Crude oil for development
Crude oil for development
Crude oil for development
Dear President,
It is the will to achieve coupled with the action itself that makes great achievers. What is lacking in the Niger Delta region is that sincere will to achieve on the part of our leaders. We have heard so many rhetoric's concerning the sufferings of the Niger Delta people. Forests and farmlands destroyed, various oil spillages, the destruction of fishes and other aquatic lives, flaring of gas and its attendant problems on the environment and the general degradation of the oil producing areas.
What is more? The people have woken up from their sub-conscious level and have echoed the voices of Major Adaka Boro and Ken Sartowiwa of blessed memory. People asked for Resource Control. Good counsel played down this demand because resource control would cause more problems for individual states to handle, as the states would be battling with individual communities and families who are resident in the areas of exploitation and exploration. Secondly the geographical configuration of the entity called Nigeria today extends into the Niger Delta area and taking an inch away from it means ceding part of Nigeria territory. If Nigeria has to maintain her territorial integrity then she has to control whatever is in it, including the people and the natural resources. The question is how much of control can each state in the oil producing areas exert that would give they needed development of the areas without chaos, acrimony and brick-batting? The same story will rear its ugly head with more criminal acts, communal clashes and unprecedented vendetta. Thank God that the issue of Resource Control has been stepped down for now.
Then comes the issue of Derivation. This indeed amuses me. Time was when we had regions and each region controlled its resources and still received much from the central purse. What they did with their money was easily discernable. In the old West many of us benefited from free education, free health care, rural development which includes water, electricity, good roads. Can this be said of the present crop of leaders, even with the bulk of money available to them now? With the increase of derivation from 13% to 17% what changes have they made on tile Niger Delta areas?It is still the same old story and the same restrictiveness of the people.
I was privileged to be in Yenogoa 2002. It was a one street state capital. I do not know what it is like now. We entered Yenogoa got off at their market which appeared to be the busiest part of the town and then to the Radio station to see my students I taught in FRCN Training school, Lagos Nigeria.
This is the State where oil was first struck at Oloibiri in 1956. What have they to show for it? I shook my head and swallowed my comments. Yet, much of the 17% derivation has been pumped into this state. Is it different from Kwara, Jigawa, and other states which have not got akobo as derivation? My own state Edo, is a different kettle of fish. The point I am making is that the problem bedevilling the oil producing areas could have been a near solution point (if not completely solved) if our leaders and our governors, have the will to achieve and sincerely go about achieving, I am not an accountant and I am not an auditor but with the lay man's eyes one can see a bridge which in all sincerity would not be more than ten million naira, gulping billions of naira. Think of Benin bypass which I am told was constructed with over nine billion naira.
Let us talk about the NDDC, that is the Niger Delta Development Commission. One is sad to hear that over six trillions of naira have been sunk into that commission which only stock-in-trade is to renovate schools, hospitals, and few kilometers of roads. Who is fooling who? What ratio of the youths in the area has been employed by NDDC when compared with the number of the unemployed restive youths who go about kidnapping people and making the entire area unsafe? When do we get serious in this country, jettison emotions and rhetoric's and actually reach out for the souls who are really suffering and bearing the burden of oil exploration in the Niger Delta areas? When do we stop deceiving the people through well articulated Radio and Television programmes about the unreal situation of things in the Niger Delta areas? My heart bleeds!
It is time to tell the people the truth. It is time to develop the Niger Delta areas. It is time for me to tell the truth to President Goodluck Jonathan, because you have expressed sincere wish to bring the Niger Delta areas' pathetic situation to your first burner. If you have the will to do it you will achieve it. It took three years to transform Abuja from a forest situation to a livable city for President Babangida to move in. Today Abuja can compete favourably with any modern city in the world. It was the will power of the leaders then to achieve a capital city at any cost and that they did.
The same can be done in the oil producing areas. Set a target for yourself, develop the will power to get it through. Get the state governors and the local government chairmen of the Niger Delta areas, ask them to submit to you a map and the blue print of development covering the areas ofRoads, Electricity, Water, Schools and Hospital. Set up a committee to study the blue print and mark it out in phases. Advertise for bidders both foreign and local, then settle for business.
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Let us take roads for example, Phase one of it would cover the interstate and the intercity roads. Phase two will be all the roads connecting towns, villages and hamlets in each state. If for example, Julius Berger wins the bid and it is to take up the first phase, negotiate with him the number of barrels of crude oil he can lift in a day for a period of time such that will enable him complete the entire phase one within two years. For example, Julius Berger can lift five thousand barrels of crude oil per day for a given period for the projects. The same goes for phase two under construction. If more than one construction companies are used the same agreement should be made. This is a more practical and deliberate way to developing the oil producing areas without allowing money that will end up in people's pockets be involved.
If more than one construction companies are used the same u^eatew should be i g All you need to do is to set up an oil monitoring committee at the point of lifting, a group so sincere that will not scoop raw oil into their pockets. The law of illegal bunkering must be tightened up at this point. You will personally sign out the number of barrels lifted per day.We Nigerians are all honest people and we need not be tempted with cash to develop the Niger Delta areas anymore. Set up a monitoring committee on the standard and the successful completion of various projects in a given time.
In the case of Schools and Hospitals, get good construction companies which would erect school and hospital buildings in every hamlet, village and town, in all the local government areas of the Niger Delta region and furnish them to an acceptable standard. These would be closely monitored and certified excellent by the monitoring committee. For the contractors, whether foreign or local, you would give an agreed number of barrels of crude oil per day as the case may be. The Niger Delta youths would be employed in the constructions in various towns, villages and hamlets, thereby reducing unemployment rate and restiveness. You will also have to trade your crude oil with major pharmaceutical companies both within and outside the country for modern hospital equipment for various ailments and all available medicines for the hospitals such that our big men will not need to go abroad for treatment anymore. The same should also be done with various publishers to stock the school libraries with books and laboratory equipment. This process should also allow each state of the Niger Delta region to have at least, a Federal tertiary institution, especially the university which would go a long way in educating the youths of the region. The contractors handling each of these projects would be happy to have two to five thousand barrels of crude oil daily for a period of time. The number of barrels of crude oil per day for all these developments may not be up to 20% of the total number of barrels realized daily from the oil producing areas, except 1 am wrong.
Water and electricity are other necessities which must be provided by all means for every village and hamlets in the Niger Delta region. Take a stock of the towns, villages and hamlets. Call for bidders and negotiate crude oil for the sinking of bore holes, at least five in a hamlet or ten in village or town, depending on how large each area is. The construction works would engage a great number of our youths. Some good giant electricity complies whether foreign or local would be glad to go with, for example two thousand barrels of crude oil a day for a period of one or two years in order to provide steady electricity supply to all towns, villages and hamlets in all the oil producing areas of the Niger Delta region.
Mr. President, this is not a utopian plan. It is achievable. Americans did it. They allowed Iraq's crude oil only for food for the suffering children so as to stop Saddam Hussein from diverting oil money for the so-called weapons of mass destruction. You need the will power and the determination to bring succor to a people who have suffered for so long, a people who really have not benefited from their God-given wealth, a people who are indeed, impoverished and restive. It is not only the youths, who are restive, but also the adults. These are people whose leaders have not really touched their lives, a people whose rights have been trampled upon and perverted, a people who have suffered oppression and degradation from their own leaders. Your amnesty programme may be working, but not absolute. It is like sitting on time bomb which may one day explode.
Mr. President, take the bull by the horn and scrapNDDC. Stop derivation payments to oil producing states. This money is for the few and not for all the people of the Niger Delta region. Make the difference by doing something unusual, something others have not done before in solving this persistent and recurring Niger Delta region's problems. If you give a hundred trillion naira to be shared to every human being in the Niger Delta region, the problem will still remain the same. Take a look again at the OIL FOR DEVELOPMENT and see the good in it. This can be achieved in four years, and the region will never forget you.
You will then be turning the region into a small London, or into ABUJA city.
When there are good road network, electricity, good drinking water, standard schoolsandhospitals; investors will come in, factories and industries will open, employment will abound, problems of restiveness and kidnappings will be a thing of the past. Then your term will go down in history as the golden age not only for the Delta region but also for Nigeria.
Many selfish and avaricious politicians, will misunderstand you or even hate you for doing this since physical cash will no longer come to them. Never mind. God will bless you and lead you through it.
Yours Faithfully
Pat Asakome.
Pat Asakome who is a broadcaster, media consultant, an author and analyst in public affairs writes from Lagos, Nigeria.
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