The Vice President, who was represented by Senior Special Assistant to the President on Niger Delta Affairs, Office of the Vice President, Mr Edobor Iyamu, announced that the New Vision for the Niger Delta has begun to yield some tangible achievements
In the words of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, a true vision should target specific interests and answer important questions, such as; is the vision based upon specific plains or it is going to be implemented randomly, without any link between its different phases? Is it realistic or feasible or is it a wild vision that no amount of financial and human resources is capable of realizing?
Essentially, whereas the above questions were framed by a single individual, there is however a big difference between the two in relation to plan and programme that has to do with Niger Delta region development. Most of the Federal Government’s plans and programmes for the region are neither realistic nor feasible but a wild vision that no amount of financial and human resources is capable of realizing. The politicization of the region’s development by successive Federal Governments which has left the people with monuments of nothingness supports this assertion.
More specifically, while there are multiple instances in the past, of such abridgement of development by the Federal Government in the region, the most recent and of course most alarming bizarre or troubling manifestation of such lack of discipline needed to drive developmental vision in the region was demonstrated by the immediate administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.
The administration’s efforts in the region were more of words without actions, characterized by excuses and signposted in ‘promise and Fail syndrome’ that have left the people with ‘monuments of nothingness’.
Take as an illustration, in 2021, at a function in Lagos, Nigeria, Professor Yemi Osinbajo immediate past Vice President, told the gathering that the administration was determined to see through to completion of all the critical projects embarked upon in the region, promising that the Federal Government under the administration’s watch will invests significantly in the Niger Delta as the region that holds the energy resources that have powered our progress for six decades as well as the keys to an emergent gas economy.
In his words, ‘in 2017, following my tour of the Niger Delta, which involved extensive consultations with key stakeholders in the region, the New Vision for the Niger Delta was birthed in response to the various challenges which had been plaguing our people. “The objective of this New Vision is to ensure that the people of the region benefit maximally from their wealth, through promoting infrastructural developments, environmental remediation and local content development’.
“We also have the Solar Power Naija Programme under the Administration’s Economic Sustainability Plan (ESP) which will complement the federal government’s effort towards providing affordable electricity access to 5 million households, serving about 25 million Nigerians in rural areas and under-served urban communities nationwide.”
The Vice President, who was represented by Senior Special Assistant to the President on Niger Delta Affairs, Office of the Vice President, Mr Edobor Iyamu, announced that the New Vision for the Niger Delta has begun to yield some tangible achievements. As part of the quest to expand economic opportunities in the region, he added that the Federal Government would promote investments in modular refineries. “The objective of this initiative is to address our present energy demands and empower the Niger Delta people through promoting local content.
The remediation exercise happening in Ogoni land, under the recommendations of UNEP, he stressed, is another milestone we are proud to announce as an administration. The clean-up commenced in January 2019, with the handover of the first batch of sites to the selected remediation firms.
“A total of about 57 sites have so far been handed over to contractors by the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP) under the Federal Ministry of Environment. “It is important to note that the Ogoni clean-up will be the first of its kind in the history of the Niger Delta. This is the first time the federal government will be directly involved in remediation activities within the region’.
“We are equally committed to expanding infrastructure in the region. This includes the ongoing construction work on the 34-kilometres Bonny-Bodo Road/Bridge. This project, which was abandoned for decades, is a tripartite agreement between the federal government, Nigeria LNG Limited (NLNG) and Julius Berger Nigeria. “When completed, the Bonny-Bodo Road/bridge, which was flagged off in October 2017, would connect several major communities and boost socio-economic development in the region.”
The federal government, he said, is also developing a number of deep seaports across the region, including the Bonny, Warri and Ibom Deep Sea Ports, among other development projects such as the establishment of Export Processing Zones to boost economic activities.
He also told the gathering that in 2018, the National Universities Commission (NUC) approved the commencement of undergraduate degree programmes at the Nigerian Maritime University in Okerenkoko, Delta State. President Buhari approved a N5 billion take-off grant to support this university, which happens to be situated in the great Gbaramatu Kingdom. The University currently has students spread across 13 undergraduate programmes in three Faculties, namely: Transport, Engineering and Environmental Management.
While he argued that the cumulative effect of all these measures is certain to have a positive transformational impact on the Niger Delta and on the future of our nation as a whole, the former Vice President submitted that this path of progress and prosperity is one that we will pave by maintaining the partnerships between the administration, the leaders of the region and the communities.
Indeed, while the above declarations in my view look good in principle, it remains a very sad commentary that as at the time President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, under which Professor Yemi served as Vice President, was leaving office, none of the above promises were fulfilled. They only existed in the frames. They amply qualify as promises that produced a monument of nothingness. The region contrary to expectation remains backward and degraded, occasioned by crude oil exploration, exploitation and production.
A critical look at the former Vice President’s claim reveals a high degree of inaccuracies. For instance, Warri and Ibom Deep Sea Ports remain not only desolate but abandoned with no element of modernity. The much celebrated Maritime University in Okerenkoko, Delta State, on its part, is without accreditation and visibly starved of funds. The remediation exercise happening in Ogoni land which commenced in 2019, lacks visible signs of progress.
In view of these painful realities, the questions that are as important as the piece itself are; who will save the region from being a location where the communal right to a clean environment and access to clean water supplies is daily violated? Will President Bola Ahmed Tinubu led Federal Government bring a shift in paradigm? Will he employ participatory approach to development/broad-based consultative approach that will give the people of the Niger Delta a sense of ownership over their own issues? Will he (President Tinubu) see the problem of the Niger Delta as a national one and not restricted to the region?
Separate from the awareness that successive Federal Governments in the country has paid lip service to the region’s development, compounding the challenge of the region is the fact that the Nigeria’s Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021, which was signed into law in the aforementioned years, and arguably the most audacious attempts to overhaul the petroleum sector in Nigeria, and targeted at solving the real and imagined challenges in the nation’s petroleum sector, and turn Niger delta region, particularly host communities to a zone of peace in their relationship with Crude Oil prospecting and exploration companies, has contrary to expectation failed in this mandate.
Instead of providing the legal, governance, regulatory and fiscal framework for the Nigerian Petroleum Industry and the host communities, the Petroleum Industry Act (Act), has become a first line of conflict between crude oil prospecting, exploration companies and their host communities. Like other Acts that guided crude oil production in the past, PIA has similarly become a toothless bull dog that neither bites nor barks. In fact, analysts and industry watchers have come to a sudden realization that nothing has changed.
Even as this challenge rages in the region, this piece hold the opinion that President Bola Tinubu led Federal Government must find a solution and fast to the challenges bedeviling the region. He must do this not for political reasons but for the survival of our democracy and the people of the region.
Jerome-Mario Utomi is the Programme Coordinator (Media and Public Policy), Social and Economic Justice Advocacy (SEJA), Lagos.
