₦10 Trillion Profit: Oil Communities Still Suffer Poverty

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Despite the receipt of over ₦10t from the 13 per cent derivation principle between 2000 and 2018, by Niger Delta states, the deplorable living conditions in oil-producing communities remain nauseating, raising questions about the application of such large sum by state governments.
Section 162, Sub-section 2 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), explicitly states that no less than 13 per cent derivation should accrue to oil-producing states.

The evaluation of the revenue receipts of oil-producing states, particularly, Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Delta since 2000 indicates that the 13 per cent derivation formed the lion share of their earnings over the period under review.

The Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) in its report defines 13% derivation as, “the financial incentive that is enshrined in the Constitution to be distributed to oil producing communities, based on the production input to serve as benefits and encourage the community to create enabling environment for more production of crude oil and gas.”

It is on this basis that Akwa Ibom, Rivers, Delta, Bayelsa, and Edo states have since December 2000 received over N9t as 13 per cent derivation, which ought to serve as a catalysts for the transformation of the oil-producing communities.

While oil money continues to flow into the coffers of these states, paradoxically, most oil-producing communities remain poverty-stricken, plagued by unemployment, and are devoid of basic social amenities like potable water, hospitals, electricity, motorable roads, and conductive learning environment in their schools.

Read Also: Paying Political Office Holders To Promote Poverty

Available data from NEITI, Federation Account Allocation Committee, and the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) revealed that between 2000 and 2018, Akwa Ibom received over N2, 637, 953, 892, 850t; Rivers got from 2000 to 2017, over N2, 512, 958, 965, 608t; Delta got between 2000 and 2018, over N2, 220, 952, 447, 827t. From 2000 to 2016 the rest got as follows: Bayelsa N1, 707, 765, 122, 689t and Edo State N528, 131, 627, 879, all of which amount to over N9, 607, 762, 056, 853t.

But despite all these accruals, governors, who dwell in mansions in state capitals have continued to neglect oil communities, and this has led to increased levels of frustration and dissatisfaction in the region.

One of the most recent show of disenchantment by an aggrieved community was the shutdown of Oil Mining Lease (OML) 25 Belema Flow Station, in Rivers State for two years, which cost the country over $1.7b.

Groups like the Host Communities Producing Oil and Gas in Nigeria (HOSCON); Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP), and the Youth Council (IYC), among others that are worried that oil exploration could create an ecological disaster, which could develop into a humanitarian catastrophe in oil communities, are increasingly voicing their dissatisfaction with the lack of socio-economic transformation and uplift of lives in oil communities because of the failure of the state governments to utilise the 13 per cent derivation judiciously.

While infrastructure such as motorable roads, flyovers, hospitals, schools are mainly concentrated in State capitals such as Uyo, Port Harcourt, Benin, Asaba and Yenagoa. But basis social amenities have continued to elude oil communities where the people live in appalling abject poverty.

Recently, the Board of Trustees of HOSCON led by its Chairman, King Alfred Diete-Spiff, visited President Muhammadu Buhari, to complain that their communities lack social services and plagued by social deprivation despite the 13 percent derivation received by the State governments. The President in turn had said: “the derivation fund is constitutionally enshrined and hence all affected oil communities must partake in it. The relevant constitutional laws regarding the 13 per cent derivation fund must be duly observed by the affected State governments in the Niger Delta region.’’

WHILE the people await the translation of this to action, some of the most striking cases of neglect in the region are of Uquo and Upenekang communities in Esit Eket  and  Ibeno Local Government Areas of Akwa Ibom State respectively. In spite of Ibeno having one of the most prolific fields in the Niger Delta, these towns are beset by chronic levels of poverty, unemployment, underdevelopment,shanty communities.

A community activist and leader of Ibeno Women Leaders Forum, Rhoda Peters, told The Guardian that Ibeno LGA comprised of 26 villages and they all used Secondary Grammar School, Upenekang owned by the state government. Students there sit on bare floor to learn. Potable drinking water and hospitals are in non-existence.

“With the God given resource in Ibeno we are not supposed to lack water, electricity, employment. But as I speak with you this community does not have one bole hole water. We have over ten abandoned water projects.There is no electricity. People supply us drinking water from Eket. If you don’t have money to buy, you drink well water. There is mass unemployment here. No skill acquisition. Our cottage hospital has been overtaken by bush and there are no doctors,” she said.

She lamented that in the absence of critical social investment in health care delivery by both the State government and oil companies, Ibeno communities have persistently been ravaged by crude oil spill for which the people have denied the benefits in terms of 13 percent derivation.

The executive director, We the People, Ken Henshaw, Ken Henshaw, said the utilisation of the 13 percent in Akwa-Ibom has been woeful and terrible.

“Ibeno people in Uquo in Emit-Eket LGA drink water in this 21 century from well. Conditions in the communities are terrible. There is no single policy that demands that government channels certain benefits to oil producing communities. It does not exist. The communities feel woeful about 13 percent derivation. They feel sadden and that is because 13 percent derivation has not impacted on them at all. And the reasons are simply because the structure for benefit transfer is faulty in Nigeria. That sharing formula simply does not take the oil communities into consideration,” he said.

Henshaw said the 13 percent derivation has created more suffering and poverty for the people of the Niger Delta. According to him, the governments of the Niger Delta states are classic examples of resource curse which is a concept where natural resources of the people instead of making them rich make them poor.

IN Delta State, following agitations from oil communities, then Governor James Ibori, in the twilight of his administration in 2007 established the  Delta State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission (DESOPADEC) to drive developmental projects were supposed to be determined through an inclusive and need-assessment process in oil communities. Opinion varies on whether DESOPADEC has remained committed to its core objective of ensuring that the oil communities benefit maximally from the 13 percent derivation accruable to the State.

President,Ijaw Youth Council President, Eric Omare who hails from Ogbe-ijoh and Ogulagha kingdom of Delta State, acknowledged that DESOPADEC has had an impact on his community, even though it ought to have done better.

“In fairness, before DESOPDAEC was created in Delta,  we never knew government existed. All we knew was a few intervention by Shell and some other companies that use to build class room blocks. With DESOPADEC projects like roads, class rooms, jetties and so on have been built. Communities are represented in the commission. Projects are being done, despite interference by the governor and State Assembly members.” he said.

Omare observed that while the DESOPADEC Act stipulates that 50 percent of the derivation due the state should be channelled to the commission, this has not been the case. He stated the commission has in some instance misplaced it priorities. One of such, The Guardian findings revealed is the building of a observatory tower, for the Nigeria  Police force headquarters ,Asaba, by DESOPADEC.

“In most case, people who are not from oil producing communities are the ones in charge of political leadership. Instead of allocating projects under the DESOPADEC to oil communities, they will allocate it to their own communities to the detriment of oil producing communities. Non-adherence to the law establishing the commission is the bane of its ability to meet up its responsibilities” he said.

Omare stated that the indices on ground clearly show that the state like the rest of the Niger Delta have not used oil resources judiciously for the development of people. He argued that the reason for this is because there has not been accountability due to lack of checks and balances between the State executives and the legislators.

“You have a state legislature which is an extension of the state governor. So there is no checks and balances. The problem with 13 percent is that the state governors see the money as their own and so they don’t see themselves as having an obligation to the oil producing communities. They don’t know that communities producing oil face peculiar challenges and the money is to address their peculiar challenges,” he said.

The situation in Eruemukohwarien in Ughelli North LGA that host two oil blocs, OML 30 that pumps about 90,000 barrels per day and OML 34, is one that symbolises misery amidst vast wealth beneath the earth people trod on daily.  Her citizens have been  agitating that funds derived from their ancestral land should for conscience sake benefit them.

A community activist, Agbah Cyril, lamented that the crumbling road and water facility in the community was constructed by Shell long before it sold its assets to an indigenous companies Nigeria Petroleum Development Company, NPDC and ND Western.

“The water we drink was given by Shell. Right now there is the problem of drainage. Whenever it rains the community is flooded. The state government has not done anything. In our secondary, there is no decks for students to sit and learn. It is through community effort that we intend to get them decks. The whole school is dilapidated.  There is no effect of 13 percent derivation in my community which is a host to two oil blocs, OML30 and OML 34” he said.

 

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