THE recent three-day warning strike by workers in the oil industry under the auspices of their unions, the Petroleum and the Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), and National Union of Petroleum and National Gas Workers (NUPENG) calls into question the effectiveness of the measures employed by the government to ameliorate the crisis in the Niger Delta.
Oil workers had called the warning strike to pressure government to deal more effectively with the deplorable security situation in the region and had cited the instance of one of their members, Mr. Nelson Ujeya, a Community Liaison Officer of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), who was killed by soldiers of the task force deployed by government to check the spate of brigandage in the Niger Delta.
Although we sympathise with the cause of the oil workers, we are also aware of the crippling impact of a strike on the nation’s economy and of the hardship which it imposes on the citizenry. We are, therefore, glad that the unions accepted a government proposal to convene a high-powered forum to discuss the problems in contention and subsequently suspended the warning strike ahead of schedule. We also hope that government will not dilly dally on the issue but will take immediate measures to restore peace and security in the region to forestall a more prolonged and damaging strike in the oil industry.
More critically, government must recognise the realities in the Niger Delta and respond accordingly. In previous editorials on the subject we had insisted that the palliative measures which successive governments have applied to the problem in the Niger Delta will not work; that the solution lies in resolving the fundamentals in line with the true and tested principles of federalism. The fact that even the stakeholders, that is the workers in the petroleum industry, have gone on strike to draw government’s attention to their plight and to pressure government to resolve the problem in the Niger Delta demonstrates the failure of all palliative responses.
It is difficult to fault the argument which the oil unions used to justify the strike. On the eve of the strike, Comrade Peter Esele, the PENGASSAN president, laid the blame for the deplorable situation in the Niger Delta squarely on the shoulders of government, federal and state. Government is guilty of neglect and is completely responsible for the unacceptable living conditions of the people in the Niger Delta. Government has failed to use the resources generated in the region for the benefit of the people.
Government has failed to appreciate the true interest of the Nigerian collective – that the country cannot know peace until it resolves the paradox of poverty and prosperity. It is government’s negligence and disregard for the plight of the people in the Niger Delta that has allowed the problem to fester and deteriorate to the current level of insecurity and brigandage. Government neglect is the cause and the effect is the current crisis in the Niger Delta.
Nigeria is arguably one of the most corrupt countries in the world. The president and his deputy are currently embroiled in mutual accusations of corruption and breach of the public trust. The power elite in the country has used government patronage to amass stupendous riches for its members. Yet, they appear to be ignorant of one basic fact: that the resources which provide their wealth and comfort come from the Niger Delta; that there is a direct but inverse correlation between their affluence and the poverty in the Niger Delta; and that they cannot know peace or live a stable polity until they resolve this contradiction.
Government must respond to the fundamental problems in the Niger Delta. It has to develop the political will to address the legitimate grievances of the Niger Delta people. Palliatives such as NDDC, which is starved of funds or OMPADEC whose funds were in fact mismanaged by officials of the government that established it in the first instance have failed woefully.
A serious and immediate development intervention model backed by legislation and adequate funding using a large part of the excess crude oil funds should be applied as an interim measure. In the final analysis, however, the true solution to the Niger Delta problem lies in a fundamental restructuring of the polity along the lines of fiscal federalism and resource control. We have stated this in numerous editorials and we make bold to state it once more. We hope that the government will have the political will to do what is right for the Niger Delta and the country.