More and more Nigerians demand for establishment of a Marshall Plan for the development of the Niger Delta region, as a way out of the cycle of violence that has enveloped the area.
On Monday, March 27, the remaining three of nine foreign oil workers abducted last February 18 by militants in the Niger Delta were released. Of the nine initially taken hostage, Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), which claimed responsibility for the abduction, had on March 1 freed six, leading to weeks of apprehension over the fate of the remaining three � two Americans and one Briton. The world applauded the release of American-born Cody Oswald and Russel Spell, as well as John Hudsmith, a Briton. It meant an end to their 37-day nightmare in the creeks of the delta.
What is not clear is whether the freedom of the hostages from Houston, Texas-based Willbros Group abducted as they were laying pipes for Shell at the Forcados oil export terminal, would also mean an end to the wave of violent attacks on the oil infrastructure, which has raged in the Niger Delta since last year, leading to about 26 percent cut in Nigeria�s oil production. MEND says it would not.
�This does not signify an end to our attacks. Hostage-taking and keeping is a distraction,� the group said in a statement, emphasising that it would not �tie down our units to this irrelevant enterprise,�: �We will concentrate our attacks now solely on oil facilities and workers found on these facilities.�
MEND averred that the hostages had merely been kidnapped to serve as human shield in the Gbaramatu area of Delta State to prevent attacks by the Nigerian military.
Over the last four months, the upsurge of violence against oil interests in the Niger Delta has killed more than 30 people, the worst casualties from violent resentment against perceived injustice in the distribution of the region�s oil resources since Royal/Dutch Shell first struck oil in the area in 1957.
Twenty-two persons, including 14 soldiers, were reportedly killed on January 15 at Benisede flow-station, Bayelsa State, when unknown attackers invaded the facility belonging to Shell. The soldiers were said to be part a �high-powered security team� sent to guard the facility after the company reported threat to its work.
On January 11, few days before the Benisede attack, Shell�s Trans Ramos pipeline manifold at Brass Creek was vandalised by assailants.
Armed men stormed the East Area Field � where Shell conducts offshore oil activities from its Sea Eagle vessel � on January 10 and took four of the company�s expatriate workers hostage. The fate of the hostages � an American, a Briton, a Bulgarian, and a Honduran � remained a source of fear and controversy until they were released weeks later.
In December last year, a dynamite attack on Shell�s pipelines at Opobo Channel, about 50 kilometres south west of Port Harcourt, heavily hindered supplies to the Bonny Light crude oil export terminal, forcing Shell to declare a force majeure on December 21 and cut output by about 170,000 bpd.
MEND is seeking greater local control of Niger Delta�s oil resources, and release of detained leader of Niger Delta Volunteer Force, Alhaji Muhajeed Dokubo Asari, who is charged with treason by the federal government. It is also seeking freedom for former Bayelsa State governor, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, who is being tried for money laundering. MEND also wants Shell to pay the Ijaw of Bayelsa State US$1.5 billion that was approved by the National Assembly for the company�s unfriendly environmental practices as well as demilitarisation of the Niger Delta.
Now, to try to assuage the ill feelings ignited by environmental degradation and perceived injustice in the distribution of Niger Delta�s mineral oil proceeds, suggestions are being made for a Marshall Plan for the development of the Niger Delta in the fashion of the post-World War II European Development Programme. Under the plan muted by United States (US) Secretary of State George Marshall in 1947, the US injected huge funds into the infrastructure reconstruction of Europe after securing an agreeable blueprint from the Europeans on how the money was going to be utilised. The argument is, that considering the level of devastation oil production has brought upon the people and environment of the Niger Delta, only such a massive organisation of development effort could bring about positive change in the area and turn the tide of hate against the oil infrastructure.
�A Marshall Plan for the Niger Delta is welcome,� says Professor Itse Sagay, Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), and famous international lawyer. �But the question is, how would it be implemented? In this country, we have a lot of good ideas, but there is none that I know that is implemented properly.�
Many in the Niger Delta believe federal government-controlled policies for the region will always fail, due to the lack of commitment on the part of the government. They always seem to have a general disbelief for the whole Nigerian political system.
Several intervention ideas have failed to deliver development in the Niger Delta. In the past, the federal government has set up various intervention agencies to address the issue of poverty and under-development of the Niger Delta region. But the programmes, had right through colonial days, failed because of government�s non-commitment to their success as well as corrupt tendencies on the part of those charged with implementing the programmes.
The Niger Delta Development Board (NDDB) was set up by the colonial government in the early 1960s. A brainchild of the Henry Willink Minorities Commission, NDDB was established in 1958 �to find ways of promoting the development of the Niger Delta people and other minorities in the country.� It died a natural death, following alleged denial of adequate funding by federal government.
Former President Shehu Shagari created the Niger Delta Basins Development Authority in 1980, to provide irrigation, drainage, check flooding and erosion, gather hydro-metrological data, provide portable water, widen the waterways, dredge canals, and carry out soil analysis in the area, among other things. But this idea did not go far.
Again in 1981, the National Assembly promulgated the Revenue Act, which was designed to focus more attention on the Niger Delta region. It made provision for the allocation of 1.5 percent derivation to the Niger Delta, but failed to create a body to administer the fund.
However, in 1987, former military Head of State, General Ibrahim Babangida, established the Presidential Implementation Committee, (PIC) to administer the 1.5 percent derivation fund. The PIC failed to live up to expectation, primarily because of lack of funds. Babangida created the Oil Minerals Producing Areas Development Authority (OMPADEC) in 1992 to replace PIC. Even OMPADEC could not fulfill its promise to the Niger Delta.
President Olusegun Obasanjo established the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) in 1999 �to offer lasting solution to the socio-economic difficulties of the Niger Delta region which successive governments have grappled with even before independence in 1960.�
The NDDC drew up a Niger Delta Master Plan, stating, �The plan will effectively bridge the gap between limited resources and peculiar problem of the people. Without such a plan, resources will be allocated arbitrarily and with less than optimal impacts on the lives of the people and communities.�
Sagay believes two factors have been behind the failure of development intervention projects in the Niger Delta: – wrong choice of priorities and control of the development agencies by persons outside of the Niger Delta milieu. He accuses the development agencies of focusing on cosmetic amenities that would come naturally, if the right infrastructure is put in place.
Now, to get the priorities right, Oronto Douglas, environmental rights activist and former Bayelsa State Commissioner for Information, feels, �The best people to prepare and implement a Marshal Plan for the Niger Delta are the Niger Delta people themselves.� The Bayelsa State delegate to last year�s National Political Reform Conference (NPRC) thinks, �Every Marshall Plan for the Niger Delta would stop at the door of resource control. The people must be in charge of the resources of their God-given land because they are in the best position to know how to utilise them without much injury to their environment. No one can love us more than we love ourselves.�
South South � the present political definition of Niger Delta within Nigeria � delegates to the NPRC had with one voice demanded �that each state government should identify, collect, and be directly responsible for all the revenues from its resources. An appropriate tax of 20 percent shall be paid by each state to the federal government for its own use, 15 percent to a distributable pool, and 5 percent shall be paid to the relevant zone. Each state will retain the balance of 60 percent of the proceeds of its resources.� The delegates sought for an increase in the derivation principle from 13 percent to 25, in the first instance, and a 5 percent yearly increment of the formula over five years, to bring it up to the 50 percent that existed before petroleum oil became very important to Nigeria�s economy.
But the South South recommendation was vehemently opposed by delegates from non-oil producing states, which resulted in the unceremonious end of the conference.
In the aftermath of that conference, most Niger Delta people believed political rulers from non-oil producing areas of the country cannot be trusted to direct policies that would better the lives of the people in the delta region. Many now believe a Marshall Plan, prepared and executed by the Niger Delta people for themselves, remains the most plausible way of getting the region out of the cycle of underdevelopment.
But Sagay says, �We must be sure of where the funds are going to come from�what agency is going to be entrusted with implementing the plan and what exactly is going to be developed.�
He believes emergence of the delta from the miry clay of underdevelopment would be achieved through massive infrastructural development. �Development is a national process, once the infrastructure is there.�
However, there are some who feel a Marshall Plan for the Niger Delta can only produce the required results within a restructured federal Nigeria. �Marshall Plan without a restructured Nigeria would mean walking in a circle,� says Alfred Ilenre, secretary general of Ethnic Minority and Indigenous Rights Organisation of Africa (EMIROAF). He believes, �Unless you restructure the country into a true federation, such Marshall Plan would, definitely, come to naught.�
To Stanley Ngada, retired Major, and former chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Defense, �There must be a Marshall Plan for the Niger Delta. But the people must appreciate that we all still belong to the same country. So every part of Nigeria should be involved in the planning, funding, and execution of any Marshall Plan for the region.�
He says, �No military solution is possible in the Niger Delta issue. Everything in the circumstances of the region must be resolved at the negotiating table.�
Obasanjo has hinted on an effective stakeholders meeting on the Niger Delta. Observers see it as a real opportunity for discussions on the Niger Delta question, including the question of Marshall Plan for the region.