THE IMPARTIAL OBSERVER
Bunkering, Blood, Bungling and Botching Niger Delta Policy
Hank Eso
Sunday 27 July 2008
Every
bureaucracy creates its own weakness. Nowhere is this statement truer, than in
the way the Nigerian government has handled the Nigeria Delta crisis. Indeed,
the government suffers from a deficit of ideas and policies on this dossier,
even as President Umaru Yar’Adua continue to insist that a "blood oil cartel
is behind much of the violence in the Niger Delta". If so, what is the
government doing?
Many have come to believe that Nigerian Government policy or lack thereof, is fraught with hypocrisy and layered with double standards. Well that may be the goods news. Here is the bad news. The Nigerian Government, it seems, have been working against it own goals by financing the militants. The latest twist is that the Nigerian Government is embarrassed and immersed in the controversy of its oil agency, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), paying off militants in the Niger Delta. Whether the payments happened or not, is now immaterial. What is clear is that there has been a systematic bungling and botching of the Niger Delta policy.
Recently under oath and on record, Abubakar Lawal Yar'Adua, NNPC's Group Managing Director disclosed to the House of Representatives Committee on Finance, that his organization had engaged in talks with the Niger Delta militants. Fair enough. Then the bombshell! He added that NNPC had also paid the militants some N1.4 billion ($12 million) over two months before being allowed undertake repairs of a damaged oil facility in Delta State. Shocks! Government it seems, cannot make up its mind if it wants to negotiate with the brigands who now engage in economic sabotage and terrorism or flush them out.
Moreover, what was Yar'Adua’s rationalization, for actions that ran counter to government stated policies and duplicated the statutory role of the NDDC? His revealing, yet troubling words were: "The price we pay is very high. It is difficult to get expatriates to work in the Niger Delta. We paid militants $12 million because we were losing $81 million to the problem of the Chanomi pipeline in Delta State." Amazing!
Here now is the ex-post facto explanation and attending controversy. On the heels of Yar'Adua’s testimony, the NNPC management speedily recanted its GMD’s claim. For their part, a convenient afterthought I suppose, the money was paid, not to the militants, but to a community-based company to protect its oil facilities. Well, well. The gist is that NNPC paid huge "protection fees", when government continues to deploy a huge military contingent, assets and financial resources towards the same goal. Nevertheless, there are disquieting and damning questions that demand answers.
First, did Abuja approve the payments, or was NNPC unilaterally engaging in expenses from the Federation Account and the disbursement of public funds without statutory authority to incur such expenses?
Second, what capacity and leverage did the nameless community-based organization have over the Niger Delta militants?
Third, where, how and in what context was this payment situated to the Niger Delta Summit, which is in the purview of the Vice President of the Federation and involves presumptive stakeholder in the Niger Delta?
Fourth, how could such large funds, which have security implication, since it could be used to procure more arms for the militants, be disbursed without the national security agencies and the military being involved in its negotiation and transfer.
Finally, what is the morality of such payoffs that only fuels extremism?
We need answers and not whitewash answers! As things stand, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) representatives have refuted being paid off and went further to allege that the said money was “shared among top NNPC, Joint Task Force and Delta State officials while a pittance was paid as "protection fees" to unscrupulous persons masquerading as militants.” MEND also asserted that NNPC had underreported what it actually paid out, which by its own account, was close to N2.9 billion ($25 million).
Although this is merely academic, another question worth asking of NNPC, is what the return in investment has been, vis a vis, security of its facilities and possible reduction in hostage taking and kidnapping. More fundamentally, what was the Nigerian government policy on dealing with and negotiating with kidnappers and those involved in terrorism, be it motivated by political, economic or religious considerations, and did NNPC consider such policies?
It is most ironic that NNPC would disburse funds to a so-called community based organization, when NNDC has an annual budget of almost N80 billion, for similar community support and reinvestment programs. Moreover, oil pipeline technology, including erupted pipeline repairs, is not a job that is outsourced routinely to non-professionals. This point puts to lie the explanation of Dr. Levi Ajuonuma, NNPC’s Group General Manager for Public Affairs, when he claimed recently, that no company could access the vandalized Chanomi Creek pipeline to carry out repairs since the community did not give access to the contractors.
Essentially and on its face value, Dr. Ajuonuma implied that the Chanomi Creek community extorted money from NNPC. If they would not grant access to NNPC vendors to repair the vandalized pipeline, but would take money from NNPC to do the job themselves, clearly there is something untoward about the entire setup.
Additionally, Ajuonuma's explanation calls into question, Government policy of setting up a military, police and security agencies Joint Task Force (JTF) in the Niger Delta region, at enormous expenses. NNPC engaging locals and communities to police its pipelines amounts to a vote of non-confidence in the JTF and indeed, in the extant government policies. It is also more than ironic, that Ajuonuma never for once indicated if NNPC had requested the assistance of the Joint Task Force (JTF) when access to the area was denied to its contractors. The question of complicity between the community and the militants also arise. If the community could stop militants from attacking the pipelines, then, they must be in direct contact and know who the perpetrators of the vandalism are.
The Nigerian Government should come clean on this matter. It must investigate and make public its findings of the NNPC pay off scheme or is it scam? This much is certain. Despite NNPC’s pay off, the crisis in the Niger Delta has continued unabated. There has been a rash of violence, hostage taking, kidnapping and vandalizing of pipelines, pump stations and even the overrun of offshore bases.
BEYOND THE NIGER DELTA SUMMIT BROUHAHA
Clearly, there is a lot of profiteering off the Niger Delta crisis, by the militants, the local communities and their leaders, criminals, the foreign oil companies and now, government bureaucrats. While the crisis festers and creeps toward the intractable, those engaged in bunkering in the violence-prone region are smiling to the bank. Nigeria is the all round loser. Loss of revenue apart, the Niger Delta crisis has immensely contributed to the perception that Nigeria is a nation perpetually in crisis. The essential tragedy of the Niger Delta crisis, is not just its negative impact on the local communities and Nigeria at large, or its contribution to spiraling global oil prices; rather it is that the government, meanwhile, continue to engage in convenient inconsistencies on the Nigeria Delta.
A troubling trend is the mixed signals from Abuja. Does the Nigerian government want to resolve the crisis through dialogue and a Summit, or through the use force or through pay-offs? There is a seemingly random notion that both the Niger Delta stakeholders and the government want to negotiate. However, this may yet prove fallacious since the militants, have not accepted that the stakeholders speak for them, nor have the stakeholders offered any tangible prove that they can reign in the militants or even bring them to the negotiation table. Moreover, just as the U.S. government is pressing Nigeria to take a peaceful approach to the Niger Delta dilemma, the UK is seeking in insinuate British Special Services military advisers into the region , presumably to advise and assist Nigeria with “river and maritime security”.
Just as the Government is recovering from its misbegotten decision to appoint Prof. Ibrahim Gambari as chairman of the Steering Committee of the Niger Delta Summit, it is clear that seemingly unbridgeable gaps exist procedurally and substantively, on how the Government and the so-called stakeholders believe the summit should be convoked. The swell of opposition to Mr. Gambari justified or not, was a smokescreen. However, the government clearly blundered by not doing its homework. As a diplomat and person, Gambari posses the bona fides to mediate a crisis such as the Niger Delta, but since all politics is local, local objection to his involvement ought to have been anticipated. This is now a moot point since the opposition has nullified Gambari’s relevance in the peace process.
Unquestionably, a lot of posturing and egos continue to bedevil the expeditious resolution of the Niger Delta crisis. If a dichotomy in approach exists, it is less concrete in relation to the alleged grievances. Niger Delta crisis is no longer a dissent of the governed or the disenfranchised. Usurpers, complicit enablers and political opportunists are fully engaged in the process and seek to hold the government hostage, but only so, because the government has allowed itself to be manipulated. These opportunists have succeeded in creating false premises, false agendas and false frontiers they seek to compel the government to address. Such tendencies are not critical elements of purposeful partnership or the route to an open, constructive and productive dialogue on the Niger Delta.
Criminality, vandalism and terrorism have never been and will never be essential ancillaries to Peacebuilding. Decidedly, so long as oil prices keep spiraling upwards and there are foreign oil companies willing to pay hard currency for Nigeria’s sweet crude, either legitimately to Nigerian authorities or illegally to rogue militants and rogue local politicians and rogue community leaders, the Niger Delta crisis will persist. As the cliché goes, the genie is already out of the bottle. What we now have in the Niger Delta is pervasive trade in blood oil.
So what is next? What happens now? For the umpteenth time, I must underline that there is a surfeit of policy prescriptions on the Niger Delta crisis (See,” Curbing the angst in the Niger Delta” and “The Niger Delta Conundrum”). However, there is also an attending dearth of the political will to articulate and implement hardheaded robust and unapologetic policies and programs. Thus, the Niger Delta crisis, which is the direct outcrop of the twisted legacy of Nigeria’s over reliance on oil, and dysfunctional developmental, resource control and revenue sharing public policy persists. Acceptably, there is no justifiable explanation that the region of the country that produces the “golden egg” should remain so underdeveloped. If the environmental degradation caused by oil exploration is factored in, then, the people of Niger Delta has a legitimate grouse. Nonetheless, the solution to the Niger Delta crisis remains essentially purposeful governance, a Marshall Plan and treating the crisis as national security issue that it is, rather than as a vexatious partisan distraction, which it is certainly not, assuming it ever was.
With neither anger nor partiality, until next time, keep the law, stay impartial, and observe closely.
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Hank Eso is a columnist for Kwenu.com (New Jersey). His commentaries on Nigerian politics and global issues have appeared in The New Times (Lagos), African Profile International (New York), The Nigerian And Africa Abroad, (New York), African Market News (New Jersey) and in Gamji.com and Nigeriavillagesquare.com
© Hank Eso, Sunday 27 July 2008
Email: hankeso@aol.com