A Lopsided Research, Imperfect Rebuttal!

The lingering saga surrounding ownership and control of oil blocs in the Niger Delta vis-a-vis the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) should not be construed as a political or economic battle between the south and the north. It is about the people and equitable distribution of wealth. After all, those who allegedly control 83% and those who control the remaining 17% have one thing in common – they don’t care about us. Except, of course, General TY Danjuma (Rtd), who willingly gave out half the proceeds from the sale of part of his largesse to charitable organizations. So, when I saw the title of this article, "The North Does Not Control Nigeria’s Oil Blocks By Toyin Akinosho- PREMIUM TIMES | Sahara Reporters", I immediately jumped into it, hoping to see the author decimate Senator Enang and debunk his claim line by line with facts and figure. He never did. 

I wanted to see verifiable facts, with respect to names, number of wells or blocs and the state of origin of the respective owners.  He never did. 

Mr. Akinosho has the right to accuse Mr. Alabo-George of not doing serious research in his “famous article” that he (Akinosho) referenced in his own article. Doing so, one would have thought that Mr. Akinosho (himself) did a thorough job in his research before setting out to rebut Senator Etang' allegations. He never did.

That Mr. Akinosho is knowledgeable in the oil and gas industry is not in doubt. Be that as it may, the issue at stake is not about the history or production capacity of specific wells or blocs. It is about the numbers, the names, and the state of origin of the major players in the industry. All we want is a break-down - the percentage by each region. Period. That's what Senator Enang's presentation was about. Until you have the facts to debunk his claims or allegations, hold your breath. 

This is not about north versus south. It is about unraveling the mystery or secrecy that encapsulates ownership and control of oil blocs, and to what extent few wealthy Nigerians exercise complete control over the industry to the detriment of the greater majority. 

The sad truth is that the same people whose aquatic resources have been desecrated and permanently damaged due to indiscriminate exploratory activities by big oil conglomerates do not have a fair share of the crude oil bonanza. Maybe it is a sin for being privileged by nature to inhabit the same land and swamp where the liquid gold is being mined. That is the contradiction.

Fact Check:

Indeed, President Goodluck Jonathan’s (Niger Delta) election as President of Nigeria is important symbolically, but they cannot overcome 50 years of abuse of federal character, quota system, environmental degradation, and the indiscriminate destruction of the aquatic resources that the people of Niger Delta overwhelmingly depend on for their survival by the multi-national oil companies.

They survived 50 years of neglect and deprivations. That is a fact.

They were fishermen, they were into rubber and they were into timber. They were industrious, self-secure and self-sufficient. Under-educated? Yes, but never lazy. They were loyal landlords; minding their own business, until the uninvited quests confiscated their land and water, took away the riches of their earth, and imperiled their means of sustenance.

And yes, they produced and drank ogogoro (local gin), but there was no drunkard and no insane delusional or hopeless mind rummaging the swampy landscape scavenging for a piece of the black gold simmering from crevices along the pipelines 50, 40, 30, 20, and 10 years ago. IOCs and the Federal Government of Nigeria took their humility for granted and left them economically pulverized. 

But for your WANTON polluting job, there would not have been hopelessness, laziness, or destabilization of crude oil production. 

Ogogoro has nothing to do with it. Greed on the part of the indigenes has nothing to do with it. Your greed has everything to do with it. Your blind ambition, your colonizing mentality, even in our modern jet age, has everything to do with it. 

Fifty, forty, thirty, twenty, and ten years ago, there was no burning, and there was no looting. There was no kidnapping of white men and not so white men for ransom. There was no blowing up of crude oil pipelines, and there was no lamentation of force majeure by Shell, by BP, or by Chevron. 

For more than 50 years we took their humility for weakness. We flare gas, desecrate their land and pollute their water. We call them lazy and useless. And we treated Niger Delta as a conquered territory. 

Indeed, there is corruption and mismanagement of public funds in the region, but the situation is not different from the predominant culture in the nation at large. Appalling and disturbing as it, it does not provide a reasonable ground for obstructing the inclusion of Host Community Fund in the PIB. And the inclusion per se shouldn't be used as a bargaining chip to impede the passage of the very important Petroleum Industry Bill. Mismanagement of public funds and inclusion of Host Community Funds in the PIB are mutually exclusive. 

At this point in time, I am in total support of the demand made by the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), that the National Assembly and Federal government commence an investigation into the claim made at the floor of the Senate by Senator Enang regarding the 83% control of oil blocs by Northerner political leaders. Let's have the correct figure about who holds what and what license in the industry. Not a lopsided argument. This is no time to play the race card or activate religious acrimony. It is between the business and political leaders who hijacked the oil blocs and the vast oil fields versus the rest of us. 

Update - March 11, 2018.

This essay is experiencing consistent hits since yesterday. And I want to point out that Senator Enang is now the SSA to the President on matters relating to the National Assembly. Whether or not he has the audacity to present before his Oga the ecological situation in the Niger Delta and the reasonableness of expediting the passage of the PIB into law is a different story.