1
Ogoni Oil: Economic and Political
Underrepresentation, and Environmental
Degradation
Centre for Environment, Human Rights and Development, 2014
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Title Page
SPRING 2015
GLOBAL STUDIES CAPSTONE SEMINAR
SONOMA STATE UNIVERSITY
TITLE OF REPORT Ogoni Oil: Economic and Political
Underrepresentation, and Environmental
Degradation
GROUP The Underrepresented Ones
HAND-IN DATE April 30th, 2015
SUPERVISOR Rheyna Laney and Jeff Baldwin
TOTAL NORMAL PAGES 57.45 pages (137,888 characters with
spaces)
Rebekah Cryderman
________________
Lauren Silveira
________________
Jackson Stogner
________________
Taylor Vitangeli
________________
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Acknowledgments and Dedication
Our research team is grateful for the opportunity to learn from our peers and our professors at
Sonoma State University throughout our academic career. We would like to take the time to
thank our Senior Capstone Thesis advisors: John Nardine, Dr. Jeff Baldwin, and Dr. Rheyna
Laney. We would also like to express our appreciation to the authors from whom we have used
throughout our research to gain extensive knowledge on the topics of the resource curse,
corruption, political ecology, environmental degradation, and social movements. Lastly, we
would like to vocalize our gratitude and reverence to the local communities of the Niger Delta
who continue to strive for their improved well-being despite structural hindrances.
Cover photo of a protest by the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) in
River State in 2014.
Photo courtesy of the Centre for Environment, Human Rights and Development
(http://cehrd.com/our-environment-is-our-life-clean-up-and-pay-up-now/).
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Abstract
Nigeria’s government, through corrupt practices, has excluded, politically and economically,
many ethnic communities in the Niger Delta. These same corrupt practices that have resulted in
the underrepresentation of local communities have also caused the marginalization and neglect
of the local environment. This neglect of the local environment has further marginalized the
local people who rely on the environment as a way of life. The Ogoni community of the Niger
Delta serves as a case study for this all-too-common path of developing regions of the world that
concentrate on resource extraction. They also represent a community that is mobilizing to
address these concerns, and though significant strides at the federal level are yet to be made,
there continues to be advocacy for progress on economic, political, and environmental issues.
The global context of resource extraction allows the broad themes and salient patterns found
through this research to become applicable for further research on other communities, and their
social movements, across the globe.
Key Words: Niger Delta, Underrepresentation, Social Movements, Oil, Resource Curse,
Corruption, Political Ecology.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Methodology and Research Design
2.1 Approaches
2.2 Case Boundaries
2.3 Frameworks
2.4 Key Terms
3. Literature Review
3.1 The Resource Curse
3.2 Corruption
3.3 Political Ecology
3.4 Local People of the Niger Delta and Oil
3.5 Oil Industry and the Environment
4. Case Study
4.1 Petrol and Layered Logistics
4.2 Impaired Institutions
4.3 Facts about The Ogoni
4.4 The Economic Context of Development
4.5 The Story of Shell Oil
4.6 Environmental Degradation
4.6.1 Environmental Degradation
4.6.2 Environmental Regulations
4.7 Forms of Representation in the Delta
4.7.1 MOSOP
4.7.2 MEND
4.7.3 Local NGOs and Civil Organizations
4.7.4 Regional NGOs
5. Analysis
5.1 The Resource Curse
5.2 Corruption
5.2.1 The Role of Shell Oil
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5.3 Political Ecology
6. Conclusion
7. Perspectives
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Abbreviations
AGRA: The Associated Gas Re-injection Act 1979
ANEEJ: African Network for Environment and Economic Justice
DPR: Department of Petroleum Resources
EEFC: [Nigerian] Economic and Financial Crimes Commission
GDP: Gross Domestic Product
IRIN: Integrated regional Information Networks
MEND: Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta
MNEs: multinational enterprises
MOCs: multinational oil companies
MOSOP: Movement for the Survival of he Ogoni People
NDDC: Niger Delta Development Commission
NEITI: Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative
NER: Nigeria Economic Report
NGO: Non- Governmental Organization
NNOC: Nigerian National Oil Corporation
NNPC: Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation
OEL: Oil Exploration License
OGEPA: Ogoni Environmental Protection Agency
OML: Oil Mining Lease
OPEC: Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
OPL: Oil Prospecting License
PPT: Petroleum Profit Tax
PSCs: Production Sharing Contracts
PWYP: Pay What You Publish
RMAFC: Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission
RSSDP: Rivers State Sustainable Development Program
SPDC: Shell Petroleum Development Company
TNOCs: Transnational oil companies
TPH: Total petroleum hydrocarbon
UN: United Nation
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UNEP: United Nations Environment Program
UNPO: Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization
BBC 2015
9
UNEP 2011
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Ogoni Oil: Economic and Political Underrepresentation, and Environmental Degradation
1. Introduction
The topic of minority underrepresentation and its potential effects upon the environment
arose through a classroom brainstorming session dedicated to drawing out the different focuses
our Global Studies major. We then synthesized multiple ideas into a single topic in order to
reveal a new path of exploration for our research project. With our concentrations differing
between Social, Political and Economic Development and Global Environmental Policy, we
realized the potential in covering a topic that allows us all to delve into each of these realms. The
interdisciplinary nature of Global Studies allows us to come into contact with similar issues of
resource extraction and indigenous empowerment in developing areas of the world, expanding
our case study options. Each of our group members has had some exposure to this topic through
a variety of courses such as World Regions in a Global Context and Liberation Ecologies. To
further focus our topic on a specific region and situation, we discussed options at length
involving nearly every continent. After a period of meditation on the exact circumstance to write
about, we decided on the oil extraction industry of Nigeria and its local community members
who are not involved with, or benefiting from, those processes. This option appeals to our group
because of personal commitments to social justice, current reports of Nigeria in international
media regarding instability, and our own observations of falling oil prices while understanding
from scholastic backgrounds that International Political Economy is what is at play.
As a group, we have discussed several key topics that are generally known about
underrepresentation and oil in Nigeria. Nigeria is a major oil producing country and a member of
the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).1 Despite the vast oil wealth in
Nigeria, there is great economic inequality due to inequitable resource allocation.2 The lack of
just resource allocation has led to the underrepresentation of many groups within oil producing
communities, and has impacted their political and socioeconomic well-being. We also know that
1 Chris Nwachukwu Okeke. 2008. “The Second Scramble for Africa's Oil and Mineral Resources: Blessing or
Curse?” .International Lawyer. 42, no. 1. p. 200. 2 Chris Nwachukwu Okeke. ibid., p. 199.
11
the Nigerian government has been accused of corruption. Another generally known fact is that
Nigeria was once colonized by Great Britain up until their independence in 1960.3
We have made one main assumption throughout our research of this topic: oil production
is, in itself, degrading to the environment. With that said, we will explain in more detail the
damage that is done by oil spills and gas flaring.4 However, we believe that the detailed
discussion of the harm caused by carbon emissions on a global scale is better left to the plethora
of existing literature specifically on that topic. At this juncture, we believe that this is the extent
of our assumptions. We have recognized that the other ideas that we thought we might be
assuming are actually going to be addressed in our research as we move forward.
In the areas that have great economic gains to be garnered from mineral or resource
mining, there are many dimensions to explore. There is often an associated favoritism of certain
shareholders and a neglected interest of undervalued stakeholders in these situations, typically a
socio-economic, ethnic, or political minority who goes unheard or unheeded. The political
systems in place have embedded social relations into their structures, sometimes referred to as
Godfatherism5, which enables a politician to be chosen based on their strategic alliances and
promises to those who have helped them gain the position.6 It is the neglected groups which
require mobilization as civil society in order to have their interests advocated for, and which
must make sustained efforts to effectively partake in that processes of the planning and
extraction.7 Although some progress has been made, the detrimental environmental and social
effects of mining endeavors are partly due to the inability of communities to act as partners in
these projects and have their wisdom, interests, or input embodied.8 The relation between this
disregard and environmental degradation is what our group is hoping to explore through our
capstone research project. Our main research question is as follows: "In a country whose
economy has relied heavily on mineral resource extraction, how is the political and
3 Jesse Salah Ovadia. 2013. The Nigerian 'One Percent' and the Management of National Oil Wealth Through
Nigerian Content. Science & Society. 77, no. 3: 47-75. 4 C.O. Opukri, and Ibaba S. Ibaba. 2008. "Oil induced environmental degradation and internal population
displacement in the Nigeria’s Niger Delta’." Journal of Sustainable Development in Africa 10, no. 1: 173-193. 5 Okoye, I. 2007. "Political Godfatherism, Electoral Politics and Governance in Nigeria." In Annual Conference of
the Mpsa Held In Chicago, USA. p. 3 6 Sarah Chayes. 2015. Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security. WW Norton & Company:
pp.125-126 7 Julia Maxted. 2006. Exploitation of Energy Resources in Africa and the Consequences for Minority Rights.
Journal of Developing Societies. 22, no. 1. p. 35. 8 Julia Maxted. ibid.
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economic underrepresentation of local communities related to the presence of
environmental problems in the Niger Delta?"
In addition to the main research question and in order to comprehensively explore the
topic, other questions must be asked and researched. These questions include: How has
corruption in the government and unequal resource allocation contributed to underrepresentation
of local communities in the Niger Delta? How has the theft of crude oil impacted the
environment in the Niger Delta? What role does development, or lack there of, play in the
economy and underrepresentation in Nigeria? How does the environmental degradation of the
Niger Delta affect local populations? How do local politics and social movements in the Niger
Delta affect oil extraction in the region? How can the government encourage or discourage the
oil industry?
The purpose of our research is to explore these connections in a thorough manner and
obtain a greater understanding of the current circumstances in the Niger Delta. Our research has
the possibility of shedding light upon the crucial environmental leveraging points in the region,
across the continent and in other parts of the globe subjected to similar situations. We have the
opportunity to impact how others, in academic circles and in less formal arenas, may see both
underrepresentation and environmental issues in local and in global scopes. By providing an
inclusive contextual framework and a complementary perspective for viewing these themes, we
hope to be able to breakthrough the biases surrounding the African continent in popular
discourse and create a platform for future research, individual learning, and organizational action
to build upon.
2. Methodology and Research Design
In this section, we will discuss the approaches we chose in answering our research
question. We will also explain the process by which we chose our case study. The case we have
chosen is a single instrumental case9–we can look at this case and use it as an example of a larger
problem plaguing many developing countries. The issue of the resource curse, environmental
degradation, and corruption are all issues that are by no means confined to the Niger Delta. For
this very reason, we have not classified this as an intrinsic case10
–we deem it not to be unique to
9 John W. Creswell. 2013. Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches. Sage. p. 99
10 Creswell ibid., p. 100
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the region. However, an in-depth look at the situation in the Niger Delta could potentially be
generalizable to the greater issues of the resource curse, environmental degradation, and
corruption in other states around the world.
We have elected to narrow our research to a single case study as opposed to to a multiple
case study.11
Due to time constraints, our aim is to fully understand the situation in a single case,
rather than weaken our investigation through the task of examining multiple cases with
comparable depth. However, in a different setting, a multiple case study could illuminate
similarities between cases and provide additional data for future research. A single case study
will provide a substantial example to illustrate the multifarious character of our approach and to
produce solid findings that lend themselves as pattern-building for other works. The case of the
Ogoni people in the Niger Delta can be classified as what Alan Bryman would call an
exemplifying case–it demonstrates the circumstances of a situation prevalent around the world.12
This classification also makes a justification for the implementation of a single-case study. We
are approaching this study by applying a holistic analysis, rather than an embedded analysis,13
because there will not be a focus on a particular subunit within this case. Rather, we will be
examining this case entire case in a more general way.
We will be using complex reasoning for our research, applying inductive reasoning to
reach conclusions about information gathered, as well as using deductive reasoning to construct
themes and compare them with data collected.14
As Creswell suggests, we will be using multiple
methods for our research.15
Forms of data will include secondary sources such as books and peer
reviewed articles, as well as reliable sources from news outlets. By using multiple sources, we
can triangulate evidence and remove any inconsistencies presented in single-source data. The
validity of these document sources have been investigated by our group through the critical
examination of primary sources for first-hand account evidence, and secondary sources to
reiterate main points we make, and find differing points of view. Tertiary sources will only be
used to remain up to date on current activities occurring in the Niger Delta.16
We have been
11
Creswell ibid., p. 99 12
Alan Bryman. 2008. Social Research Methods. Oxford University Press. p. 56 13
Creswell op. cit., pp. 100-101 14
Creswell ibid., p. 45 15
Creswell ibid. 16
Kate L. Turabian. 2013. A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations. University of
Chicago Press. pp. 25-27
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adamant to use the works of respected field experts, university-affiliated professors, reliable local
organizations, and other credible authors who are part of reputable publishers and institutions.
2.1 Approaches
We are using an emergent design for this research paper; in other words, as we accrue
information and gather an increasing understanding of the topic, our research plan will evolve
accordingly.17
Our intent is to produce a paper that is credible, transferable, dependable and
confirmable.18
To ensure a final work that has internal validity, our explanation of the causal
effects will show a strong relationship between the independent variable of government activity
and the dependent variables of environmental degradation and underrepresention.19
External
validity will be established through our global framework which reflects upon the greater
application of findings from this common case, and ecological validity will be addressed through
the localized analysis of how indigenous groups are affected daily by the reality of their
situation.20
Constructing comprehensive qualitative research requires an awareness of researcher
roles in interpretation and the involvement of natural viewpoints which are “sensitive” to the
subjects being considered.21
A quantitative approach is unable to capture the intricacies of people
on the ground who are experiencing their lives within such a living, breathing context. Our data
is no less credible than numbers and because our focus is on the well being of humanity, the
situation may provide a more suitable occasion for analysis using epistemologies like social
constructivism rather than more rigid or reductionist methods like postpositivism.22
The
interpretivism embodied in our research is a logic utilized to seek an understanding of the
experience for marginalized communities rather than only looking for confined explanations of
the situation in the Niger Delta removed from human ascription. The subjects of our analysis are
essential to the hermeneutic approach we plan to employ; the hermeneutic approach recognizes
the significance of individual thought and processes that may impact a situation or
environment.23
Through the interpretation of data from the perspective of participants, we
17
Creswell op. cit., p. 47 18
Bryman. op. cit.,. p. 34 19
Bryman ibid., p. 32 20
Bryman ibid., p. 33 21
Creswell. op. cit., p. 44 22
Creswell. ibid., p. 24 23
Bryman. op. cit., p. 15
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acknowledge that our subjectivity may be a source of analysis but we will actively make it a
point to convey the meanings of our research by people actually living the experiences we
describe.
Upon a group reflection, we have discovered several predispositions engendered by our
academic and social experience which may lead to a perspective on the topic that differs from
those of other researchers. One major potential partiality is our feelings about the prospect of oil;
we all agree that the production of oil is a dead end road that should not gather continuing
investments in the future. For this reason, our perspective on oil production, and thus, the issue
of environmental degradation as a result of said production, may inherently be perceived as
negative. The other main potential bias which might be found in our research paper is that we are
all partial to local perspectives over foreign or corporate perspectives. For this reason, our
perception of conflicts between the two may lean towards favorable outcomes for local
communities. Our feelings on these topics stem primarily from our academic background. The
lifeblood of the Global Studies major is the desire for the understanding of global issues. Three
of our members have a concentration in global environmental policy. Thus, environmental
degradation is a sensitive subject. The fourth member of our group has a concentration on social,
political, and economic development of developing nations, so naturally, conflicts between local
communities and outside forces are of particular concern. These are the two main biases among
our group.
With that said, we will apply a holistic account24
–we will make it a priority to
acknowledge and address the various perspectives in this complex case in order to help us
understand the situation as a whole. These ethical leanings are situated within a research format
which applies a constructivist approach, meaning that we recognize how the significance and
understanding of situations are socially constructed by individuals as well as researchers, and we
have left our questions intentionally open in order to receive a more varied response from all
angles.25
We will analyze the relevance of theories that build our framework as well as those that
disagree with it in order to cultivate an objective outlook. The avenues mentioned will elucidate
24
Creswell. op. cit., p. 47 25
Creswell. ibid., p.24
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the exploration of our case with multiple perspectives without shaping our understanding in a
narrow direction colored by purely personal views.26
2.2 Case Boundaries
The boundaries of our study manifest in different levels according to our specific
research concentrations: social, environmental, economic, and political. The social dimensions of
our study will refer to the Ogoni ethnic group, local activists and other stakeholders living within
the Niger Delta in Nigeria. Because of the nature of interstate networks and connections, we
cannot confine our research of the Ogoni to a solitary spatial zone, despite the existence of an
area designated as Ogoniland. Instead, we have chosen to stipulate our social realm as the entire
Niger Delta, a relatively small, 70,000 km²27
portion of the state of Nigeria located where the
mouth of the Niger River meets the Atlantic Ocean. The environmental element of our research
will arrange itself within the region of the Niger Delta and its surrounding bodies of water
affected by Niger Delta oil activity. Our choice to limit the environmental aspects in this manner
allows for our work to spotlight the problems incurred by oil extraction, and not other industries,
and the difficulties endured by oil producing communities, not other localities which may have a
smaller impact from resource extraction practices. To the extent possible, we will attempt to
focus our research on the Niger Delta explicitly to provide an unambiguous insight into the
current situation. This being noted, we also recognize that the range of economic and political
circumstances in the Delta is greatly impacted by the actions of the national government. Hence,
for these intertwining yet separate realms of analysis, economy and politics, we will widen our
scope to the federal level and delineate our restrictions to the conduct of the Nigerian
government, institutions and markets.
In regards to temporal limitations, the scope of the case study will be limited to the last
twenty years–the time following Ken Saro-Wiwa’s death. We will look at changes and
developments in the political and economic status of the Ogoni people from 1996 onward, while
comparing it to changes in environmental degradation in the area over the same time period. The
focus, though, will be more on recent years than in the few years immediately following Saro-
Wiwa’s death. This paper will reference the history of oil in Nigeria, starting at its discovery in
26
Creswell. ibid., p. 60 27
World Wildlife Foundation. 2015. Niger River Delta.
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1956, to encompass the full connotation of what has occurred over time. We feel it is important
to look at the past in order to understand the present situation in the Niger Delta. The colonial
context and continuous accounts of exploitation provide a more nuanced discernment of current
conditions, and demonstrate why communities have felt the need to organize against oil
extraction as their needs have been relentlessly ignored.28
This historical information will be
used exclusively for the purpose of providing background. We have placed these spatial and
temporal limitations for our case study, but we will relate our findings to their significance in a
global setting in our paper.
Our decision to research this topic was driven by our curiosity to delve into one of the
most highly politicized commodities of the global market: oil. Industrialized nations consume
this nonrenewable resource at a rapid rate, wars have been fought, and local people conveniently
forgotten in order to procure this commodity.29
We have collectively chosen to explore the
ongoing struggle for environmental, social, and economic justice in the face of transnational oil
corporations and corrupt governments in the Niger Delta through the example of the Ogoni
people. Our decision stems from the immense level of activity that has occurred in Ogoniland for
decades and the inspiration that has come from learning about the tragedy surrounding Ken Saro-
Wiwa and the execution of the Ogoni Nine which gained global infamy in 1995.30
This ethnic
group has become a focal point within the Niger Delta and a representation of what can go awry
when local peoples endeavor to achieve equality within an unequal system. The Ogoni people
have remained active in the Niger Delta as they continue to demand agency regarding their lands
and livelihoods.31
2.3 Frameworks
For the qualitative research indicative of social sciences like Global Studies, the
perspective of the various participants are essential to include and strengthen the work’s worth in
the wider world.32
In the instance of our specific research case the topic in question is the
underrepresentation of local groups in the Niger Delta and so the largest mistake we could make
28
Maxted. op. cit., p. 33. 29
Julia Maxted. ibid., p. 29. 30
Human Rights Watch. 1996. Nigeria Permanent Transition 1996. 31
Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People. 2015. 32
Creswell op. cit., p. 47
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would be to leave out the voices we have found that need to be heard. Because we have not had
the opportunity to travel to Nigeria and observe these circumstances first-hand, we cannot speak
from a place of understanding in the way indigenous people of the area are able to. The meaning
given and interpretations ascribed to the occurrences in the Delta are most significant when they
are provided by those participating in the struggle and advocacy discussed. Stakeholders in the
extraction of natural resources in the Niger Delta are multi-level and include: both local and
national governments and politicians, state judiciary structures, transnational oil corporations,
international bodies, non-governmental organizations, state civil society, and local communities
of the Niger Delta that include individuals such as activists, militants, and agrarians. Each
contributor plays a significant role in either the perpetuation or prevention of harmful systems.
As parties with different concerns, they do not always agree on strategies or even goals. Some
citizens have been assimilated into the current markets in a sustainable way but some
communities have also been taken advantage of and had to defend their rights to land, livelihood
and life from the encroachment of multinational corporations, government mandates and
interests that do not represent them.
Our research has been guided under a series of related frameworks such as political
ecology33
and the resource curse.34
Political ecology is a complex term, the meaning of which we
have gathered from Garry Peterson. Peterson defines political ecology as “combining the
concerns of ecology and political economy that together represent an ever-changing dynamic
tension between ecological and human change, and between diverse groups within society at
scales from the local individual to the Earth as a whole.”35
This framework will provide a path of
multidimensional understanding as it relates to our study and the heavy leverage that politics
have upon an environment. The resource curse which has been outlined by Michael Ross will be
an important aspect of our analysis as we explore how the economic climate of the Niger Delta
can impact the political circumstances in local communities.36
The resource curse can be
described as an instance in which states who have incredible wealth in the form of natural
resources are adversely affected by this plenty through a subsequent narrowed focus of policies,
33
Garry Peterson. 2000. "Political Ecology and Ecological Resilience:: An Integration of Human and Ecological
Dynamics." Ecological Economics 35, no. 3: 323-336. 34
Michael L. Ross. 1999. "The Political Economy of the Resource Curse." World politics 51, no. 02. p. 298. 35
Peterson. op. cit. 36
Ross. op. cit.
19
resulting in nonreciprocal economic remunerations and therefore a slower route to sustainable
development. The framework of the resource curse is useful for our research because of its direct
relation to the circumstances of extraction-concentrated economies in a developing country like
Nigeria. It is also useful for the illustration of the consequences borne by oil producing
communities who do not receive equitable compensation for their land productivity and who
instead bear political, social, and environmental costs.
2.4 Key Terms
There are several key terms that we wish to define, as they will appear frequently
throughout this paper. The first key term is corruption. It is a common word, but a clear
description of how we interpret it will be beneficial. By corruption, normally referring to
government corruption, we mean the illegal and intentionally secret behavior that leads to
personal gain at the cost of society as a whole, often in terms of public revenues. Kleptocracy is
synonymous with our working definition of corruption, and is a term that may be used
throughout the paper to refer to this phenomenon. The next key term is environmental
degradation. By this we mean anthropogenic damage to air, land, water, and the ecosystems that
benefit from them. Another key term is underrepresentation. In this context, underrepresentation
means the lack of a proportional contribution to decision-making regarding social, political,
economic and environmental matters. A word we will use synonymously with
underrepresentation is exclusion. We are using these words with intent, and define them in a
specific fashion, because these concepts are the essence of our research and will arise frequently
throughout this paper. They are the most indispensable terms in our study, and it is important for
the reader to be able to clearly understand our meaning of these terms as our study unfolds.
3. Literature Review
3.1.The Resource Curse
Our two frameworks, political ecology and the resource curse, have guided us in our
exploration of applicable literature. We will be able to explore a variety of works by experts in
these fields, along with different perspectives concerning the circumstances which the country of
20
Nigeria is facing, in order to enhance our understanding and capacity to critically assess those
circumstances properly.
Chris Nwachukwu Okeke, an accomplished Nigerian professor who has been the dean of
two Faculties of Law at Nigerian institutions, calls the present day foreign presence in Africa the
“Second Scramble”, a reference equating the colonial era of infiltration and imperialism of
African lands to the “modern oil craze” of Western countries and corporations.37
The association
of these two time periods has the suggestion of immense exploitation, though the second round
has the central difference of increased private sector and international financial institution
involvement. Also, compared to the first round which was comprised of mainly government
action, the clamber is grasping for not only physical minerals but the control of state-owned
enterprises of African administrations as well. Despite the escalation of investment in the natural
extraction industry by affluent transnational companies, “little of the proceeds from the oil
wealth eventually get to the majority of the people who need help most.”38
This manipulation is echoed in Julia Maxted’s article, which covers multiple cases across
Africa and has an entire section on the situation occurring in Nigeria. Similar to Okeke, she
states that there is a “current scramble” for African resources, especially those necessary to
generate power, and that this “new imperialism” has left the social, economic, environmental,
health, and human rights issues of local communities in the Niger Delta “unfulfilled”.39
Influential state economies such as those of the United States depend heavily on oil for the
maintenance of their public and private lifestyles, including an increasingly large percentage
imported from West African states like Nigeria so as to lessen their reliance on states from the
contentious Middle East.40
Despite this growing demand and income accrued by the Nigerian
Federal Government, basic needs are not met in Nigerian communities such as potable water
sources, viable opportunities for livelihoods, and functional health or educational facilities,
particularly those in the Delta who were promised development by oil companies. This is blamed
on the prevalence of corruption and the equivocal reports on profits and local apportionment by
state administrations, the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) and international
37
Okeke. op. cit., p. 194. 38
Okeke. ibid., p. 199. 39
Maxted. op. cit. 40
Maxted. ibid. p. 29.
21
extraction corporations.41
Maxted emphasizes the damage done to Nigerian communities facing
prevailing transnational corporations who consistently leave the population out of essential
decision-making processes about their own land. As Section 7 of the Environmental Impact
Assessment Decree states, “before the Agency gives a decision on an activity … the Agency
shall give opportunity to government agencies, members of the public, experts in any relevant
discipline and interested groups to make comment on environmental impact assessment of the
activity.”42
Regrettably, tactics are utilized that make public participation of indigenous
communities difficult, traditional political structures are obstructed with policies of ‘divide and
conquer’, and violent strategies have been employed in order to quell voices of protest in areas of
unrest.43
Modern linkages between the governments of less developed nations and the commercial
interests of foreign states, which benefit both foreign powers and local elites more than
indigenous populations, demonstrate how state resources and policies disregard local interests.
The influence of multinational oil companies on economies is strong in the region but the
situation has also taken on a local quality in which extraction is supported by elite politicians and
officials who stand to gain personally from agreements and unenforced laws.44
This perspective
is helpful to our analysis because it encourages a critical view of the actions undertaken by
natural extraction industries and the governments who allow them to operate in their territories
by framing those arrangements with the historical continuation of profits bought at the cost of
human well being. This outlook is necessary to transcend other vested arguments which state that
certain economic practices are for the betterment of all; we have seen through our research and
through the lens of local peoples that this is not the case.
A foundational framework within our research has been the resource curse, which has
been a major part of the international discourse since the 1990s, though it has been building in
backgrounds since the 1970s.45
Scholars such as Michael Ross and Terry Lynn Karl have
elucidated the resource curse, which is also called the “paradox of plenty” and the “King Midas
problem” considering the juxtaposition of natural wealth and economic poverty within some
41
Maxted. ibid. p. 34. 42
International Centre for Nigerian Law. 1992. "Environmental Impact Assessment Decree No. 86 1992." 43
Maxted. op. cit., p. 34. 44
Terry Lynn Karl. 2005. "2. Understanding the Resource Curse." Covering Oil. Open Society Institute, New York.
p. 116. 45
Angela V. Carter. "Escaping the resource curse." Canadian Journal of Political Science 41, no. 01. p. 216.
22
states.46
In Ross’ pioneering article “The Political Economy of the Resource Curse”, he
addresses the strong indications that countries which depend heavily upon the extraction of a
single resource have a correlative and corrosive relationship with myopic economic strategies.
He claims a few reasons for the presence of the resource curse which fall into either the political
realm or economic realm. When he wrote this article in 1999, Ross found that of the countries
that were immensely in debt and impoverished, 27 out of 36 had economies concentrated on
natural resource extraction.47
Economic causes include volatile world markets, deteriorated trade provisions for natural
resources, “Dutch Disease” and the feeble support among multiple sectors of the economy.48
Political explanations for detriment involve the poor capacity of government leaders to see
beyond the momentary riches to be made, plans that ignore the property rights of locals, policies
that encourage the depletion of resources, and the creation of unaccountable rentier states.49
A
rentier state is one which “lives from the profits of oil,” or other locally-situated natural
resources sold to foreign powers, to a significant extent for its economic stability.50
Because of
this concentrated income a dynamic can arise that blends political action and economic policy to
a indiscernible and convoluted point. The Mahdavy commentary found in Ross postulated that
rentier states damage democracy as the dependence of governments on primary commodity
exportation to bolster coffers left them unconcerned with attempts to gather taxes for revenue,
and hence allowed them to remain unanswerable to the people of the state.51
When governments
become uncaring about their citizens, violence can erupt from clashes with public soldiers,
especially when locals attempt to assert their agency. Nigeria is listed as one of the countries
where “the rest of the economy, and the rule of law, have largely broken down” due to causes
such as those of the political and economic dimensions mentioned above.52
Karl aims to help readers in comprehending the resource curse and its manifestations by
first defining what it is not, and then by the parameters of what it is. The resource curse is
explained to not be an idea subject to the fluctuating misconceptions which surround it. Some
46
Karl. op. cit., p. 21. 47
Ross. op. cit., p. 322. 48
Ross. ibid., p. 306. 49
Ross. ibid., p. 308. 50
Karl. op. cit., p. 25. 51
Ross. op. cit., p. 312. 52
Ross. ibid. p. 321.
23
interpretations conceive that the unfortunate effects of the resource curse, such as substandard
rates of social well-being, are endured by any state with any amount of natural abundance. In this
article Karl discusses the numerous societal ailments that accompany the failing policies of
struggling extraction states, generating environmental degradation, poverty, and intolerable
health conditions for local communities.53
But, contrary to the idea that all natural commodities are an offense, states without a
substantial economic concentration on extraction do not suffer from the same consequences as
those that do. She clarifies the confusion of the term by mentioning that “in its narrowest form,
the resource curse refers to the inverse relationship between high natural resource dependence
and economic growth rates.”54
Reliance is typically demarcated by comparing the proportion of
primary resource exports to the aggregate state exports; if these amounts show that oil or other
extracted resources account for 60 to 95 percent of all state exports then the state is considered
dependent.55
Her work has found that “oil- and mineral-driven resource-rich countries are among
the weakest growth performers, despite the fact that they have high investment and import
capacity”56
and the “crux of the problem” is found in the incapable structures of governance.57
She asks a provoking question in her article that highlights the unequal standing of developed
and developing countries on the world stage: “If sophisticated governments in the more
developed world have trouble executing ambitious interventionist policies, how can governments
in less developed countries be expected to administer even more ambitious and complicated
policies?”58
This leaning on natural resources is in agreement with Ross by identifying it as a result of
rentier states, but differs in outlook by commenting that “not all resources are created equal.”59
Oil is one of the resources considered a specialty “‘point source’” export because of its origins in
constricted geological and fiscal jurisdictions.60
For countries which “[look] powerful but [are]
hollow” the democratic will of the people is subverted beneath the material aspirations of
53
Karl. op. cit., p. 22. 54
Karl. ibid., p. 23. 55
Karl. ibid. p. 22. 56
Karl. ibid. p. 23. 57
Karl. ibid. p. 25. 58
Karl. ibid. 59
Karl. ibid. p. 23. 60
Karl. ibid.
24
government officials who aim to personally profit from the state’s natural oil endowment.61
The
corruption that arises from the shadows of greed and mismanagement have come characterize
many resource-wealthy, economically poor countries like Nigeria, and led to the present
deplorable situation in local communities of the Niger Delta.62
Authors like Karl often speak of a “reality” where “countries that depend on oil for their
livelihood are among the most economically troubled, the most authoritarian, and the most
conflict-ridden in the world”, but these absolute insinuations are challenged by other studies in
the field.63
In the research conducted by Stephen Haber and Victor Menaldo, the affiliation
between authoritarianism and primary resource exporters is calculated. Through the design of
numerous models and tests which account for variable factors in 168 countries with data ranging
from the years 1800 to 2006, they strive to determine how polity has altered in times before and
after production.64
With the assortment of differing states, results were categorized by the
strength of the association and many were surprisingly recognized as having democratic
circumstances improve once financial prosperity was acquired through natural resource exports.
Nigeria is classified as an inconclusive C category: Neither Blessed nor Cursed, which denotes
the absence of evidence for a significant pattern of autocratic politics before exportation that
would indicate resource reliance as the cause of dictatorial governments.65
We found this result
surprising as the history of Nigerian government constitutes a picture of inveterate
authoritarianism and military rule that has existed for the majority of time since independence
and throughout its dealings with mineral extraction. When Olusegun Obasanjo came to office in
1979 he installed an election format and a small stint of civilian rule lasted from 1979 to 1983,
but then domineering coups re-emerged and continued until 1999 when civilian rule was again
restored and Olusegun Obasanjo became the first democratic elected official voted into the
presidency of Nigeria.66
With this timeline demonstrating Nigerian polity, the uncertain
impression imparted by Haber and Menaldo seems unsuitable for the reality of past political
patterns in Nigeria and their study did not account for these features in a practical way.
61
Karl. ibid. p. 25. 62
Karl. ibid. 63
Karl. ibid. p. 21. 64
Stephen Haber and Victor Menaldo. 2011. "Do Natural Resources Fuel Authoritarianism? A Reappraisal of the
Resource Curse." American Political Science Review 105, no. 01: 1-26. 65
Haber and Menaldo. ibid. 66
Reuters. 2011. “Timeline: Nigeria's road to democracy.”
25
While they conclude that the assumption of the ties among the resource curse and
tyrannical regimes are more about correlation than causation in most cases, the “resource
blessing” proposed for some states is characterized to be, in fact, quite minimal.67
They even
suggest that “the weight of the evidence indicates that scholars might want to reconsider the idea
that there is a resource curse.”68
The authors’ capacity to troubleshoot strange outcomes drives
them to run assessments for a multitude of scenarios, but also admit to their own shortcomings
such as the difficulty of allowing for conditions like revenues supporting dictatorships afterward
or how weak states may be prior to the introduction of natural resource trade. These authors are
rigorous in their methods, but the lack of definite quality to such quantitative data leaves readers
wondering how applicable their conclusions are. It can be understood that not all cases of
resource wealth have a direct consequence of autocracy, but these findings don’t reveal much
about the actuality of current situations in states who are resource reliant and non-representative.
When they state that there may not be a resource curse, they do not provide an alternative
approach to understanding the correlation that they agree upon with other scholars. Although we
agree on the uncertain nature of social research, we have chosen to place our trust in a larger
body of academic work and believe that the resource curse is an actuality in resource-reliant
states.
3.2 Corruption
Government corruption is, and historically has been, a prominent issue in Nigeria. O.T.
Omololu points out that corruption is demonstrated in every aspect of government.69
The aspect
that will dominate our research is public revenues. The Government of Nigeria has a reputation
for allowing large sums of money to vanish. Accusations and charges of various politicians have
materialized, but the issue of embezzlement remains. Richard A. Joseph also tackles this topic.
Joseph uses the term “prebendalism” to explain this phenomenon. Joseph describes the term
“prebendal” to “refer to patterns of political [behavior] which rest on the justifying principle that
such offices should be competed for and then utilized for the personal benefit of office holders as
67
Haber and Menaldo. ibid. 68
Haber and Menaldo. ibid. 69
Omolulu. ibid., p.31
26
well as of their reference or support group.”70
In other words, prebendal politics is a scenario
where the motive for becoming a politician is the monetary gain to be had. Granted, Joseph does
not explicitly state that the “personal benefit” from holding a position in office is a monetary
one, but the examples of alleged embezzlement are rampant. He goes on to explain that the
(ideally) primary use of the office tends to be neglected in a prebendal situation; the focus is the
pursuit of financial gain, and the importance of justice and order is forgotten.71
Omololu cites the National Planning Commission, who claims that corruption and poor
transparency have helped to stifle development. He notes how poorly Nigeria ranks in terms of
corruption according to Transparency International. As of 2014, Nigeria ranked 136th in the
Corruption Perceptions Index out of 175 countries ranked.72
This is an improvement from the
2007 rank of 147 out of 179.73
With that said, these rankings change each year–for example, in
2008, Nigeria jumped up to a rank of 121st out of 180,74
and then back to 130th out of 180
countries ranked in 2009.75
Thus, we are not necessarily seeing a pattern of improvement, but
rather merely small shifts not associated with any major governmental improvements. The one
consistent pattern is that Nigeria remains in the bottom half of the world in terms of
transparency. Omololu specifically notes fraudulent trade, bribery, and abuse of office, among
others, as problematic forms of corruption in Nigeria. Embezzlement may fall under the umbrella
of abuse of office, and there have been plenty of charges of politicians concerning stolen public
revenues.
Omololu claims that “corruption and bad governance” were the main justifications for the
military when they decided to step into governmental power in Nigeria in 1966. Ironically, the
military rule showcased a similar amount, if not a greater amount, of corruption76
–an idea that
was similarly explained by Joseph.77
Eventually, Omololu believes, corruption became the norm.
What came with this standard of government was a stagnation of development and a drop-off in
70
Richard A Joseph. “Democracy and prebendal politics in Nigeria.” Vol. 56. Cambridge University Press, 2014. p. 8 71
Joseph. ibid. 72
Transparency International. Corruption Perceptions Index 2014. 73
Transparency International. Corruption Perceptions Index 2007. 74
Transparency International. Corruption Perceptions Index 2008. 75
Transparency International. Corruption Perceptions Index 2009. 76
Omololu. op. cit., p.31 77
Joseph. op. cit., p.70
27
education.78
The recurring point that Omololu makes throughout this paper is that corruption in
Nigeria has been the cause for a lack of any development whatsoever. Furthermore, it has also
exacerbated the issue of political instability in the country.
Sarah Chayes, author of Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security,
has some interesting notions that are valuable inclusions in our discussion. Chayes considers the
1980s, when major growth in oil production occurs, as “the first tipping point on the road to
acute, systemic corruption.”79
Chayes ties corruption tightly with the growth of oil production in
Nigeria. She goes on to note, as Omololu also noted, that while oil production has produced so
much wealth, social developments like education and healthcare have not grown at a
proportional rate. Chayes also notes that average income is lagging as well. She explains that the
wealth from oil production is shared between the federal government and each state government,
as well as hundreds of local governments. But this does not do as much good for the state and
local governments as it should, because not all of the wealth ends up being accounted for, she
explains. She includes some stifling numbers: total sales of crude oil between January 2012 and
July of 2013 were missing an estimated US $11 billion, with one estimate of the missing funds to
actually be near US $20 billion. Chayes’ findings imply that President Goodluck Johnathan is
linked to corrupt practices.80
With all of these political issues, Chayes mentions that the
agriculture industry in Nigeria has been troublingly stagnant over the last several decades. She
refers to Nigeria as an “oil ‘monoculture,’” pointing out that the manufacturing industry has also
slowed down, and as such, the oil industry overshadows all others. According to Chayes,
senators in Nigeria make over a million dollars each year, not including any money that may or
may not have been embezzled.
Chayes identifies a second tipping point of corruption in Nigeria’s history: the switch to
civilian rule in 1999. Chayes points out the irony that the first tipping point was partly driven by
the lack of accountability caused by military rule in the 1980s.81
Corruption in a civilian
government as well as a military government makes for a dilemma that must be acknowledged
when discussing solutions for the problem of corruption in Nigeria.
78
Omololu. op. cit. 79
Sarah Chayes. 2015. Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security. WW Norton & Company:
p.122 80
President Johnathan will be in office until May of 2015, just after the completion of our paper. The successor,
President Muhammadu Buhari, will not make his way into our study as acting president. 81
Chayes. ibid., pp.122-125
28
It is perplexing that civilian rule can accommodate a level of corruption similar to that of
military rule, but one unquestionable contributor to corruption in a democratically ruled Nigeria
is election rigging. Christian Opukri contributes information about election rigging in his paper
titled “Electoral Crisis and Democracy in Nigeria.” According to Opukri, all the elections that
have taken place in Nigeria since it became independent have been controversial.82
Joseph gives
a similar attestation regarding Nigerian elections.83
Opukri also states, not unlike Chayes, that,
“[while] the many years of military rule are significant, the years of democratic governance are
perhaps more significant, due to the near total lack of democratic values and principles in
governance.”84
This is similar to Chayes’ argument, which is essentially that the beginning of
civilian rule–her “second tipping point” –is at the very least comparable to, if not more
significant than, the growth of oil production, which coincided with military rule as a landmark
for corruption. The only difference is that Opukri does not specify the point of oil production
growth; he merely compares the time of military rule to the time of civilian rule. Opukri
expresses the importance of elections to a democratic system, and that election rigging has run
rampant in Nigeria, and, essentially, because of this, democracy has been compromised.85
He
points out the 2003 elections specifically as an example: 42 different forms of rigging were
recognized. These forms of election rigging varied widely; all were reprehensible, and some used
the threat of violence.86
As a result of the corrupt election, several political parties refused to
accept the results as legitimate.87
The 2007 election is his second example of an illegitimate
election. He draws attention to the failure of some polling stations to ever open at all, as well as
others having shortened hours of operation. The list of 2007 polling flaws goes on, once again
including violent behavior. Opukri indicates that these practices convinced voters that their
participation was irrelevant.88
Chayes describes this situation in the same way, noting the
violence associated with the elections as well as the consequential decrease in participation.89
Opukri goes on to note the overwhelming official results of the 2007 presidential elections.
82
Christian O. Opukri. 2013. "Electoral Crisis and Democracy in Nigeria." Journal of Research in National
Development 10, no. 3: pp. 178-187 83
Joseph. op. cit., p. 171 84
Opukri. ibid., p. 180 85
Opukri. ibid. 86
Opukri. ibid. 87
Opukri. ibid., p. 181 88
Opukri. ibid., pp. 181-182 89
Chayes. op. cit., p. 126
29
Perhaps the most important aspect (as it pertains to our study) of Opukri’s entire paper is his
explanation of the relevance of ethnicity. He argues, “It is an acknowledged fact that the
Nigerian electoral system is tainted by ethnic considerations and to claim that some of these
ethnic leaders scored no more than a few thousand votes even in the states and backyards where
their ethnic majority commands the electoral stakes is hard to believe.”90
To put it in a different
way, Opukri is noting that these rigged elections are making it so that certain ethnic groups’
votes are not being counted. This point is of the utmost relevance to our research. The corruption
present in Nigeria is marginalizing certain ethnic groups.91
3.3 Political Ecology
The term political ecology has been around since the 1970s “as a way of thinking about
questions of access and control over resources … and how this [is] indispensable for
understanding both the forms and geography of environmental disturbance and degradation, and
the prospects for green and sustainable alternatives.”92
According to Richard Peet and Michael
Watts, political ecology is a combination of ecological concerns with those of political economy.
As a result, political ecology provides a perspective that includes the discussion of communities
as well as natural resources.93
These authors use this lens to examine the situation in Nigeria. They point out the
tremendous amount of wealth generated from oil, and compare it to the per capita annual
income, which (as of 2004) was US $290. The point that they are trying to make is that the
amount of oil wealth generated should translate to a wealthier society, but such a translation has
been lacking. They also point out the estimate of about US $50 billion that has “disappeared”
from government revenues as well, implying issues with corruption. Not surprisingly, they claim
that living standards have not improved over a span of 44 years–from Nigeria’s independence to
the time of publishing.94
Furthermore, they make the claim that the oil producing communities
“have benefited the least from oil-wealth.”95
Lastly, these communities, which are all in the
90
Opukri. op. cit., p. 184(1) 91
Opukri. ibid. 92
Richard Peet and Michael Watts. 2004. “Liberation Ecologies: Environment, Development, Social Movements.”
p. 6 93
Peet & Watts. ibid., p. 7 94
Peet & Watts. ibid., pp. 274-275 95
Peet & Watts. ibid., p. 275
30
Niger Delta, suffer the consequences of oil spills and gas flaring, which occur at a greater rate
than anywhere else in the world. These authors make it clear that Niger Deltans suffer from
“marginalization” and “neglect”.96
3.4 Local People of the Niger Delta and Oil
Ken Saro-Wiwa was an activist working for justice of the Ogoni people in regards to
issues surrounding the production of oil. He was dedicated to a non-violent movement for
ecological and and social justice, which ultimately resulted in the creation of the Movement for
the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP).97
In 1994 Ken Saro-Wiwa along with eight others,
who together formed the Ogoni Nine, were arrested for the involvement in the murder of Ogoni
leaders. After eight months of imprisonment without access to lawyers, medical care, or family
members the Ogoni Nine were brought before a special tribunal. In October 1995 the Ogoni Nine
were sentenced to death then executed in November of 1995. MOSOP continues to work for
justice under the original vision of Saro-Wiwa. 98
A major aspect of our research is to develop an understanding concerning the relationship
between the extraction of oil and the local people of the Niger Delta. “Oil Conflict and
Accumulation Politics in Nigeria” written by Kenneth Omeje begins with an overview of the
history of oil and conflict in the Niger Delta. It details important facts regarding where the
transnational oil companies (TNOCs) operate and whom the companies affect. The article also
provides some details on the politics of Nigeria and who is benefiting from the oil profits99
.
Other articles do not tend to provide as much basic background information and we believe it is
an important aspect in understanding the complex relationship between local people and TNOCs.
While this article centers on local ethnic groups generally, “Shell, Nigeria and the Ogoni:
A Study in Unsustainable Development I” written by Richard Boele, Heike Fabig and David
Wheeler, is focused on the Ogoni people specifically. The Ogoni people are the main ethnic
group that we are researching because they are still currently active in conflict with oil
companies. Although Omeje’s article has general background information, this article details the
history of oil extraction specific to the Ogoni people. This article concentrates on the
96
Peet & Watts. ibid. 97
Remember Saro-Wiwa. 2014. “The Life of Ken Saro-Wiwa.” 98
Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People. 2015. “Ogoni” 99
Kenneth Omeje. 2006-2007.“Oil Conflict and Accumulation Politics in Nigeria” ECSP Report: Issue 12: pp. 44-
49.
31
environmental issues that have come with the rise in oil extraction. It also explains how the
conflict lead to the execution of Ken Sara-Wiwa and the Ogoni Nine, which was a factor in our
group choosing to focus on the Ogoni people.100
The article written by Boele et al. also outlines the lack of, and need for, sustainable
development. This is a very important issue for the Ogoni people as well as other local
communities.101
Another article discussing local peoples, written by Gabriel Eweje, also
highlights the need for sustainable development. The article argues that development is the
responsibility of the multinational enterprises and they are both socially and economically
responsible for the development to be sustainable.102
Omeje also claims that if the state fails to
aid communities in development it is the obligation of oil companies to provide this aid.103
While
we believe that the state should be responsible for development and there is a need for
sustainable development, we agree that should the state fail, oil companies should be held
responsible, to an extent. Given that oil companies have such a large presence and effect on
communities, they should provide some aid in the development of communities.
Omeje’s article refers to transnational oil companies, however the article by Boele et al.
specifically references the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), and the article by
Eweje discusses multinational enterprises (MNEs) and multinational oil companies (MOCs). It is
important to recognize and separate what each article is referring to and the differences between
each. Multinational enterprises is the broadest of these terms and includes oil companies as well
as other companies.104
Omeje gives examples of TNOCs such as Royal Dutch Shell,
ExxonMobile, and ChevronTexaco,105
indicating that TNOCs can include any oil company
working in Nigeria. Multinational oil companies are essentially the same thing as transnational
oil companies. SPDC is a single company operating in Nigeria but can be considered a TNOC,
MOC and a MNE.
100
Richard Boele, Heike Fabig, and David Wheeler. 2001. "Shell, Nigeria and the Ogoni: A Study in
Unsustainable Development I.” Sustainable Development 9, no. 2: pp. 74-86. 101
Boele. ibid. 102
Gabriel Eweje. 2007. "Multinational Oil Companies' CSR Initiatives in Nigeria: The Scepticism of
Stakeholders in Host Communities." Managerial Law 49, no. 5/6: 218-235. 103 Boele, op. cit., p.45 104
Eweje, op. cit., p.218-219 105
Omeje. op. cit.
32
All three articles bring up the issue of local people not seeing any of the benefits from the
extraction and production of oil. Omeje states that despite Nigeria’s oil resources, 80 percent of
the revenues only benefit 1 percent of the population and 70 percent of the population lives in
poverty, off of less than US $1 a day.106
Boele et al. state that revenue distribution is an issue for
many communities including the Ogoni people. The vast majority of the revenue went to the
state government whose responsibility was to distribute the wealth, but most communities never
saw these benefits.107
Since 1999, the 13% derivation principle states that no less than 13% of oil
revenue must go to the oil producing state. As of the year 2000 this revenue refers only to on-
shore oil production. The remaining 87% of revenue would go to the central government, which
could be distributed to other regions.108
Although this has been the practice since the 1999
Constitution, there has been dissatisfaction among oil producing communities regarding the
allocation of funds. There is a call from several communities for the creation of national and
state derivation committees to properly manage the funds.109
Eweje goes on the argue that local
communities have the right to other benefits such as social services, welfare programs, and
community development programs but never saw such benefits.110
Each article makes the point
that local communities are suffering from consequences of oil extraction without receiving any
benefits.
3.5 Oil Industry and the Environment
While we will be focusing on more present issues related to the Nigerian oil industry, it is
important to look at the history of Nigerian oil to understand the present. In “Indigenization
Versus Domiciliation: A Historical Approach to National Content in Nigeria’s Oil and Gas
Industry,” Jesse Salah Ovadia writes about the history of the oil industry in order to help the
reader gain an understanding behind current Nigerian oil content laws. Previous content laws
theoretically promoted revenues being spent by the Nigerian government in order to empower
106
Omeje. ibid. 107
Boele, Fabig, and Wheeler. op. cit. 108
Ehtisham Ahmad and Raju Singh. 2003. “Political Economy of Oil-Revenue Sharing in a Developing Country:
Illustrations from Nigeria.” IMF Working Paper.pp. 1-26. 109
Festus Owete . 2014. “Delta, Ondo Oil Communities Demand Control of Derivation Money.” Premium Times. 110
Eweje. op. cit., 218-235.
33
Nigerians with new economic opportunities and give Nigeria control over the oil industry.111
As
we have seen in current history, these laws were not successful. In later years, decrees were
passed aiming to increase indigenous Nigerian participation in the economy by transferring
foreign capital to indigenous hands.112
We will be able to use past Nigerian history to discuss
how it has negatively impacted the present.
Plundered Nations?: Successes and Failures in Natural Resource Extraction, edited by
Paul Collier and Anthony J. Venables, also looks into the history of the Nigerian oil industry.
Unlike Ovadia’s literature, the authors look at the management of oil resources throughout
history and analyze what decisions were made that ultimately led Nigeria to become a struggling
oil state.113
We already know that some of oil revenues are reinvested into infrastructure in
Nigeria. During the 1970s, the Nigerian government was focused on reconstruction and the
development of human capital, health services, and infrastructure like roads and sea ports.114
Nseabasi S. Akpan, author of “From Agriculture to Petroleum Oil Production: What Has
Changed about Nigeria’s Rural Development?,” has different viewpoints on how oil revenues
were reinvested back into society. Akpan claims that rural infrastructure has typically been
neglected and that infrastructure was, and currently is still focused on major cities. It will be
important to look at expenditures of government money to clarify where and how oil revenues
were reinvested into Nigerian infrastructure.
A major component to our research is the negative environmental effects that come as a
result of oil production. Prior to reading, we already knew that oil spills, gas flaring, and land
degradation were all harmful impacts oil production have on the environment. In “Coping with
Climate Change and Environmental Degradation in the Niger Delta of Southern Nigeria,” gas
flaring and oil spills are discussed in depth and their ultimate consequences to farmlands, rivers,
and the ocean.115
We found that oil spills, gas flaring, and acid rain not only affect the
111 Jesse Salah Ovadia. 2012. "Indigenization vs. Domiciliation: A Historical Approach to National Content in
Nigeria's Oil and Gas Industry." African Political Economy: The Way Forward for 21st Century Development. 112
Jesse Salah Ovadia. ibid. 113 Paul Collier and Anthony J. Venables, eds. 2011. Plundered nations?: successes and failures in natural resource
extraction. Palgrave Macmillan. 114 Collier and Venables. ibid 115
Etiosa Uyigue, and Matthew Agho. 2007. "Coping with climate change and environmental
degradation in the Niger Delta of southern Nigeria." Community Research and Development Centre
Nigeria (CREDC).
34
environment, but the livelihood of local peoples as well.116
The book Oil, Environment and
Resource Conflicts in Nigeria, edited by Augustine Ikelegbe asks interesting questions in the
introductory section:
Since oil and gas are exhaustible resources, what happens when they are exhausted and
when no revenue inflows would be expected to the region?...what would happen as the
land and waters of the region are devastated, livelihood sources have been destroyed,
social lifestyles have been perverted and productive orientations have been
disoriented?117
While this paper is about the facts of the oil industry in Nigeria, it poses interesting “what-if”
scenarios, should the oil industry not make strides to better its infrastructure and environmental
regulations. Along with posing consistent statistics with other works of literature, this will enable
us to draw conclusions on our own, on the negative impacts of oil production.
116
Uyigue and Agho. ibid. 117
Augustine Ikelegbe ed. 2013. Oil, environment and resource conflicts in Nigeria. Vol. 7. LIT Verlag Münster: 4.
35
4. Case Study
4.1 Petrol and Layered Logistics
The Federal Government of Nigeria and the multinational oil companies that operate in
Nigeria are conspicuously intertwined, resulting in an obscure partnership, multi-level financial
arrangements, and a system of property rights that values the state as an entity more than
individual indigenous stakeholders. Oil discovery in 1956 brought a new and powerful
dimension to the colonial economy and after Nigeria gained independence, it continued to be an
important factor in fiscal security. Tenure systems for land and the ownership of mineral wealth
was realized to be crucial in these processes, and the new government began to pass laws
regarding these issues. In 1969 the Petroleum Decree was enacted, placing the gas and oil
supplies of the country under the authority of the federal government. In a related legislation, the
1978 Land Use Decree placed all land of any type under national control, essentially using
nationalization as a substitute for the long-standing rules of customary land ownership.118
Rather
than “negotiating directly with oil companies over access to land and compensation” as was done
before the decrees, the power of bargaining for communities was usurped by local and state
institutions.119
Claims of “overriding public interest” after the 1978 statute also enabled the
federal government to easily appropriate lands for the construction of pipelines and extraction
projects.120
Many communities struggle with these laws which do not recognize the land that
members live and work on, and therefore the minerals beneath the land, as territories owned by
those who have inhabited it for generations. These decrees, by allowing the state to have absolute
proprietary rights, leave communities living on resource-rich lands subject to the complete
control of state economic interests, and the uncertainty of a stable residence if their area is seen
as too valuable for just human occupancy.
The Federal Government of Nigeria began to seek dominion within all oil industry
aspects, beyond only mineral rights. Nigeria joined the Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC) in 1971, becoming part of an exclusive group of countries with the ability to
regulate oil output and influence prices around the world.121
OPEC insists that member states
118
P. Francis and S. Sardesai. 2008. “Republic of Nigeria Niger Delta Social and Conflict Analysis.” World Bank. p.
12. 119
P. Francis and S. Sardesai. ibid. 120
P. Francis and S. Sardesai. ibid. 121
Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). 2015. “Nigeria Facts and Figures.”
36
engage in all stages of petroleum production as a majority associate as much as possible.
Therefore, in order to begin taking back privileges from foreign companies, the federal
government created the Nigerian National Oil Corporation (NNOC) in 1971.122
“The NNOC was
empowered to acquire any asset and liability in existing oil companies on behalf of the Nigerian
government,” and throughout the 1970s, the NNOC recovered allowances from numerous
transnational oil corporations.123
The federal establishment managing petroleum commerce
became the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in 1977 and “inherited the
commercial activities of the NNOC.”124
Although the NNPC has some oversight capacity, the
majority of regulation is under the jurisdiction of the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources
and their Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR).125
Joint ventures solidified between the
NNPC and transnational oil corporations ensure that the state government has a 55% to 60%
“participatory interest,” and therefore some say in the procedures performed by oil companies.126
Agreements such as these joint ventures are the most common type of business agreement in the
Nigerian oil industry, and are so prevalent that they constitute 95% of Nigerian petroleum and
natural gas activities.127
The most prominent multinational corporations, which make up almost 97% of
production endeavors, include well-known names like Shell, Chevron/Texaco, and
ExxonMobil.128
Before companies can operate in a way that earns profits they must obtain three
permissions granted by the Minister of Petroleum Resources. The authorizations encompass the
Oil Exploration Licence (OEL) which is “necessary to conduct preliminary exploration surveys,”
the Oil Prospecting Licence (OPL) which begins contract agreements with the government, and
the Oil Mining Lease (OML) which allows commercial extraction in an area for 20 years.129
Since 1973, deals with conglomerates have had another common aspect: they are considered to
be Production Sharing Contracts (PSCs) that place the risk of exploration on companies, whether
122
Olajumoke Akinjide-Balogun. 2001. “Nigeria: Legal Framework Of The Nigerian Petroleum Industry.” Mondaq. 123
Olajumoke Akinjide-Balogun. ibid. 124
P. Francis and S. Sardesai. 2008. “Republic of Nigeria Niger Delta Social and Conflict Analysis.” World Bank. p.
15. 125
Olajumoke Akinjide-Balogun. op. cit. 126
Olajumoke Akinjide-Balogun. ibid. 127
P. Francis and S. Sardesai. 2008. “Republic of Nigeria Niger Delta Social and Conflict Analysis.” World Bank. p.
33. 128
Olajumoke Akinjide-Balogun. 2001. “Nigeria: Legal Framework Of The Nigerian Petroleum Industry.”
Mondaq. 129
Olajumoke Akinjide-Balogun. ibid.
37
oil is found or not.130
Theses types of agreements also split discovered oil into a few categories
with varying importance: "Royalty Oil" pays concession rents and royalties, "Cost Oil" covers
the cost of operations, "Tax Oil" gives to the government through the Petroleum Profit Tax
(PPT), and "Profit Oil" leaves what is left to divide as percentages between all partners of an
agreement.131
Royalties and the Petroleum Production Tax are amassed by the Federation Inland
Revenue Board as an act of government and, with profits made, comprise the total oil income for
Nigeria.132
Revenues are apportioned among many parties and the numerous layers to agreement
and payment processes have not been successful in distributing income effectively, or improving
the lives of most Nigerians.
The equitable allocation of revenues gathered from the oil industry has been a point of
contention for many communities in the Delta for many years. A derivation formula was
established from the outset of oil production in 1958 which set revenues to be distributed to
extraction communities at a rate of 50%, the Federal Government of Nigeria at 20% and the
Distributable Pool Account, created to apportion funds to states from the federal sphere, at a rate
of 30%. Since that time the percentages have been erratic as more states have been created,
transitions of government rule have occurred, and offshore drilling has become the domain of the
federal administration.133
In 1999 the new constitution, under the category of Public Revenue
section 162, speaks to a ‘Federation Account’, previously the Distributable Pool Account, which
accumulates all revenue by the federal government, apart from certain officials’ income taxes,
and allocation is decided after the President councils with the Revenue Mobilization Allocation
and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC). The President and his council then consider “population,
equality of States, internal revenue generation, land mass, terrain as well as population density”
into choices of disbursement. The article goes on to state that “the principle of derivation shall be
constantly reflected in any approved formula as being not less than thirteen per cent of the
revenue accruing to the Federation Account directly from any natural resources.”134
The
arguments surrounding this number only serve to hinder the formation of an improved system,
130
Akinjide-Balogun. ibid. 131
Akinjide-Balogun. ibid. 132
Akinjide-Balogun. ibid. 133
P. Francis and S. Sardesai. 2008. “Republic of Nigeria Niger Delta Social and Conflict Analysis.” World Bank. p.
27. 134
The Federal Republic of Nigeria. 1999. “Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
38
and obscure other issues of marginalized communities, mismanaged distribution and inadequate
well-being which persist despite large profits of the oil industry.
4.2 Impaired Institutions
The legacies of colonialism have left their mark upon the political and social structures
that dominate Nigeria today, and the formation of a resource dependent state since independence
has not enabled an internally stable government to be built. The indirect model of colonization
exercised by the British meant that although they pulled strings in the capital, local chieftaincies
and leaders who were friendly to the interests of Britain were bestowed the privilege to continue
acting as authority figures in communities, thereby blurring the understanding of the situation for
rural communities.135
Identities held dear by local peoples and nationalistic ideologies under
colonial rule brought some civil rights, but also a disconnect with the definition of who was the
bearer of customary rights. Nigeria was then made to create statutory regulations to “decide
which ethnic groups were indigenous and which were not [as] a basis for political
representation.” This process is said to have “convert[ed] ethnicity into a political force”,
although one may argue that such systems had been instigated from the beginning of British
rule.136
In the post-independence era the three states of the federation, which had been created
under colonial rule and favored the three most prominent ethnic groups, were still the only
officially acknowledged regions, but disagreement over these lines came soon after liberation.
The Ogoni Central Union had arisen prior to independence and formed the Ogoni Native
Authority in 1947 to advocate for separate space, and was reluctantly lumped into the Eastern
Region where the Ogoni people suffered “tremendous neglect and discrimination” at the hands
of the prevailing Igbo people in the area.137
In order to address the worries of smaller ethnic
groups in the region who were being underrepresented, the Willink Commission was entrusted
with the task of exploring local concerns stemming from this issue in 1958 as the prospect of
Independence approached.138
Despite the proposal for the outlining of new states, the
135
P. Francis and S. Sardesai. 2008. “Republic of Nigeria Niger Delta Social and Conflict Analysis.” World Bank. p.
57. 136
Michael Watts. 2004. "Resource curse? Governmentality, oil and power in the Niger Delta, Nigeria." p. 73. 137
Watts. ibid. p. 67. 138
Francis and Sardesai. op. cit., p. 30.
39
Commission chose instead to install the Niger Delta Development Board in 1961 to work on the
problems voiced in that locality. The proceedings of this board were “largely ineffective” as it
lasted less than a decade and was spoiled during its term by the outbreak of the Biafran War, a
conflict from 1967 - 1970 that was rooted in the secessionist movement of the Eastern Region.139
Although during the war, the Rivers State was created in order to “appease the minorities of the
Niger Delta”, other concerns of minority communities fell by the wayside as the region strained
its energies on the efforts of war rather than working to the solutions that could prevent similar
cases in the future.140
The marginalization of minority communities across Nigeria manifested as interethnic
tensions as well as intra-ethnic issues of which examples can be found even in the clans of
Ogoniland. Ogoniland became incrementally integrated into the Rivers State, but cohesion was
still being constructed among its community members. As Ogoniland defined itself, certain
subgroups gained a dominance of political persuasion within the Ogoni, and others such as the
Eleme clan refused to sign the Ogoni Bill of Rights because of their connection to clan loyalty
first.141
These instances demonstrate Watts’ point of nuanced inconsistencies between vying
identities such as local and national. Ken Saro-Wiwa hoped for a more unified Ogoni people
despite tensions, and Watts described Saro-Wiwa’s “crowning moment of glory” as the inception
of the Ogoni anthem and the Ogoni flag on January 4, 1993–Ogoni National Day–which
represents the solidarity he had always yearned to see in his homeland.142
The past disagreements
seem to have dissipated as communities have come together in the creation of organizations
seeking to improve the living conditions of humans and nature in Ogoniland.
4.3 Facts about The Ogoni
The Niger Delta is comprised of nine states with five such states considered to be “core”
to the region, including: Bayelsa, Delta, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, and Rivers.143
Ogoniland is in
the Rivers state of the South-South geopolitical zone, a Southeastern region of the Niger Delta
near Port Harcourt with an area of approximately 1,000 square kilometers. There is evidence
139
Francis and Sardesai. ibid., p. 57. 140
Francis and Sardesai. ibid., p. 58. 141
Watts. op. cit., p. 69. 142
Watts. ibid. p. 70. 143
Francis and Sardesai. op. cit., p. 14.
40
showing that the Ogoni people have inhabited the area for over 500 years, and were not fully
under British colonial rule until 1901, when British forces arrived in the region. A resistance
against British rule lasted for 13 years until Ogoniland was finally subjugated in 1914. In regards
to Nigeria as a whole, the British grouped Nigerians into a mere few ethnic groups, ultimately
leaving the Ogoni without proper representation and effectively stratifying ethnic interactions.144
The traditional government of Ogoniland simultaneously operates within the current
structure of the Federal government of Nigeria. Ogoniland encompasses six kingdoms: Tai,
Eleme, Ken-Khana, Nyo-Khana, Gokana, and Babbe, with the town of Bori acting as the capital
of Ogoniland.145
Each kingdom has individually ruling chiefs, and often councils of elders,
though there is Paramount Ruler that presides over all kingdoms titled His Majesty King Godwin
N.K. Gininwa. Ogoniland incorporates four local administrative districts including: Tai, Eleme,
Khana, and Gokana, which each control diverse ranges in the area as well as the diverse cultures
that live within their boundaries. Although each of the four zones are considered to be Ogoniland
and the area has some shared history, the indigenous groups who reside in each area are unique
unto themselves with distinguishing characteristics which generate variances not just in language
but in their traditional arrangements of power, politics, and decision-making.146
These differing
qualities of over 250 linguistic and indigenous communities were largely ignored during the
colonization of Nigeria by the British Empire; only a few ethnic groups gained formal
recognition by the British when the territory was split into three federal regions: the Yoruba, the
Igbo and the Hausa-Fulani.147
The British decision to discount these smaller cultural groups
would begin the socially-accepted downgrading and relegation of these groups to a realm of less
importance that became apparent in colonial administrations and within interethnic relations.148
4.4 The Economic Context of Development
Prior to the discovery of oil in Ogoniland, fishing and agriculture was the primary means
to make a living in this region. Subsistence agriculture satiated local consumption and was so
144
Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization. 2008. “Ogoni.” UNPO. 145
Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization. 1995. “Report of the UNPO Mission to Investigate the
Situation of the Ogoni of Nigeria” UNPO. 146
United Nations Environment Programme. 2011. “Environmental Assessment of Ogoniland.” p. 24. 147
Francis and Sardesai. op. cit., p. 54. 148
Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization. 1995. “Report of the UNPO Mission to Investigate the
Situation of the Ogoni of Nigeria” UNPO.
41
fruitful that the region began to produce enough food to provide for the demands coming from
foreign industrialized nations.149
After the discovery of petroleum in 1957, concentration on the
agricultural and fishing sectors of the economy diminished and the new focus became oil. In the
period between 1973 and 1981 this transition became increasingly apparent as records indicate
farmed commodities dropped from US $1.5 billion to almost US $300 million in terms of
economic worth.150
The extraction activities within the region have severely limited the ability of
farmers to produce as large corporations have seized territories and oil spills have damaged the
surrounding land and bodies of water, making a hostile condition to foster crops.151
To this day,
there are numerous environmental and social problems stemming from the oil industry still
facing Ogoniland and its inhabitants, damaging traditional ways of life.
Nearly 60% of people in the area remain reliant on their surrounding environment for
income generation, and World Bank research from a 2003 study discovered that if crops were
counted as part of livelihood as well, then 100% of family economic power was dependent on
the environment. This fact is compounded by the high rates of underemployment and joblessness
in the Delta compared to all other state constituencies. The labor market in the oil sector is
unable to meet the supply provided by local community members because its formal work
typically requires technology and capital, and therefore there is less of a desire for the unskilled
laborers which are mostly available.152
Because Delta residents are unable to compete with
transnational corporate efforts, there has been a consistent failure to financially support social
capital and indigenous economies, characterizing the circumstance of low local content.153
Policy
moves on the part of government to encourage local content, or ‘Nigerian Content’, in smaller oil
industry ventures owned by indigenous businesses have made “very little positive impact”
overall. However, there is hope for a future of greater connectivity among differently sized and
spatially oriented companies in the national petroleum economy with the enactment of more firm
149
United Nations Environment Programme. 2011. “Environmental Assessment of Ogoniland.” p. 20.
150United Nations Environment Programme. ibid. p. 20.
151 Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization. 2008. “Ogoni.” UNPO.
152 Francis and Sardesai. op. cit., p. 17.
153 Ugwushi Bellema Ihua, C. Ajayi, and K. N. Eloji. 2009. "Nigerian Content Policy in the Oil and Gas Industry:
Implications for Small and Medium-sized Oil Services Companies." In Proceedings of the 10th Annual Conference.
p. 163.
42
legislation.154
According to Shell Nigeria’s website, it “directly” employs 4,500 people, 95
percent of whom are Nigerian, and 66 percent of whom are from the Niger Delta specifically.155
These numbers equate to 4,275 people from Nigeria, and 2,970 of those from the Niger Delta
who are directly employed by Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria. The number
of Shell-employed individuals from the Delta is not very impressive, nor indicative of
inclusivity, when the total population of the Delta is considered to be over 31 million.156
Some
local people have also reported being discriminated against when seeking work in the petroleum
industry; their applications are ignored in favor of other ethnic groups.157
A lack of economic
inclusion into the oil industry formal sector, and the absence of local employment for petrol
firms, reinforces a downward spiral of unemployment and the futile search for jobs in the area.
Youth between the ages of 15 and 24 have an especially difficult time finding work to support
themselves and their families; beyond the statistics of all other geopolitical zones, a level of non-
working youth estimates being upwards of 40% for the Delta, show a need for gainful
employment not being met.158
With limited occasions to branch into lucrative activities or stable
incomes, the informal and illegal sectors become the most prominent alternatives, and insecurity
becomes a reality for many families.159
The Gini coefficient, which measures the equality of income shared throughout a society,
when applied to the Niger Delta, finds numerical data that shows a pronounced inequality of
wealth distribution. In Rivers State in particular the coefficient of 2004 was 0.479160
as compared
to the coefficient for all of Nigeria in 2003, 0.437.161
The closer the coefficient is to zero, the
more evenly the wealth is distributed. Despite an improvement from 1997’s coefficient of 0.506,
the numbers symbolize a vast economic gap that still exists.162 Surveys completed in the Niger
Delta found that 77% of the people residing there view themselves as ‘living in poverty’, with
154
Ugwushi Bellema Ihua, C. Ajayi, and K. N. Eloji. 2009. "Nigerian Content Policy in the Oil and Gas Industry:
Implications for Small and Medium-sized Oil Services Companies." In Proceedings of the 10th Annual Conference.
p. 168. 155
Shell Nigeria. 2015. “Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria.” Shell. 156
Francis and Sardesai. op. cit., p. 59. 157
Francis and Sardesai. ibid., p. 17. 158
Francis and Sardesai. ibid., p. 1. 159
Francis and Sardesai. ibid., p. 4. 160
Francis and Sardesai. ibid., p. 15. 161
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). 2014. “Nigeria.” The World Factbook. 162
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). ibid.
43
around 30% of the entire population self-evaluated as ‘very poor’.163
Although these findings
have inconsistencies when compared to some national accounts, due to the subjective nature of
personal assessments, they demonstrate the perspective of Delta peoples on their own
circumstances. With capricious definitions of the poverty line demarcated by countries, which
can be based upon their own conceptions of poverty and may be able to sway the significance of
statistics, the exact numbers may be difficult to determine. In 2010, however, there was an
estimate that 70% of all Nigerians lived below the poverty line.164
This major percentage of their
population, from an already an impressive 172 million, represents a serious proportion of
Nigeria’s citizens who do not have an adequate means of income. The World Bank’s Nigeria
Economic Report (NER) from 2014 shows some progress in the living conditions of the poor but
these efforts have been almost entirely concentrated on urban cities rather than where levels of
poverty are most persistent in rural localities.165
Income inequality breeds extreme discontent
among citizens who suffer most poignantly from a maldistribution of wealth, leading their self-
perceptions to reflect the appalling systemic nature of their suffering, especially when looking to
how others may be living affluent lifestyles elsewhere in the nation.
As for the federal derivation principle, in 1979 the government eliminated the practice of
derivation funding and even though it had made its way into the economic sphere again in 1992
the portion for oil producing communities was a meager 3%.166
Because Ogoniland stopped
producing oil in 1993, their years of operation endured an unstable allocation of revenue, before
the constitution had solidified agreements for extraction communities. The Ogoni peoples were
not able to profit extensively from the derivation principle while it was in effect due to a
tumultuous history of changing percentages, and certainly not directly from the post-
constitutional 13% minimum.
Current revenues are distributed to the federal government, as well as state and local
governments, and are then meant to make their way to local residents. Audits on government oil
revenues for the years of 2007 to 2011 have demonstrated that “from the sharing formula under
the Nigerian fiscal federal principle, the Federal Government took 56% of the total revenue,
163
Francis and Sardesai. op. cit., p. 14. 164
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). op. cit., 165
The World Bank. 2014. “Nigeria Economic Update: World Bank Cites Positive Economic Trends and Progress in
Poverty Reduction.” World Bank Group. 166
Francis and Sardesai. op. cit.,. p. 28.
44
states 24%, while the local governments collected 20%.”167
Though these portions are above the
13% minimum for states and local administrations, the development that is meant to accompany
these funds is still not present, making the increased percentage ineffective in providing more
positive results. The local administrations often collaborate with chiefs who are then charged
with the responsibility to dole out these funds properly to individuals and to sustainable
development projects. Unfortunately these community leaders are sometimes seen as self-
seeking and untrustworthy, causing tensions within communities.168
Research into the Ogoni
people and their milieu depicts a setting where development projects, as of 2004, were found to
be lacking. Dismal figures such a health care system with a doctor to patient ratio of 1:100,000,
illiteracy for four out of five individuals, and infrastructure such as electricity being present in
very few homes.169
Reports also show that Rivers State is a rarity in the Delta due to its over
70% allocation of funding set for “capital projects” in its vicinity, but still only 10% of this
amount was destined for important social amenities such as health, education, infrastructure and
employment in the period between 2007 and 2011.170
The progress missing from Ogoniland
speaks to the disproportionate benefits and revenue results which were supposed to have been
ensured since the start of extraction, but are not apparent in the present day.
Because Ogoniland sees no money from oil production, the area relies on the funding
given to Rivers State to provide for development. In 2007 Rivers State was given US $1.7 billion
by the Federal Government of Nigeria, a number which exceeds the GDP of some neighboring
West African nations.171
As Ogoniland has lost its status as a host community where extraction
takes place, the area is no longer “entitled to development goods and payments” from oil
corporations which are given to other petroleum production sites.172
These additional
compensations provide a sort of ‘social license to operate’ but can also be a “divisive and
exclusionary” force between local communities.173
Here, the state government has failed to
allocate such a large financial support to localities transparently or equally, leaving many people
167
Zainab Ahmed.. 2014. “Deepening Knowledge About How Oil Money is Spent.” Extraction Industries
Transparency Initiative (EITI). 168
Francis and Sardesai. op. cit., p. 19. 169
Watts. op. cit., p. 67. 170
Zainab Ahmed. op. cit. 171
Francis and Sardesai. ibid., p. 30. 172
Francis and Sardesai. ibid., p. 20. 173
Francis and Sardesai. ibid., p. 20.
45
of Ogoniland without basic needs met. The actual amount of money acquired through oil
production or derivation can only provide a partial explanation of the situational absence of
public works in the Niger Delta. The issue being raised today more often concerns the manner in
which these funds are spent and how they are managed by state and national officials.174
It is not
clear where the funds that the states receive are actually going.
The insufficient development in the region has prompted the creation of organizations to
address concerns over allocation uses, which bear impacts on local communities. In 2000 the
Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) was formed at the federal level while
organizations such as the Rivers State Sustainable Development Program (RSSDP) were started
at the state level a few years later. Both the federal government, through “ecological fund
allocations” and a portion of the 13% derivation, and transnational oil companies have
contributed to the NDDC, who then provides funds to Delta states.175
But in 2007 the NDDC
spoke out about a deficit discrepancy in their fiscal backing from the Nigerian Federal
Government throughout the seven years since its inception, amounting to US $1.9 billion.176
In
addition to this admittance, audits of the NDDC for 2007 to 2011 found that US $41.4 million
that was promised to projects in the Delta went unaccounted for, and could only partially be
explained by falsified completions and duplicated reports.177
Other federal funds to improve the
quality of life in the Delta such as the Stabilization Fund and the Natural Resources
Development Fund were exposed as “anything but close to its original objectives” because
money provided was utilized for unrelated activities, and there was even debt which accumulated
for the work of these inappropriate projects.178
Because members of the commission are chosen
by federal level politicians, residents of the Delta perceive the dealings of the commission to be
more invested in the transnational oil companies and politics funding them, rather than the
locals.179
Although the two phases of project implementation have produced some income
generation through cassava processing and aquaculture, efforts of the RSSDP are also often
thought of as a “political instrument with limited concrete benefits for the people of Rivers
174
Francis and Sardesai. ibid., p. 29. 175
Francis and Sardesai. ibid., p. 31. 176
Francis and Sardesai. ibid., p. 31. 177
Zainab Ahmed. op. cit. 178
Zainab Ahmed. ibid. 179
Francis and Sardesai. ibid., p. 31.
46
State.”180
Cries for transparency have attempted to be heard as part of the dialogue due to
occasions such as these where oil revenues travel through many hands and disappear before they
are able to reach local peoples. The civil society groups that have arisen to meet the demands of
indigenous communities in the Niger Delta and within Ogoniland are putting forth efforts to
create more accountability, local integration, informed awareness, and civic engagement with the
issue.
4.5 The Story of Shell Oil
For the last several decades, Shell Oil Company has been closely tied with the story of
Ogoniland. In 1957, Shell Oil Company began drilling for oil in Ogoniland.181
After 36 years,
protests eventually drove Shell to discontinue oil production in the region in 1993. It was
reported that the Nigerian government would find a replacement for Shell that met the Ogoni
people’s standards by the end of 2008.182
As of Spring of 2015, however, oil production in
Ogoniland has yet to resume; most of the Ogonis remain opposed to any oil drilling at this
juncture,183
although reports of support from Ogoni leaders did surface.184
Two years after the suspension of oil production, the then military government of Nigeria
executed poet and Ogoni activist Ken Saro-Wiwa. This event shook Ogoniland as well as the
entire country, and gained international attention. Allegedly “complicit” in the death of Ken
Saro-Wiwa was none other than Shell Oil. In 2009, Saro-Wiwa’s family was ready to take Shell
to court over the supposed wrongdoing, but Shell settled the case at a price of US $15.5 million.
Shell denied that the payout was an admission of guilt. Instead, they called it a “‘humanitarian
gesture,’” although the Ogonis do not believe the settlement took away from the malicious role
Shell played in Saro-Wiwa’s death. However, they did count it as a success to receive this
payment from Shell.185
Around the same time as this settlement, in 2008 and 2009, two major oil spills
devastated Bodo, Ogoniland, for which Shell Oil took responsibility.186
Shell does claim that
180
Francis and Sardesai. ibid., p. 30. 181
Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People. 2015. “Ogoni.” 182
“Nigeria’s removal of Shell hailed.” 2008. BBC News. 183
Press Release. 2015. “Stay away from the Ogoni oil - MOSOP writes Belema Oil.” World Stage News. 184
Okafor Ofiebor. 2015. “Ogoni Again: Trouble Over Oil.” The News. 185
Andrew Walker. 2009. “Will Shell payout change Niger Delta?” BBC News. 186
John Vidal. 2011. “Shell accepts liability for two spills in Nigeria.” The Guardian.
47
Nigerian government is partially responsible as well, because at least a portion of the oil spilled
(Shell says it is the majority of the oil spilled) is caused by “theft by armed gangs hacking into
pipelines.”187
Shell claims that less than 952 barrels of oil have spilled. On the other hand,
experts who studied video footage of the spills estimate that the total amount of oil spilled could
be upwards of 238,000 barrels.188
With that said, Shell later admitted that the quantity spilled
actually went beyond their initial estimate.189
The Ogonis affected by the spills were preparing
for a court case in London with Shell Oil to pay for the damage caused by the spills, when in
January of 2015 the case was settled for US $83.5 million.190191
As it turned out, Shell actually
received a warning in 2002 from Shell staff members about the pipeline that ended up bursting in
2008. According to The Guardian Newspaper, Shell was warned that the pipeline “continually
leaked and was a major risk,” but did nothing.192
Following the 2015 settlement, another oil spill case concerning Shell is being brought to
court. At the end of 2014, in Bonny, a region that neighbors Ogoniland, a spill occurred which
was, according to Shell, caused by bunkering193
– the illegal tapping of oil infrastructure in order
to illegally procure oil.194
Incidentally, spills around Bonny Island can actually make their way
into the Ogoniland region.195
An investigation by Shell as well as government officials
concluded that the amount of oil spilled was 3,800 barrels. This makes it one of the biggest spills
in recent years, based on Shell’s estimates.196
However, a human rights group called Social
Action, according to an employee of the group named Celestine Akpobari, estimated the size of
the spill at 20,000 barrels. Akpobari also mentioned that locals have lost faith in Shell’s oil spill
inquiry procedure that is undertaken, due to the sloppy approach; Akpobari claims that it is
standard procedure for Shell to offer feeble compensation before investigations are sufficiently
completed. A community leader on Bonny Island named Amasenibo Abere said, “‘[Shell] is
187
Cocks, Tim. 2012. “Insight: A year on, Nigeria’s oil still poisons Ogoniland.” Reuters. 188
Vidal 2011 op. cit. 189
John Vidal. 2014. “Shell ignored internal warnings over Nigeria oil spills, documents suggest.” The Guardian. 190
John Vidal. 2015. “Shell announces £55m payout for Nigeria oil spills.” The Guardian. 191
AP. 2015. “Shell to Pay $83.5m for Nigeria Oil Spill.” Aljazeera. 192
Vidal 2014 op. cit. 193
John Vidal. 2015. “Niger delta communities to sue Shell in London for oil spill compensation.” The Guardian. 194
United Nations Environment Programme. 2011. “Assessment of Contaminated Soil and
Groundwater.” UNEP. p. 101. 195
UNEP. “Background to Environmental Degradation in Ogoniland.” 196
Julia Payne. 2014. “Shell pipeline leak spills thousands of barrels into Niger delta.” Reuters.
48
desperate to hide the truth so as [to] avoid payment of compensation.’”197
Furthermore, while
Shell claimed that the spill was caused by thieves, locals have said that “they had video evidence
that it was not sabotage but a Shell contractor working in a buggy which struck the pipeline.”198
This spill, as with many spills in the area, remains unremediated. This case is being taken to
London, as the Bodo case in 2009 was. This is because English courts are perceived, at least by
English law firm Leigh Day (who represented Bodo in the 2008/2009 case),199
and Akpobari, to
be more fair than Nigerian courts. Other cases may end up being taken to London for this reason
as well.200
Although oil has not been extracted from Ogoniland since 1993, the problems
associated with oil are still painfully present even today.
4.6 Environment
4.6.1 Environmental Degradation
In 2011, the United Nations published and environmental assessment report on
Ogoniland. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) released a statement shortly
after the assessment report was published claiming that it would take up to 30 years and a start-
up fund of US $1 billion to clean the area. Despite having not drilled for oil since 1993 in
Ogoniland, oil spills are continuing to harm freshwater supplies, mangrove ecosystems, and
ultimately, the local peoples’ livelihoods.201
Oil facilities in the region have not been
decommissioned and in some cases, improperly maintained pipelines continue to pass through
Ogoniland carrying oil produced elsewhere in Nigeria.202
Mangrove ecosystems are considered one of the world’s most productive ecosystems, and
the tree itself is a very important keystone species in said ecosystems. Not only do other plant
and animal species rely on mangroves for survival, but the surrounding communities do as well.
The numerous oil spills in the Delta have resulted in the destruction of mangrove forests. The oil
from these spills have accumulated in the waters and have coated the leaves, branches, and roots
of the mangrove trees, causing extreme stress or destruction of the trees. An invasive mangrove
species known as nipa palm capitalizes on the death of the native mangroves and is quickly
197
Vidal 2015. op. cit. 198
Vidal 2015. ibid. 199
Vidal 2015. op. cit. 200
Vidal 2015. ibid. 201
United Nations Environment Programme. 2011. “Press Release.” UNEP. 202
United Nations Environment Programme. 2011. “Environmental Assessment of Ogoniland.” P. 25.
49
changing the composition of mangrove ecosystems. It has also been noted that this invasive
species of mangrove tree is much more resilient to oil pollution in comparison to the native tree.
Nipa palm is considered a “nuisance palm” and lacking in fiscal possibilities because unlike the
native mangrove trees, local peoples cannot gather fruit from the trees, nor use the wood for
construction or firewood. 203
Past oil spills that were never properly taken care of have left fishing waters with a layer
of floating oil. With fishing being a way to make a living to many peoples, oil spills have left
fish habitats extremely polluted and fisherman without a way to make an income. As a result,
more fishermen are traveling to bodies of water that are less polluted to catch fish to sell and feed
their families, thus, resulting in overfishing in the cleaner areas of the Delta region.204
Along
with changing habitats, fish are also affected by the changing composition of the water. In some
areas, oxygen levels are decreasing from 8.4 mg/l to 8.1 mg/l due to water temperatures
increasing from 25º C to 28º C. As temperatures further increase, oxygen levels will further
decrease. If levels reach 5 mg/l fish populations can become distressed; at 2 mg/l fish
populations will begin to die off.205
Groundwater has been severely contaminated by the oil spills in Ogoniland and the
surrounding Niger Delta. The high number of abandoned oil fields not properly maintained,
leading to the corrosion of oil pipelines, has caused an increase of ground contamination from
heavy metals. During their study, UNEP dug 180 groundwater monitoring wells to investigate
groundwater contamination. In Ejama-Ebubu, home of a large-scale oil spill in the 1970s, UNEP
reported that the observed levels of water contamination are higher than the standards set forth
by the Nigerian government and the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC). The
spilled oil of this event flowed through a lagoon, and then into creeks in downstream areas. The
main pollutants in groundwater are total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH).206
TPH is the broad
203
United Nations Environment Programme. 2011. “Assessment of Vegetation, Aquatic and Public Health Issues.”
UNEP. P. 125 204
United Nations Environment Programme. 2011. “Assessment of Vegetation, Aquatic and Public Health Issues.”
UNEP. P. 173. 205
United Nations Environment Programme. 2011. “Assessment of Vegetation, Aquatic & Public Health Issues.”
UNEP. 206
United Nations Environment Programme. 2011. “Assessment of Contaminated Soil and Groundwater.” UNEP.
P. 173.
50
categorization of the different families of the chemical compounds found in crude oil.207
Due to
the high amount of different TPH compositions, there are different effects it has on the human
body. The compounds that contain benzene can affect the nervous system, and if exposed to high
amounts, death can occur. Other compounds can cause respiratory distress, nausea, issues with
fetus development, and immune system problems.208
At a second site, an SPDC-suspended
facility in Bomu-Manifold, UNEP found that despite the facility being fenced in, there is oil
seeping through the fence, into the soil, and into the groundwater in the areas surrounding the
facility. In Nsisioken Agbi, drinking water in the area is heavily contaminated with benzene, a
known carcinogen. Water samples also showed methane and methane tertiary butyl ether, both of
which pose serious health risks for humans. Not only are the oil contaminants leaching into
groundwater in close proximity to the Nsisioken Agbi oil site, but also being transported to other
community wells within a half kilometer radius from the site itself. As a whole, UNEP
recommended at numerous study sites within Ogoniland to, put simply, clean up the mess left by
oil spills. In regards to other past oil spills, UNEP states numerous times that these spills were
not properly taken care of; cleanup efforts were deemed unsuccessful or abandoned before
completion.209
Gas flaring, a technique used at oil refineries which separates crude oil from the
associated gases that are extracted with it,210
is a practice by oil companies that negatively
impacts the environment and jeopardizes the health of surrounding communities. The UN reports
that gas flaring has made Ogoniland one of the most polluted areas in the world.211
Although gas
flaring no longer occurs within the confines of Ogoniland, active gas flaring sites are located
near Ogoni communities, therefore some Ogoni still feel the effects of gas flaring.212
Not only
do the gas flares increase the surrounding temperatures by 13-14℃, but also releases methane,
207 Environmental Protection Agency. 2014. “What Are Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons (TPH)?” EPA.
208 Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry. 1999. “Public Health Statement for Total Petroleum
Hydrocarbons (TPH).” ATSDR. 209
United Nations Environment Programme. 2011. “Assessment of Contaminated Soil and Groundwater.” UNEP. P.
98.
210Integrated Regional Information Networks. 2007. “NIGERIA: Gas flaring wrecking Delta communities.” IRIN.
211Legborsi Saro Pyagbara. 2007. “The Adverse Impacts of Oil Pollution on the Environment and Wellbeing of a
Local Indigenous Community: The Experience of the Ogoni People of Nigeria.”United Nations Department of
Economic and Social Affairs. 212
Ratical. 2015. “Factsheet on the Ogoni Struggle.” Ratical.
51
sulphurous oxides, and Nitrogen oxide, all harmful to the human body and can lead to
bronchoconstriction, increased asthma symptoms,213
and airway inflammation for healthy
people.214
Flaring is also linked to acid rain, which corrodes roofs and increases acidity in soil;
some local peoples believe gas flaring is the cause of their skin irritation, respiratory problems,
and poor eyesight.215
Lastly, gas flaring causes light pollution, giving surrounding organisms a
sense of 24-hour daylight and affecting their daily activity and sleeping patterns. Fish
populations have been known to alter their reproductive habits and change their new migration
patterns to deeper seas, where it is darker.216
4.6.2 Environmental Regulations
While there are Nigerian agencies for environmental management, they are seemingly
ineffective when it comes to cleaning up oil spills and other oil-related hazards. There is often an
overlap of local, state, and federal authority, and the resources needed to fix the environmental
problems are either lacking, or nonexistent. In December 2011, the Movement for the Survival of
the Ogoni People, a local NGO, created their own environmental protection agency, Ogoni
Environmental Protection Agency (OGEPA). The president and spokesperson of MOSOP states,
“the task of OGEPA is to coordinate efforts to protect the inherent rights and means of livelihood
of the Ogoni people, [and] ensure [a] healthy and safer environment.”217
OGEPA’s main goal is
to ensure that Ogonis do not participate in activities that are harmful to the environment.218
Similar to the majority of countries worldwide, Nigeria has a Federal Environmental
Protection Agency responsible for federal water and air quality standards, the discharge of
hazardous substances, spillage, etc. The main function of the agency is to preserve and protect
the environment and advise the Nigerian Federal Government. It also requires all future
development schemes to engage in an environmental impact assessment. All water quality
standards apply to the following: public water supplies, fish and wildlife, water used for
recreation, and lastly, industrial and agricultural uses. Air quality standards must be met to
213
Environmental Protection Agency. 2015. “Health.” EPA. 214
Environmental Protection Agency. 2014. “Health.” EPA. 215
Integrated Regional Information Networks. 2012. “Nigeria: Gas flares still a burning issue in the Niger Delta.” 216
Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization. 2008. “Ogoni.” UNPO. 217
John Ahni Schertow. 2011. “Ogoni Establish Their Own Environmental Protection Agency.” Intercontinental
Cry. 218
John Ahni Schertow. ibid.
52
ensure the health of nature and the public. Despite these rules and regulations to protect and
preserve the environment, oil spills are continuously left untouched, oil companies are not fined
for gas flaring or other harmful impacts on the environment, and the diverse ecosystems
surrounding the Niger Delta continue to suffer degradation. In regards to oil spills, the Federal
Environmental Protection Agency is responsible for the immediate clean up and habitat loss
restoration, unless the spill was deemed unavoidable as a result of a natural disaster, war, or
sabotage.219
Nigerian legislation also provides important environmental law under EGASPIN,
Environmental Guidelines and Standards for the Petroleum. Two important provisions under
EGASPIN clearly states after and oil spill, “‘Any operator or owner of a facility that is
responsible for a spill that results to impact of the environment shall be required to monitor the
impacted environment alongside the restorative activities.
It is widely known that gas flaring is harmful to the environment and to the people
exposed to it, which is why Nigeria outlawed flaring in 1984.220
In 1996, the federal government
agreed to end flaring in the Niger Delta by 2008, with Shell agreeing to comply to this law by
2009. Yet, these laws are not enough, and gas flaring remains a prevalent issue in Niger Delta
today. The NNPC claims that Nigeria flares 40% of its yearly natural gas production, while the
World Bank claims it flares 75%. The World Bank and the Integrated Regional Information
Networks (IRIN) agree that the monetary penalties for those who flare are too small to truly
make a change in this practice.221
222
Some have stated that any attempts to improve oil company
practices have been for show, and they have not seen these laws and regulations in place.
Interestingly enough, the claims that the federal government occasionally grants flaring
exemptions to oil companies. As Isaac Osuoka, the 2007 director of Social Action states, “‘the
gas flare-out target or deadlines have not been backed by any legislation, so they are more or less
voluntary targets that the government and the oil companies agreed to and which they violate at
will.’”223
The Associated Gas Re-injection Act 1979 (AGRA), Nigeria’s primary gas flaring
legislation, “[allows] exploration [companies] to continue to flare gas on prescribed terms and
219
Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre. 2015. “Federal Environmental Protection Agency Act.” PLAC. 220
Monika Mark. 2012. “Nigeria's Penalty for Gas Flaring Will Not Curb Emissions, Say Campaigners.” The
Guardian. 221
Francis and Sardesai. op. cit., p. 15. 222
Integrated Regional Information Networks. 2012. “Nigeria: Gas Flares Still a Burning Issue in the Niger Delta.” 223
Integrated Regional Information Networks. 2012. ibid.
53
conditions in relation to specified oil fields.”224
By not having a clear and firm set of laws and
regulations, there will only continue to be an exacerbation of environmental degradation in the
Niger Delta.
4.7 Forms of Representation in the Delta
4.7.1 MOSOP
The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) is a non-violent, democratic
social movement founded in 1990. The goals of MOSOP are to:
promote democratic awareness, protect the environment of the Ogoni people, seek
social, economic and physical development for the region, protect the cultural rights
and practices of the Ogoni people, and seek appropriate rights of self-determination
for the Ogoni people.225
Their first action was presenting the Ogoni Bill of Rights to the people and Government of
Nigeria. The Ogoni Bill of Rights calls for social, economic and environmental justice by means
of political autonomy for the Ogoni people. This autonomy includes political control of affairs,
control of economic resources for development, direct representation in Nigerian national
institutions, and protection of the environment and ecology from further degradation.226
At first,
MOSOP did not receive a reply regarding the Bill of Rights; a year later MOSOP leaders came
together to add a section to the Bill of Rights that would allow MOSOP to bring the campaign to
the international community and reiterate its commitment to nonviolence. In 1992 they presented
the Bill of Rights to the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations. Later that
year, MOSOP brought their demands to the oil companies stating they had to pay back royalties
and compensation to the people within 30 days. This led to the Ogoni Day March in January of
1993 to celebrate the United Nations Year of the Indigenous People.227
Later that month,
MOSOP joined the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO).228
After joining
224
Practical Law. 2015. “Oil and Gas Regulation in Nigeria: Overview.” Practical Law: a Thomson Reuters Legal
Solution. 225
Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People. 2015. “Ogoni.” 226
Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People. 2015. “Ogoni Bill of Rights.” 227
Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization. 1995. “Report of the UNPO Mission to Investigate the
Situation of the Ogoni of Nigeria” UNPO. 228
Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People. 2015. “Ogoni.”
54
the organization, MOSOP and the Ogoni case began receiving international attention through
media outlets. 229
After gaining more attention and expanding MOSOP needed to reorganize to properly
represent individuals which lead to the creation of smaller committees.230
These committees
represented by MOSOP include the National Youth Council of Ogoni People, the Federation of
Ogoni Women’s Associations, the Council of Ogoni Professionals and more. Decisions made at
village and organization levels are all reached democratically then taken to MOSOP to be used in
policy making decisions. Currently MOSOP is made up of over 200,000 Ogoni members.231
MOSOP is still active in advocating for the rights of the Ogoni people. Earlier this year it
has been announced that an indigenous oil and gas company, Belema Oil Producing Limited,
will take over oil production in Ogoniland.232
Although some reports have been made claiming
MOSOP support of the oil company, MOSOP has since spoken out against Belema Oil in
Ogoniland. Belema Oil claims to obtain properties that have already been in production but are
under-developed. They are currently only working in Nigeria but hope to expand further into
Africa. According to their corporate responsibilities Belema is working to minimize
environmental effects, conduct business fairly, and positively contribute to local communities.233
The company also states that part of their vision is to conduct business with optimal wealth
creation for stakeholders which includes the host communities.234
Despite these seemingly ideal claims made by the company, MOSOP has openly spoke
out against Belema operations in Ogoniland. They have chosen to speak out in the form of a
letter written to the CEO of Belema Oil. The letter states their disapproval of any oil related
activities in Ogoniland, specifically oil mining, regardless of the company involved. It states that
the companies presence in Ogoniland will disrupt the prevailing peace and could bring more
crisis to the area. The letter brings up issues of past violence, human rights violations, and
environmental degradation brought about by Shell and the Nigerian government, which remain
229
Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization. 1995. “Report of the UNPO Mission to Investigate the
Situation of the Ogoni of Nigeria” UNPO. 230
Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization. ibid. 231
Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People Canada. 2014. “The Story of the Movement for the Survival of
the Ogoni People” 232
Taneh Beemene. 2015. “Oil Exploration Resumes in Ogoni Soon...As Belema Oil Replaces Shell. ” The Tide. 233
Belema Oil Producing. 2015. “Corporate Responsibility” 234
Belema Producing. 2015. “Our Business, Vision and Core Values”
55
unreconciled with the Ogoni. MOSOP urges Belema not to enter Ogoniland because it threatens
the living conditions of local communities and will cause conflicts. They state that the Ogoni
people reject any and all oil mining until the issues with Shell and the Nigerian government are
solved. The letter ends with a final plea for the company to stay away from Ogoni oil.235
MOSOP and the Ogoni are openly and clearly against any mining in Ogoniland and are still
active in speaking out against it.
4.7.2 MEND
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) is a militant group that
emerged in January of 2006. Their attacks are focused on oil companies, based on their
dissatisfaction with environmental degradation, underdevelopment of local communities, and
lack of benefits communities have received from the country's oil resources and revenues. Their
main goal is to get resource control and thus a share of the revenue from the oil. Such groups
often begin with young men frustrated with lack of jobs available. Many aspects surrounding
MEND are unknown. The number of members could be anywhere from several hundred to
several thousand and is largely composed of young men. Ike Okonta, a researcher of African
politics at the University of Oxford claims MEND is more of an idea than organization.236
MEND does not have a united structure and experts claim this organizational structure of the
group allows for flexibility and secrecy. The leadership remains opaque as well and several
members have claimed or been referred to as leaders. The secrecy has been successful for the
group because of the support from locals.237
Because of all the unknown aspects surrounding
MEND their exact location is also unknown but their attacks take place throughout the Niger
Delta.238
MEND first emerged in 2006 with the capture of four foreign oil workers. Throughout
the year, MEND continued with attacks on oil pipelines and several car bombings. The attacks
have had an immense impact on the oil exports, causing a reduction of more than 25%. This
gained the attention of the oil companies, the Nigerian government, and the United States
235
Unrepresented Nations and People’s Organization. 2015. “Ogoni: Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni
People Rejects Take-over of Oilfields by Belema Oil.” 236
Stephanie Hanson. 2007. “MEND: The Niger Delta’s Umbrella Militant Group.” The Council on Foreign
Relations. 237
Hanson 2007, op. cit. 238
Reuters. 2010. “Timeline- Conflict in Nigeria’s Oil Delta.”
56
government who are concerned about MEND disrupting global oil supply. MEND’s main tactic
involves the kidnapping of foreign oil workers who are typically released unharmed after
negotiations with both oil companies and the Nigerian government.239
Since 2006 MEND has continued to be active. After the suspected leader Henry Okah
was arrested, MEND decided to no longer participate in the ongoing peace talks with the
government. In September of 2008 MEND declared an “oil war” which in May 2009 became an
“all out war,” during which MEND repeated their earlier calls for oil firms to remove their staff
from the area. Later that year in June, President Yar’Adua granted amnesty to several gunmen
previously involved in pipeline bombings and other attacks, including Henry Okah. Then in
July, MEND attacked another oil pipeline but five days later called for a ceasefire. The 60-day
ceasefire was an effort by MEND to start new peace talks with the government in response to
the amnesty for Okah. When the 60 days were up, MEND extended the ceasefire for 30 more
days to continue peace talks, but warned that key issues were not being addressed. In October of
2009 MEND called off the ceasefire and threatened to attack but the ceasefire was reinstated
nine days later. Later in January 2010 MEND ended the ceasefire, again threatening an all out
war. Throughout 2010 more oil workers were kidnapped, car bombs were detonated, and other
attacks were carried out.240
Through the kidnappings and attacks, MEND managed to reduce oil exports by 28%
from 2006 to 2009. Although attacks continued in 2010 and 2011, violence greatly declined
after the amnesty attempt in 2009.241
At the end of 2011 MEND claimed responsibility for a
bomb that went off at a celebration, killing 12 people and threatened for more attacks to come.
This was a sign of MEND’s return.242
In the beginning of 2015 a spokesperson for MEND,
Jomo Gbomo issued a statement claiming responsibility for an attack earlier in the year and
regarding MEND’s upcoming plans. These plans include larger attacks, dealing with the
occupying government forces, and within the year, reducing Nigeria’s oil exportations until
239
Hanson 2007, op. cit. 240
Reuters. 2010, op. cit. 241
Elisha Bala-Gbogbo. 2015. “Nigeria’s MEND Rebels Threaten Future Attack on Oil Industry.” Bloomberg
Business. 242
David Francis. 2010. “Move Over Boko Haram, Nigeria’s MEND Rebels Set to Restart Oil War in Niger Delta.”
57
there are none. 243
MEND is still currently working towards their original goal of justice for
local communities from the oil companies and reducing oil production and exportation.
4.7.3 Local NGOs and Civil Organizations
African Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ) is an NGO based in
Benin City, Edo. Their mission is working towards a just and equal African society through the
protection of socio-economic and environmental rights, strengthening institutions, and
empowering individuals.244
Their objectives are to create platforms for civil society to
communicate with individuals on issues and build up civil society to better help with local
governance issues and how they connect to poverty and resource conflicts.245
ANEEJ also works
with Publish What You Pay (PWYP),246
a global network of over 800 organizations calling for
extractive sectors to be more transparent and accountable. PWYP hopes more transparency will
improve the lives of individuals and local communities in resource rich countries.247
Niger Delta Watch is a program that uses text messages, emails, or online forms to
document what is happening around the Niger Delta. NGOs, civil society groups, communities,
and individuals can submit reports on incidents, which brings a greater awareness of issues at a
local level. Niger Delta Watch then checks, approves, categorizes, and posts the reports online.
The current categories for the reports are cultural events, peace building initiatives, community
empowerment, infrastructure projects, oil spills, gas flares, human rights abuses, and
displacement. The purpose of this program is to keep people informed and eventually help build
a stronger civil society. The information can be used to monitor the government to hold them
accountable, oversee military activity, expose the abuses and issues with oil, and show the
positive progress that is being made.248
These programs, managed by local people, are working
towards bringing justice and equality to local communities in the Niger Delta from the ground
up.
4.7.4 Regional NGOs
243
Bala-Gbogbo, 2015. op. cit. 244
African Network for Environment and Economic Justice. 2014. “Our Vision” 245
African Network for Environment and Economic Justice. 2014. “Our Objectives” 246
Publish What You Pay. 2011. “Members of Publish What You Pay.” 247
Publish What You Pay. 2011. “About Us.” 248
Niger Delta Watch. 2009. “About Niger Delta Watch.”
58
Social Action is an organization working in Nigeria and the Gulf of Guinea, but primarily
focuses its effort in Nigeria. As an organization they are working towards education,
mobilization, and cohesion for communities. They work with activists dedicated to
environmental justice, social change, and democracy. Social Action also works to promote
individual and group contribution to addressing the issues associated with energy, mining, trade,
and investments, which affect their call for democracy and human rights. Their beliefs and work
generates from impoverishment, lack of social structure, lack of democracy, and corruption.
They also focus on how these things contribute to underdevelopment. Their forms of action
include: encouraging public debate on policies, mass communication, monitoring, community
support, community and democratic action, and global movement.249
Social Action has several
programs to address these issues, including one focused on energy and climate. The basis of this
program is global reliance on oil and gas leading to expanding production and exportation and its
implications. This leads to negative social and environmental effects such as environmental
degradation, community conflicts, and corruption. Social Action, along with community
volunteers, works to monitor the practices used by the government and oil companies to protect
local communities and their environments.250
5. Analysis
5.1 The Resource Curse
The 1956 premier unearthing of oil reserves in Oloibiri of the Bayelsa State in the Niger
Delta began an era of petroleum extraction that continues in the Niger Delta today.251
Nigeria has
been declared the leading and largest national economy on the African continent with
approximations from 2013 showing a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of US $502 billion, and an
annual growth rate of 6.2% for the same year.252
The GDP of the nation has been divided into
compositions for the origins of contributions. When separated into three groups, agriculture
accounts for 30.9%, industry–which includes mineral extraction–is 43%, and services is listed as
26% of the GDP estimate.253
These numbers at first glance seem to display an economy that may
249
Social Action. 2009. “About Social Action.” 250
Social Action. 2009. “Energy and Climate.” 251
Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). 2015. “Nigeria Facts and Figures.” 252
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). 2014. “Nigeria.” The World Factbook. 253
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). ibid.
59
be more varied than previously thought as agriculture, an essential sector for many Nigerian
communities’ livelihoods, appears to still be a major aim of government efforts. This national
scale of GDP may not provide a specialized view of what is occurring in smaller oil producing
communities such as Ogoniland, and therefore Delta communities who generate income mostly
from oil may not be represented in this statistic well. Industry is still the most prominent of the
three and other estimates for export revenue in relation to total income illustrate a case of
reliance, rather than mere abundance. Increasing economic gain from sources such as petroleum
further solidifies justifications for the consolidation of economic policies that reflect a rentier
state. The industrial sector contains endeavors such as the production of crude oil, chemicals,
steel, ceramics, tin, rubber and construction supplies, and contains 10% of the labor force as
compared to the agricultural sector which consists of 70% of the labor force.254
This arena is
growing annually, exemplified by a rate of 0.9% for 2013.255
The exportation revenues for 2014
reached over US $93 billion, and the portion of total exports derived from petroleum and its
products reached 95% in 2012.256
This export revenue percentage denotes the presence of
dependence as defined by Karl, which is noted in the literature review section. Though the
Federal Government of Nigeria may not be considered an obvious rentier state due to a partly
diverse GDP, the case for this type of state may be more applicable to the individual regional
states of the federation. The World Bank’s NER for 2014 has an emphasis placed on the
“macroeconomic risks [which] remain due to uncertainty about future oil output, oil prices, and
short term capital flows”, pointing to the larger economic vision of the country which is still
chiefly reliant on the oil industry.257
Reliance on a single aspect of economic income leads many state leaders to develop the
condition of myopia during their policy pursuits.258
This ailment leads fiscal directors and
national management to become short-sighted in their actions by concentrating entirely on a
prized and precious sector, leaving other dimensions of the economy to waste away as state
funds, economic policies, and capital investment are provided only to the chosen segment.
Exhibits of this type of behavior can be seen in the greater economic system of the Federal
254
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). ibid. 255
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). ibid. 256
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). ibid. 257
The World Bank. “Nigeria Economic Update: World Bank Cites Positive Economic Trends and Progress in
Poverty Reduction.” World Bank Group. 258
Michael L. Ross. 1999 "The political economy of the resource curse." p. 309.
60
Government of Nigeria, where oil has become the dominant division of the national economy.
This illness of narrow vision will beget another, often dubbed “Dutch disease,” which refers to
the situation when combined factors such as an appreciated local currency and devalued exported
products that are not the focused resource generate financial dependence on the select sector by
the entire state, and by heavily supporting other sectors, it creates a challenging atmosphere for
economic diversification.259
Reports collected between 2007 and 2011 have indicated that Rivers
State is 76% dependent on oil revenue.260
Though this fares better than other states in the Delta,
with the highest being 96% in Bayelsa State, “the trend is unlikely to be different in all the 36
states of the Federation.”261
In general, with opportunities dwindling in aspects of the economy
like labor-intensive work in manufacturing and agriculture, which most Nigerians participate in,
the average citizen is being crowded out of national and local economies by oil industry,
especially those in rural areas with limited access to education or the ability to enter the formal
sector. Migration from rural regions into urban centers in search of work, by youth especially,
disturbs the social dynamic of families and smallholder farms whose heads of households expect
to pass down their legacy of growth to their children, but are unable to when relations become
fragmented. It has been estimated that nearly half of Ogoni youth have moved with this intent of
greater economic possibility.262
With the acknowledgement that most communities in Ogoniland
and the rest of the Delta engage in farming for subsistence and additional income, they are also
then profoundly susceptible to these market forces and fiscal policies which degrade the
prospects of agricultural and fishmonger livelihoods.
Theoreticians of the resource curse claim that a state’s dependence on the revenue of a
single industry, specifically extraction activities, contribute to an effect that disables other sectors
of the economy and leaves leaders making hasty decisions which favor lucrative extraction
commerce. Impacts of this resource dependence also displace the power of people to command
agency in the decision-making processes that affect their communities through the formation of
rentier states. This can be seen as a framework for viewing the statistics that have come from
Nigeria about their GDP in relation to the percentage of it derived from citizen taxation and other
259
Terry Lynn Karl. "2. Understanding the Resource Curse." p. 23. 260
Zainab Ahmed. 2014. “Deepening Knowledge About How Oil Money is Spent.” Extraction Industries
Transparency Initiative (EITI). 261
Zainab Ahmed. ibid. 262
Watts. op. cit., p. 67.
61
revenues collected by the government. The proportion of Nigeria’s GDP contributed by taxes,
from sources such as “personal and corporate income taxes, value added taxes, excise taxes, and
tariffs” as well as public ventures and “social contributions” like insurance and grants, is one of
the lowest ratios to be found anywhere in the world, ranking in at 212 of the 215 countries
assessed.263
The rate of 3.8% of GDP in 2014 is significantly contrasted to developed nations
such as Denmark which acquired 55.5% of their GDP from taxation for the same year, or a
nearby neighbor Ghana which had 23.2% for that year.264
If oil is considered to be a ‘public enterprise’ due to NNPC involvement and if profits
from investment in oil company shares are typified as a government revenue, these numbers
should reflect not only citizen taxation but also the types of returns on public ventures like oil.265
This means that while the data may not clearly affirm a rentier state formation, the low
proportion of Nigeria’s taxes to GDP ratio denotes a troubling taxation arrangement that does not
incur high yields from oil operations and state-owned enterprises. The small fraction of funding
from total taxes is still indicative of the conditions of a state in which governments focus on
industry revenues rather than viewing citizens as a social capital to extract from and hence to
invest in. By perceiving the local population as inconsequential to the prosperity of the central
economy, the federal government does not see the objective benefit to negotiating matters by
concerned groups of indigenous peoples. Locals become excluded from the political process at a
federal level and so they must advocate for themselves and their causes in their locality, hoping
to eventually gain true recognition by the wider national government. Inclusion within political
procedures regarding petroleum production, the management of oil revenue, and the protection
of ecological stability are crucial elements to improving the quality of the everyday lives of
Ogoni peoples and other marginalized groups.
5.2 Corruption
Corruption is part of the political history of Nigeria. In the review of the literature on the
matter, we learned that both military rule as well as civilian rule were hosts of corruption in
263
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). 2014. “Nigeria.” The World Factbook 264
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). ibid.
265 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). ibid.
62
Nigeria.266
Corruption manifests itself at the state level as well as the federal level, and this truth
has dramatic effects on said states’ constituencies. Persistence of corruption, both at the federal
and state level, has been attributed to a lack of government accountability; as Emmanuel Obuah,
author of “Combating Corruption in Nigeria: The Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC),” points out, a functional checks and balances system seems to be
missing.267
Obuah explains that a major cause of corruption is that, “the governors and
chairpersons claim that the 1999 Nigerian constitution bestowed immunity from prosecution
while in office.”268
One example of this is that of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar. The
Senate Committee accused him of the involvement in theft of US $145 million worth of public
funds. This case, however, was never taken to court.269
Obuah’s key example of “abuse of
power” is that of Rivers State–the state in which Ogoniland is situated–in 2006. According to
Obuah, “the governor of Rivers State in 2006 budgeted [US] $33.2 million for unspecified
‘grants, contributions and donations’; [US] $77 million for unspecified ‘special projects’; [US]
$65,000 per day for transport and travel for his office; and [US] $11.5 million for purchasing
new government vehicles.”270
The particular concern here is that the uses of these large sums of
money are “unspecified”. There is reason to be suspicious about the actual location of these
unspecified sums, and that reason is the glaring lack of development anywhere outside of a few
select cities. Money that could be allocated to various communities, for any kind of
development, is certainly being spent recklessly; we can speculate that those funds are being
used in an outright corrupt manner. In total, the above values make up about US $140 million. If
this sort of value accrued annually, untouched by corrupt politicians, over sixteen years–from the
start of the new civilian rule until now–it could equate to a considerable level of development in
the area. We might speculate that the amount of state allocated money intended to benefit the
public ends up in the pockets of the politicians responsible for it. Without intervention by corrupt
politicians, there could be significant strides in various developmental elements such as
healthcare, education, and infrastructure, as well as environmental remediation and protection.
266
Opukri op. cit., p. 180 267
Emmanuel Obuah. "Combating Corruption in Nigeria: The Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC)." African Studies Quarterly 12, no. 1 (2010): p. 21 268
Obuah ibid., p. 21 269
Ogundiya, Ilufoye Sarafa. 2009. "Political corruption in Nigeria: theoretical perspectives and some
explanations." The Anthropologist 11, no. 4. p. 289 270
Obuah op. cit., p. 21
63
Godfatherism, an idea briefly discussed in the literature review, is a form of corruption in
many regions around the world, but not least of which Nigeria.271
Godfatherism, according to
Ilufoye Sarafa Ogundiya, is the idea of that a particular person has the ability to decide who runs
and/or wins an election; it also encompasses the practice of the politician finding a godfather to
help with an election process. The godfather will use his power to make sure his godson is
elected. This is done with violence and bribery, particularly of electoral officials and police
officers. After being ‘elected,’ the godson–and new politician–pays the godfather back
substantially more than the godfather put in. It is a profitable set-up for both parties. Because of
this relationship, the godfather achieves an extreme level of power. As Ogundiya says, “to the
godfathers, electoral politics is one huge investment opportunity with considerable promise of
massive returns.”272
Electoral politics–elections meant to be for the people–has been made into a
business by godfathers, and indeed it is a booming business.
Ogundiya also attempts to explain why corruption has been allowed to persist in Nigeria.
Over the years, different laws and institutions have been put in place, but corruption is still
rampant in Nigeria. He first explains that the punishments are much too tame; the example of
Vice President Abubakar is an example of this, but politicians who are convicted still see far too
tame of a punishment.273
It is difficult to convey a concrete reason corruption persists in Nigeria.
With that said, a true desire to eliminate corruption is necessary, and politicians have
traditionally lacked this trait. This could be attributed to the probable truth that corruption is a
necessary force for a politician to thrive. So, even though there have been laws and institutions
put in place, they lack a backbone, rendering them ineffective.274
The oil industry has contributed to the way this government situation has unfolded. The
revenues from oil wealth are undeniable; the government relies heavily on the wealth from oil. It
is for this reason that it is important that the oil industry is monitored in order to make progress
in that direction. The Nigerian Extraction Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has helped
to expose industry discrepancies and has publicized their findings, helping the public to be more
271
O. Akinola Adeoye. 2009. "Godfatherism and the future of Nigerian democracy." African Journal of Political
Science and International Relations 3, no. 6. p. 269 272
Ogundiya op.cit., p. 287 273
Ogundiya ibid., p. 287 274
Ogundiya ibid., p. 290
64
aware of the situation.275
In 2007, the Nigerian government implemented the Nigeria Extractive
Industries Transparency Initiative Act, which established the NEITI. NEITI’s objectives are all
centered around increasing transparency and thus decreasing corruption in the extractive industry
as well as the government.276
This can be considered a bold step in the direction of more
transparency. Since 2011, NEITI has been working to expose and hold accountable companies in
the extraction industry. One example of a positive result brought on my NEITI is that, according
to their website, an unnamed oil company owed US $8.3 billion in taxes between 2009 and 2011,
which is actually a greater value than the government spent on education in that time277
–yet
another indicator that commitment to development is lacking. In July 2013, after the 2007-2011
audit by NEITI was published, Mobil Nigeria was commanded by the Tax Appeal Tribunal to
provide a penalty of US $83.4 million for an “unremitted education tax” that was never paid.278
This example of retroactive compensation shows that federal courts have the potential to enforce
compliance of proper payment upon transnational oil companies if they are made aware of
concrete proof of disparities, and may be able to make both corporations and the state more
responsible in development efforts.
5.2.1 The Role of Shell Oil
In the last eight years, Shell Oil has been damaging Ogoniland and the people that inhabit
it, even though oil production ceased 22 years ago. What is left out of the scope of our case study
is all the damage done while oil production in Ogoniland was still prevalent. Not only have the
effects from the oil drilling from earlier years remained, but also the oil drilling in nearby areas
today are impacting Ogoniland as well.
Why are these negative impacts on the environment allowed to occur? We could deduce
that the government, namely state and federal governments, and Shell together would like to
avoid cutting into their revenues. That is one of the major problems with Nigeria right now: the
government is not (at least entirely) in place for the people. As we gathered from our literature
review, government officials generally take office not from a desire to do good for the public, but
275
Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. “Nigeria Overview.” 276
Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. “Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative
(NEITI) Act, 2007 Explanatory [Memorandum]”. 277
Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. 2014. “Progress Report 2014.” 278
Zainab Ahmed. ibid.
65
for the benefit of taking public revenue for themselves. It would seem that Shell is guilty of
seeking revenue without much of a second thought about the local communities as well. The
general view concerning Shell, as represented by the quote from Bonny community leader
Abere, is that Shell is intentionally hiding facts and evidence so as to avoid losing money. The
argument could be made that that is indirectly the reason for settling cases before they go to trial,
as was the case with the Saro-Wiwa family and with the Bodo community. In the Saro-Wiwa
situation, Shell settled the case, and was then free to claim that it was not an admission of guilt.
To some, this might be the same as claiming that they were not guilty; they are free to do that
because now they are free from ever being found liable. Furthermore, they can turn it into a
positive press release. They can claim responsibility for an oil spill, or they can make a
“humanitarian gesture,” which is undoubtedly a great way to appear to be a respectable
company. These actions save face for the company, and avoid, to the extent they can, the risk of
losing money in the future due to sympathetic consumers taking their business elsewhere. These
events resurfacing in the news every week can eventually lead people all over the world to be
moved by what they see in the news, and thus avoid Shell gas stations. In other words,
ultimately, Shell could be losing less money by settling than they would going to trial.
The same argument could be made for the Bodo settlement. If Shell settles the case now,
they could gain three things: the first is that they can get closure, knowing exactly where it ends
and how much they owe. Secondly, it is very possible, or even probable, that Shell could be
found liable for more money than would be paid in a settlement, not including fees associated
with a trial, which can be very steep. The third is that they can avoid continuing coverage of the
case, which would undoubtedly portray them in a bad light. They can even turn the incident into
a public relations success by claiming they are taking responsibility and taking action to fix the
problem (whether they are actually helping or not). So a settlement can be a calculated move that
actually saves them money in the end.
Along the lines of dishonesty from Shell, John Vidal of the Guardian Newspaper cites
Amnesty international in saying that Shell’s estimates of all of the previous spills in the Niger
Delta are questionable due to their underestimation of the major 2008 spills, due to the fact that
66
all the “spill investigations are conducted in the same manner.”279
All Shell oil spills all over the
world should be questioned as well, as a result of their gross underestimation.
Shell representatives do claim that most of the spills are caused by bunkering,280
and
there is some validity to those claims, which must be made explicit to be fair. The answer to the
question of how much is caused by thieves, though, remains uncertain. As previously stated, on
one occasion when Shell claimed a spill was caused by thieves, the opposition claimed to have
video evidence proving the contrary. This occasion was the Bodo case, in which Shell ultimately
settled for US $83.5 million. Also, the question of whether or not Shell is liable for the damage
done by theft has been raised; they could have potentially been deemed liable if it was proven
that Shell “failed to take reasonable steps to protect its infrastructure.”281
Whether or not theft
from their pipelines is a foreseeable risk is relevant in that case. Furthermore, Shell has proven
its lack of accountability due to the gross negligence in its maintenance of a thirty year-old
pipeline that caused, and continues to cause, so much environmental harm.282
Amnesty
International reports that, beyond the inaccurate spill estimate, Shell claims “‘that sites are
cleaned up when they are not,’”283
and that Shell is not nearly as transparent as it claims to be.
They also reported that “Shell is being disingenuous about the devastation caused by its Niger
Delta operations.”284
Shell’s actions do not completely match our working definition of corruption. With that
said, however, its behavior is parallel to that of corrupt government officials because its actions
are at the expense of the local community and, as Abere claims, it is trying to hide the truth.
Furthermore, Shell is so tightly associated with the Nigerian government that it is inherently tied
with government corruption in Nigeria as well. In 2010, The Guardian Newspaper reported that
Shell “had inserted staff into all the main ministries of the Nigerian government, giving it access
to politicians’ every move in the oil-rich Niger Delta.”285
The report from The Guardian was
gathered from statements made by “the company’s top executive in Nigeria.”286
Akpobari was
279
Vidal 2014 op. cit. 280
Vidal 2014 ibid. 281
Vidal 2014 ibid. 282
Vidal 2014 ibid. 283
John Vidal. 2013. “Shell made false claims about Niger delta oil pollution, says Amnesty.” The Guardian. 284
Vidal 2013 ibid. 285
David Smith. 2010. “WikiLeaks cables: Shell’s grip on Nigerian state revealed.” The Guardian. 286
Smith ibid.
67
quoted as saying, “‘Shell is everywhere. They have an eye and an ear in every ministry of
Nigeria. They have people on the payroll in every community, which is why they get away with
everything. They are more powerful than the Nigerian government.’”287
The NNPC denied this
report, and Shell opted not to comment, but a representative of Platform–an activist group based
in London–named Ben Amunwa agrees with Akpobari’s statement. He was quoted as saying,
“‘in reality, Shell works deep inside the system, and has long exploited political channels in
Nigeria to its own advantage.’”288
The fact that two separate parties see this report in the same
light implies a level of truth, at least in the eyes of observers. In addition, the SPDC of Nigeria is
the leading producer of the country’s oil, and is 55% owned by the NNPC.289
The profits of this
company directly translate to revenues for the federal government. Another example of the
importance of Shell’s revenue is that just in 2014, Shell paid US $3 billion in taxes to the
Nigerian government.290
It can quite comfortably be inferred that Shell has a major influence on
the Nigerian government.
What we are looking for in our research is what comparisons can be made between the
causes of the political and economic exclusion of Niger Delta communities and the causes of
environmental degradation. The government’s actions have engendered these exclusions. There
is a powerful tie between Shell Oil and the Nigerian government. Shell’s activity is largely
responsible for the tremendous amount of environmental damage in the Delta, and they are not
held accountable because they are fused with the government. As such, the same factors that
have caused the exclusion of communities like the Ogoni have simultaneously been the cause for
so much environmental damage.
5.3 Political Ecology
The importance of identity in nation formation is purported by Michael Watts as being
crucial to the analysis of administrations that have been infiltrated with ‘petro-capitalism’ and
established an ‘oil complex’.291
Those systems engender a variety of “governable spaces”, which
are an amalgamation of elements such as affiliation, control, and territory; and which emerge as
287
Smith ibid. 288
Smith ibid. 289
Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria. op. cit. 290
Phillip Oladunjoye. 2015. “Shell pays 3b as taxes, royalties to Nigeria govt in 2014.” Daily Independent. 291
Watts. op. cit., p. 54.
68
internal discrepancies among traditional leadership, indigenous loyalty, and nationalist
aspirations.292
As the revenue from oil production forced the Nigerian Federal Government to
further centralize, “what was true under colonialism became more so in the post-colonial oil
era.”293
The disagreements on which groups had sovereignty was made more tense by ethnic
strife based on resource claims, and the use of militant youth and national security forces to quiet
community unrest by transnational oil companies under the guise of government bodies. Violent
strategies employed to secure and control rents by oil producing communities and state
institutions resulted in the appearance of glaring differences in the aims of stakeholders, and the
disintegration of traditional networks of power.294
Especially after the Biafran civil war, the
increased militancy of governmental regimes ensured that communities and states had even less
input than before.295
Joint ventures between the NNPC and international oil corporations created
monetary flows that led directly to the federal government which redistributed funds to states in
a manner that mirrored the colonial nepotism of the three dominant ethnic majorities.296
Unfortunately the “weak institutions and a charged, volatile federal system produced an
undisciplined, corrupt and flabby oil-led development that was to fragment, pulverize,
disintegrate and discredit the state and its forms of governance.”297
With incapable governmental
structures and missing egalitarian political representation of local indigenous groups, the quality
of life and of the surrounding environment diminish.
Movements toward a brighter future in the face of injustice by transnational oil
companies may have strengthened some people’s connection to their community. Watts contends
that although they were “marginalized and excluded from the benefits of oil”, Niger Delta
peoples like the Ogoni used oil as an opportunity to begin discussions on community rights to
resources, expectations of administrative accountability, and other topics in which the Ogoni
represented a revolutionary frame of mind.298
The entrenched systems that have excluded the
Ogoni and other peoples in the Niger Delta from effective political participation demonstrate
292
Watts. ibid., p. 53 293
Watts. ibid., p. 59. 294
Watts. ibid., p. 64. 295
Francis and Sardesai. op. cit., p. 58. 296
Francis and Sardesai. ibid., p. 58. 297
Watts. op. cit., p. 61. 298
Watts. ibid., p. 51.
69
how the environment has been robbed of their management, and they also reveal an enduring
dissonance among minority groups as well as the three dominant ethnic groups.
Peet and Watts claim that with oil production comes a presence of violence and
criminality. They also state that the petro-capitalism in Nigeria has brought about territory,
community authority and inner-ethnic relation issues.299
These claims are shown through the
local social movements in Ogoniland. Every social movement is working towards political,
economic and environmental representation regarding the issues of oil corporations working in
their territory and undermining their community authority. As a militant group, MEND’s main
tactic for achieving justice is carried out through violence and crimes. Their attacks are based on
their dissatisfaction with oil production in their area and illustrates Peet and Watts’ idea that with
oil comes violence and criminality. Although MOSOP is dedicated to nonviolence they have
dealt with crimes and violence present in the area through the arrest, trial and death of Ken Saro-
Wiwa. The other local NGOs mentioned in this research are also nonviolent but it can be
assumed that the violence and crime in Ogoniland has an impact on the local communities.
6. Conclusion
Throughout our investigation, the perspective of the resource curse has been a tool to
critically assess our case. We did not seek to prove or disprove the existence of a resource curse,
but instead used this lens to better understand our research. We have found that the concentration
in the oil industry has raised the question of a rentier state where petroleum is the primary
commodity, and other sectors of the economy are largely ignored. The taxation of citizens has
not played a substantial role in federal income, which contributes to the marginalization of the
people that the government is supposed to represent. Economic and political exclusion are
coupled with inadequate state efforts for development and the lack of improvements on degraded
environments. These factors of underrepresentation are caused by a general proclivity for
corruption in the government, both at the national and state levels. This proclivity is at the same
time the cause of environmental degradation in the area. The desire of government officials as
well as Shell Oil to maximize their revenues has led to a negligence of both society and the
environment. The collusion between the government and Shell Oil–and even the fusion of the
299
Richard Peet and Michael Watts. 2004. “Liberation Ecologies: Environment, Development, Social Movements.”
293.
70
two entities– exacerbates these issues. The presence of oil and its industry is not the contentious
issue, but rather what has been done by the industry in relation to local economic integration,
why revenue funds and economic planning have been improperly handled, and how the
ecological crisis forced upon communities of the Niger Delta impacts the daily lives of the
individuals living there. Organizations within civil society have formed to address issues such as
resource allocation, transparency, and environmental degradation. While the formation of these
groups within society can be equated to progress, there are still strides to be made before true
economic and political inclusion can be achieved. The movements of local communities that
gather around political representation, economic inclusion, and environmental concern are not
unique to the Niger Delta. Resource extraction regions can be found in many countries
worldwide, and these areas are subject to similar processes of marginalization and
underdevelopment. Indigenous communities in resource-rich states around the globe may have
identical issues, but they may also have comparable–potential or actual–action by civil societies.
Our findings may be useful for the analysis of other extraction areas in the developing world, and
may allow insight into the political, economic, and environmental context of present-day reliant
states.
7. Perspectives
The time and resource restraints upon our group research leaves us unable to address the
future avenues of exploration which have been discovered. One of these paths that other
researchers might follow is the implication of the informal economy in Ogoniland and
throughout the Niger Delta. We have found some works that discuss the bunkering of oil and its
surreptitious sales, but a source of interest would be to discover how else communities are
participating in local economies that produce oil, whether within informal or formal sectors, and
how some income generators may be more beneficial to the population than others. Another
subject of future interest is how the issue of election rigging changes over time. Our research
enabled us to briefly study the electoral issues of the past. It will be crucial, however, for these
elections to be conducted with more transparency in the future. Fairly conducted elections will
be a key ingredient in the recipe that makes for a more transparent government and therefore a
government accountable to its constituents. More work on the prevalence of grassroots
organizations in developing areas of the world subject to characteristics of the resource curse
71
would also be interesting to note, as well as the variances of institutionalization for those groups
into their state or international circuits. The global applicability of our findings for comparative
studies or further investigations will hopefully lead to a better understanding of societies where
mineral extraction occurs, the structural exclusion of marginalized indigenous groups, and how
people adapt and change systems in order to create more agency for themselves.
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