, saying it “has no redeeming feature or
value.” The Act does not take into account
the impacts and negative externalities that
transferring land—say for oil purposes—
may have on adjoining areas. People are
clamouring for restitution for all the damage
that has been done by oil operations and
associated activities.
Even the compensation that is offered tends
to bring only short-lived satisfaction,
however. Those who sell their land, more
often than not, quickly spend the money
and then are left high and dry. Many
84 NIGER DELTA HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT