Oil And Local Prosperity: A Study Of ‘Two Kingdoms’

By Patrick Dele Cole

The King of Abonnema has just finished a magnificent building he called his palace. The king of Okpo has done the same – built a palace. But there the similarity ends. Abonnema is one of the major towns among the Kalabari Ijaw; its history is long and illustrious. It has prominent indigenes whose names are well-known to all Nigerians, Wenike Briggs, Ajumogobia, Graham-Douglas, Ferdin and Alabraba, W.W. Whyte, Mr. Justice Adolphus Karibi Whyte (SCJ), Odoliyi Lolomari (Ex-MD, NNPC), Olu Fubara, Ambassador D.D. Obunge, Admiral Bob Manuel, Chief Lulu Briggs, Dr. Dodiyi Manuel, Capt. Briggs (Ex-Minister of Transport), Capt. Ajumogobia, Chief S.K Dagogo Jack (Ex-INEC chairman), Deputy Comptroller of Customs, Bibi Akpana, Tom Fabyan (former chief executive of African Petroleum), L.M. Jacks (Permanent Secretary, Internal Affairs), Miss World (Agbani Darego); Miss Nigeria (Syster Jack), and many others.

Okpo, on the other hand, is a small village which many years ago you would have passed even before you blink once. It is part of Obuama or Harry’s town which is regarded as a small village in the pantheon of Kalabari Ijaw towns. So Okpo is a small village of a small village.

A few years ago, some oil companies did some seismic work in Okpo village. In doing so, they brought in a lot of equipment, reclaimed large tracks of land, and employed hundreds of people – thus awakening a small dot of a village into a potential metropolis. The seismic activity ended and the oil company packed up and left. Chief Diamond Bob Manuel Tobin–West saw his opportunity in this substantial real estate, substantial compensation for the seismic activities from a company with a lively corporate social responsible mentality. The people of Okpo were compensated. Instead of Chief Diamond taking his own share of the money to Port Harcourt to build a beautiful house and or a hotel, he decided to return to the spot and there restart and rebuild his community. The Chief is a man who lives by example. He is a graduate from UK and Canada: has a family well settled in these countries.

Chief Diamond built himself a palace in the old seismic site. He encouraged his people to return and follow his example. He built a complex of six houses; his brothers and sisters are in the process of completing modern structures, with roads and amenities – water, electricity, schools, etc. This year’s Christmas and New Year celebration in his palace had all trappings of modernity, complete with carols, fireworks, plenty of food and drinks. There is a clinic nearby. He has galvanised all the villages around him and a modern metropolis is taking shape in a formerly one – blink village. His neighbours in the bigger town of Obuama are beginning to recognise his worth and influence and constantly visit him to talk about the progress of Okpo and the surrounding area. Incidentally, the Deputy Governor of Rivers State, Mrs. Harry Banigo is from Obuama. So is Chief Ombo Harry, once Executive Director, Finance of NNPC. The former Chairman of PDP Rivers State, Marshall Harry, the former Deputy Speaker of Rivers State House of Assembly, another Harry and so on are from Obuama- None of the above has what the vision of Chief Diamond who hopes to build a true metropolis in this forsaken enclave.

Jonathan: An Unlikely Avenger

By Amanze Obi

I am fascinated by the brewing effort by the authorities to package and sell our ex-president, Goodluck Jonathan, as an avenger. A section of the media had reported that the former president was involved in the formation and ongoing activities of the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA). The story was not speculative. It was declarative enough. If your imagination, like that of many Nigerians, has been saturated with the oddities that change has inflicted on us, you cannot but see the new image being foisted on Jonathan as comical, and therefore, fascinating. It will provide us with the opportunity to be treated to some more histrionics.

*Jonathan and Buhari

According to the newspapers that carried the ‘scoop’, the story is the product of an intelligence report.  The report claimed that Jonathan started meeting with the avengers before the 2015 general elections.  The militia group, it said, was put in place to respond in prescribed ways should Jonathan lose the elections. One such way was to do what it is doing at moment. The renewed militancy in the Niger Delta region is, therefore, believed to be the product of Jonathan’s loss. That is the story before us.

But we must note that before its recrudescence, militancy has been an issue of concern in the region. The return of civil rule in the country after many years of military interregnum brought with it a new fervour. It provided the citizenry the opportunity to let off steam. The military muzzled free speech. Civil rule was the obverse of that.

It was in the wake of the new order that some elements in the oil-rich Niger Delta, who felt that they were not getting their due from the oil exploration and exploitation in their domain began to raise voices of dissent. They queried the situation where the goose that lays the golden egg is being starved. Their repudiation and rejection of this state of affairs eventuated in the agitation for resource control. That was the political angle to the agitation.

But it also had a military wing. Some angry youths, who do not have the patience for verbal engagements resorted to brute force. Many took to oil bunkering. They needed the proceeds from the crude to line their pockets and feel a sense of belonging. If they could not share in the oil wealth legitimately, they can, at least, help themselves with the crumbs.  It was in this way that some of them seized oil and gas installations and bombed them at will. Those who stood in their way, especially foreign nationals, were taken hostage and freed only when some handsome ransom was paid.

As should be expected, the unwholesome activities of the militants pitted them against the government. But it took ex-president Umaru Yar’Adua’s amnesty programme for some level of sanity to return to the region. The Jonathan administration, being an offshoot of Yar’Adua’s, also enjoyed relative peace from the Niger Delta militants.

But all of that have changed under the Muhammadu Buhari regime, owing largely to the disposition of the president to the Christian South. The president’s actions and inactions, so far, give the impression that he wrested power forcefully from an enemy and, as such, the enemy must be stigmatised and punished.