By Donu Kogbara
Voices of concern
I have, in this column,  recently complained about the unsatisfactory manner in which the government is responding to the United Nations Environmental Programme, UNEP, report about the devastating effects of oil production activities in Ogoniland.

I accused both the Presidency and NNPC (which is supposed to be taking over from Shell as the operator of Ogoni oil wells) of arrogantly and myopically failing to treat Ogonis respectfully.

I guess it’s too much to expect Nigerian government officials to react intelligently and remorsefully when they are challenged for offending mere “nobodies” like me and my kith and kin.

But I am happy to say that I received many sympathetic comments from Vanguard readers. Here are some of them. Apologies to those whose messages have not been published due to lack of space.
NNPC is not any better

From: Maris ikperikpe <[email protected]>

Dear Donu,
IT is not yet uhuru for Ogoniland because replacing Shell with the NNPC to me is a great miscalculation. If there is one oil company that has proven to be worse than all others, it is the NNPC. Communities that host the corporation have come to agree that NNPC is peopled by wicked persons.

How else can one explain the organisation’s insensitivity to the plight of communities where they extract so much money? It is easier for one to get the attention of foreign companies to one’s complaints and agitations than the NNPC; to get them to respond to your complaint is like going through the proverbial needle’s eye.

Why there has not been protest of equal dimension against the NNPC as the Ogoni one is because the NNPC is adept at playing one group against the other, using subterfuge and threat to subdue discontent.

The Uvwie people who have hosted the NNPC for 34 years have bitter tales to tell, they have been shortchanged in no small measure. The refinery and petrochemicals plant, along with the NNPC staff housing estate in Ekpan, occupy several hectares of agricultural land and fishing grounds of the Uvwie people yet they have have nothing to show for it.

These people who were predominantly involved in peasant farming and fishing before the advent of NNPC were deprived of their land and waterways with no alternative means of livelihood. At the beginning when the women protested loss of their land NNPC promised development that schools, hospitals, roads, electricity, job opportunities would follow, but 34 years after these have remained pipe dreams.

NNPC has not built one school or hospital for the deprived people to date, neither is it helping to maintain the available ones. The graduate youths and men of the community roam the streets for want of jobs or land to farm, while the management and top positions of the company are reserved for people outside the state.

The indifference to the people is clearly seen from the state of roads around its sprawling buildings that are still untarred and some in total disrepair. What stops NNPC from creating dual carriage ways around surroundings and communities where it does business to ease traffic chaos often caused by tankers loading fuel?

To compound the problem for the people there is this constant flaring of gas over their heads which, of course, has its implication on the health of the people and the eco-system. The community has also often raised alarm over the frequent oil spillages caused by NNPC and its subsidiaries that had constantly devastated the land and the aquatic life which the company has oftentimes ignored. All these atrocities are committed without any form of compensation whatsoever and with utmost impunity.

The people are faced with economic dislocation and crisis which emanated from the oil industry in Ekpan, swallowing up the land which has made the Federal Government extremely rich while the people live in poverty. As a result, the youths are living off violence; faced with hunger and frustration they perpetrate what is locally referred to as “gbege” ( the act of using aggression to get what one wants) to survive.

My humble summation is that NNPC is not about to change its ways. The element of state protection that it enjoys engender its arrogance and callousness. No foreign company would do what NNPC does and get away with it. It is to that effect that Ekpan people are considering taking the matter to court to see if they can get justice and some form of reparation since all forms of reasoning with the organisation have failed. Therefore, Ogoni people must consider deeply before accepting NNPC in their land.

All forms of agreement and understanding must be effectively signed and monitored, otherwise NNPC will do its usual, of developing its own portion of the land and leaving the other parts of the community in total darkness.