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

Box 3.5: Poverty Grinds against Oil Wealth in Nigeria Delta
FISHTOWN, Nigeria: Every time Stephen Yibo goes fishing around the U.S.-operated oil platform near his village in
Nigeria’s southern delta, soldiers come out on boats and shoot into the air to scare him away. Thousands of troops have
been stationed across the delta to stop residents occupying platforms again after an uprising last year threatened oil
supplies from Africa’s top producer. Their aggression has only hardened hostility to the multinationals among the
million-plus inhabitants of the mangrove swamps lining Nigeria’s Atlantic seaboard. Yibo, 25, says oil could be used to
bring health and education to Fishtown, a poverty-stricken village of wood and thatch huts which has been abandoned
by the government. Instead, he reels off a list of what he believes are unfulfilled promises of the oil company
ChevronTexaco. “They promised a school building, a town hall, electricity and a water borehole, but so far they have
only built a jetty,” he said. “We are the owners of the oil so we expect the companies to do more for us.” His complaint
is echoed across the Niger delta, where annual oil output is worth $20 billion, but where many live without access to clean
drinking water, basic health care or schools. In the absence of any visible sign of government in remote villages,
residents naturally look to the companies for help, said Chris Alagoa, a development worker in the Akassa kingdom,
which includes Fishtown. Relations between oil companies and residents have deteriorated so far that they now look at
each other down the barrel of a gun along 300 miles of coast, which Alagoa calls a “corridor of conflict.”
The situation does not bode well for the foreign investors in Nigeria’s bountiful oil reserves, including Royal Dutch/
Shell, ChevronTexaco, Agip, ExxonMobil and Total, which had seen the country as a secure alternative source of oil to
the Middle East. “When we got to Akassa, two villages were already blackmailing the oil company,” Alagoa said. “The
people would go to the company and make demands for money or jobs. If it refused they would harass the staff. The
practice became widespread and climaxed in the taking of hostages. It produced very clear and quick results.” The
response of the oil companies was to pay up and to invite government troops to defend them. Having seen blackmail
and hostage-taking pay off, local militants sought new ways to extort money. “In most cases, blackmail was arrived at
quite innocently from people’s anger at seeing the wealth oil created. Oil workers were the visible fraction of a very
unholy alliance between the oil companies and the federal government,” Alagoa said. Oil companies tried to be “good
neighbors” to the villages in the delta, but residents say their efforts often backfired.
In Fishtown, the jetty built by ChevronTexaco is typical of the white elephant projects across the region. After just a few
years, erosion has completely separated it from the land. In nearby Sangana village, a hospital built in 2001 by
ChevronTexaco and its partners has no doctors or medical supplies. It serves as a temporary hostel for youth volunteers
while local children die of treatable illnesses.
Source: www.planetark.com/dailynewssstory.cfm/newsid/24444/story.htm.
These migrants have also created social and
political problems. They have worsened
congestion in both urban and rural areas.
Problems such as poor housing conditions;
low levels of personal hygiene and
environmental sanitation; the dumping of
solid wastes in streets, gutters and river
channels; and poor health facilities are not
limited to the cities—they are increasingly
evident in the rapidly expanding villages
and towns. The sense of personal
responsibility for keeping village streets and
homes clean has disappeared; the urban
mindset of yielding responsibility for
environmental sanitation to some
impersonal bureaucratic agency has
permeated the rural areas.
Another trend has been incessant price
movement, particularly for transportation
for both passengers and goods. The
escalation in costs is often blamed on
increases in petrol prices, but it is also due
to the pressure on the limited transport
facilities and the increase in demand over
supply. With incomes already low, rising
inflation further entrenches poverty.
Alienated from their natural resources,
either by oil companies or governments or
migrants, the people of the delta see total
resource control as the only solution.
Different ethnic nationalities have different
strategies for achieving this. The Ogoni
people, for instance, see the right to
ownership and control of their lives and
resources as the only way to protect their
environment from further degradation and
promote decent livelihoods on Ogoni land
(see box 3.6).
86 NIGER DELTA HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT