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336 LOS RECURSOS NATURALES COMO PALANCA DEL DESARROLLO EN AMÉRICA DEL SUR: ¿FICCIÓN O REALIDAD?
which included the Niger Delta had substantial revenue to undertake expenditure
because they were entitled to 50% of all oil proceeds (derivation). In 1970 the Federal
government made the distinction between onshore and offshore production
and appropriated all revenue from offshore activities to the federal government
thereby cutting the share accruable to oil-producing states. In addition to this, in
1975 the federal government reduced the derivation from onshore activities from
50% to 20% thereby stifling the Niger Delta states of revenue.
The Niger Delta Development Board (NDDB) was established in 1961 in order
to address the deficiencies of education, infrastructure, and poor health identified
in the Willink’s Commission Report of 1957. The NDDB failed in its core mandate
to solve the problems of the Niger Delta and this resulted in the establishment of
the Niger Delta Basin Development Authority (NDBDA) in 1976. The NDBDA did
not fare any better than the NDDB and ultimately failed in its objective of fostering
development in the Niger Delta. One of the key problems of the NDBDA was a lack
of commitment and belonging of its members as a body which was established
specifically for the Niger Delta did not have a single member of its board from the
Niger Delta (UNDP, 2006). The Oil Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission
(OMPADEC) was established in 1992 and its mandate was to facilitate economic
development and enhance environmental cleaness of oil producing states.
This was to achieve through OMPADEC collecting the allocation of oil producing
states from the federation account, a figure which varied between 3% and 6% of
the federation account. OMPADEC has earned the reputation of being a completely
inept, profligate and wasteful organisation. OMPADEC received about $135 million
between 1993 and 1997 but this was completely wasted on over-valued contracts
which the commission was eventually unable to pay, thereby resulting in a lot of
abandoned projects, thus, the commission’s impact was not felt by the people of
the Niger Delta (UNDP, 2006). With the advent of democracy in 1999 the new civilian
administration created the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) and
this body effectively took over the responsibilities of OMPADEC but the NDDC also
encountered similar problems as those faced by OMPADEC. Between 2001 and
2004 NDDC received $341.1 million and the commission had awarded contracts
for over 600 projects at a cost of over $271.3 million, but despite this huge capital
outlay, education, health and physical infrastructure in the Niger delta were still
poor and belied the huge millions spent on contracts (UNDP, 2006).
Despite the fact that institutions were created for development of the region
and the region at least until 1975 received 50% of revenue from all onshore oil
production, the population of the Niger Delta did not witness any significant improvement
in their standard of living and so it can be inferred that they did not
reap the benefits of the oil boom. This can be attributed to a number of factors
which include the following:
i. The institutions established for development of the region failed to provide
the required investment needed for the development of the Niger Delta due
to organizational problems and the lack of will to carry out their mandates.
ii. The institutions also had the problem of commitment because most
members of the boards were not from the Niger Delta and were therefore