Some things just baffle me. One of them is how personal interest a lot of the time wrestles collective interest to the ground and makes it a candidate for the casualty ward. This has been more pronounced in my interactions with the Niger Delta. A few instances will suffice here. Since the December 2011 Bonga spill, the communities affected have not spoken with one voice. They have never agreed on anything except that there was a spill. Call it rat race and you will not be wrong. One community believes it has more right to the compensation than the other. So, there is no co-ordination of response and the oil giants have long understood this and used it to their advantage and the disadvantage of the oil-bearing communities.
The Federal Government said it fined Shell $11.5 billion for the Bonga spill. Shell says there is no sense in this because it is not liable, “legally or otherwise.” And since the people are also battling one another, everything is on hold.
Recently, I was part of a forum where a gas firm was discussing how to review the Masterplan of its host community with a view to financing its transformation, but instead of using the opportunity well and proving the sincerity or otherwise of the venture, the youths engaged themselves in shouting matches. It was almost degenerating into exchange of blows. The meeting had to be called off. What was the problem? There was a leadership tussle within the youth body and not even the interest of the community was enough to make them speak as one. All, as I find out, was more about who controls the body and is in a position to get the benefits from the oil giants in the area. The loser at the end is the community, which despite its richness has remained a poverty-stricken Island, with no road access to it. I will not be surprised if these youths will see in a proposed road to link the community with the upland an opportunity to make easy cash.
I once experienced a contractor working on a road to link some communities in the Niger Delta, who lamented how youths were constantly harassing him for money. They stalled the road for a long time and who is the loser? The communities, if you ask me.
Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi, some years back, had to use ‘guerilla tactic’ to prevent a set of youths from disturbing a contractor working on a project in the state. There are instances upon instances of youths in the region seeking immediate gains.
And that brings me to the drama in Youbebe, one of the fishing communities affected by the Bonga oil spill earlier in the week. An army of protesters were showing their displeasure over the devastating effects of the 2011 oil spill in the Bonga oil field. Since the spill, many have mounted pressure on Shell Petroleum to pay billions of dollars in reparations and clean up of the fishing areas that were wreaked by the unfortunate disaster. Till this day, Shell claims the spill never hit the Nigerian shores or damaged the fishing industry. It is another way of saying the spill happened offshore and not onshore. It says the spill from its Bonga oil field was cleaned up swiftly after the leak and it never harmed any community.
The claims and counter-claims led to a stalemate and the stalemate was responsible for the drama in Youbebe, one of the many fishing communities devastated by the spill. A group of reporters were passing through the community on their way to an assignment elsewhere in the creeks. The protesters seized the opportunity and got the reporters off their boat and narrated their ordeals since the spill.
As expected, they had no good stories to tell. Life, they say, has been brutish since the spill. For lives that were not particularly fantastic before given the poverty level in the region, it is understandable how hellish additional burden could cause. They have lost the fishing industry. No more fish to eat or sell. So, they and their children are ever hungry. Sickness has also become more frequent. This, they say, is not unconnected to the fact that they have been drinking polluted water.
Shell is free to claim whatever it chooses, the people say some two million lives were devastated by the Bonga oil spill. The protesters fully utilised the presence of the reporters by leading them into their community to see what bitch of a life they are living. The community is a testimony in neglect. This community not far away Warri, the commercial heart of Delta State, has no electricity or hospital. The reporters also saw young men pulling dirty water out of a spring and they drank it to demonstrate to the reporters and photographers the reality of their existence.
Another leg of Shell’s clam, which I believe must be investigated, is its submission that there was another spill from an unknown vessel shortly after the Bonga spill. Was there really another vessel? Who owns it? Was it there legally or illegally? These are questions that must be answered.
During the week, the people of the communities affected by the Bonga spill decided to speak with one voice in their quest for a $5.6 billion compensate and clean up of the communities. A report quoted one of their traditional rulers, His Royal Highness Ibamugha Ojukosin as saying: “We are here as a people collectively with one voice. Let our cry be heard. Let (victims of) Bonga spill of SPDC in 20 December 2011 be adequately compensated, the communities cleaned. And let us be paid. I would want to rest my case.”
The traditional ruler spoke at a conference in Warri, where leaders and lawyers agreed work to unite communities. Funny enough, even at that conference, some attendees, according to a report, say they believe that if Shell pays, the real beneficiaries will be the leaders. This is another issue in the region. Youths do not trust the elders and elders do not trust the youths.
It will be good if this issue is resolved and a closure is put on it before it becomes violent. The protesters who forced reporters on an unscheduled tour of Youbebe are spoiling for war, if nothing happens. A VOA report quoted a resident as saying: “The next step we take if the protest do not succeed, SPDC will leave our lands. That’s what we’ll do. And no army man can stop us.”
That sounds like a possible reenactment of the Ogoni treatment meted out to Shell. And when the people decide not just to be united in grief, but also speak with one voice on a matter like it, it is either their wish is done or the hell is let loose. I hope it does not get to this.
