Comments (11)

government should take good care in the community so that dey can also benefit for the oil

So typical a message! Just for the record, I do not condone violence on any level. What's going on today is simply the continuous rape of Africa and her resources; including, the people, gold and ivory amongst many others. After the war in Iraq (and consequently the entire Middle East), Nigeria emerged as a savior to the lucrative and insatiable demand for oil. Fueled by greed, companies like Shell & Exxon Mobil are now sighing a breath of polluted air from Nigerian oil and labor, while turning a blind eye on the economy at large. Education, health and living standards are now; more than ever, tertiary, to the need to dominate and plunder the land for oil. Unfortunately, these oil companies are in it until the wells run dry, or until the next big resource to exploit is excavated. My heart is with the natives, they are in it for a lifetime, and generations beyond their own blood lines. I urge the Nigerian Government to terminate whatever contracts it has with international oil companies and regain 100% control of its oil production and distribution. Perhaps then, they will be peace and wealth in the Niger Delta, and Nigeria can regain her status as The Giant of Africa.

Appalling would be a weak word, an understatement, when describing the conditions under which Niger Delta indigenes are forced to subsist.

Challenging to begin with, these conditions are hugely worsened by the pollution and poison that Shell, Exxon-Mobil, and other oil companies pour daily into the waters, soil, and air that the natives need to survive. The companies engage in this unconscionable pollution after spear-heading the stealing of the natives’ patrimony. This is an outrage. And it is compounded when you contemplate that oil companies somehow behave much nicer when they drill in Alaska and Oklahoma.

What is the Niger Delta indigenes’ crime? God put oil (coveted by others) under their feet.

Injustice anywhere is injustice to all: If this timeless gem of a truism will not move all of us to take sides, then perhaps a barrel of oil at $125, and rising, should.

Finally, I would not blame MEND much. At worst they are only taking advantage of a crisis created and exploited by others. At best, MEND is waging a just war for justice–even if imperfectly. I would blame much more the rest of us—especially the oil companies, Nigeria’s politicians, Western governments, and oil consumers around the globe—all of us who refuse to think about how “our” oil comes to us.

Stephen Hudak -

In your rush to blame big oil your forgot the real ones benefiting from this - MEND. They benefit from the continued chaos and dischord to pocket millions and millions from bunkered oil. Whether or not their cause is just, they are very interested actors in keeping this conflict ongoing.

Certain groups profit from conflict. In the Delta, MEND is one such group. Blithely blaming foreign oil companies is ignorant. Their actions have never been perfect, but there is no way that losing 20% of production is enabling to them.

During the time I spent in Nigeria, the one problem I and everyone incountered was corruption. Any official believes any money that crosses his hands belongs to him. It's been going on for many years. It is the very foundation of idioticy to assume oil companys can help the people directly when the national government prevents it trough corruption. I have never read a reasonable or accurate accounting of what is happening in Nigeria by you newspaper or any newspaper, never. Either send someone there or stop publishing accounts of what you don't know.

I actually come from these parts of Nigeria, I live in Europe now and i can say that at the beginning, the foreign oil companies did not practice any socio corporate responsibility. This in effect led to the exploitation of the delta region without a corresponding elevation of the lives of the people living in these parts. Yes Shell for example would state that they paid the Federal Government subsidies and all. But hardly any of these went to the people. This has excarberated the feelings of injustice and neglect in these areas especially as they feel that they do not derive any thing from their own natural resources. You have to know that fishing used to be the main stay of these communities. Well oil spills and all kill marine life and so it goes on.... The rise of these militant groups arose from these feelings and pity because now they are also an organization and we know that every organization which starts out to correct some socially perceived injustice in the long run will run into that problem of human weakness - the quest for power - which corrupts. It will take not America to help us. We have to help ourselves - which means we have to address the fundamental problems that began this whole thing and when we have cut off the festering boil then we can begin to apply medicine to the wound.

I am right here in the Niger Delta and my families stretch from Opobo to Buguma to Ikot Amba to Abia. I am on locations in Bonny and Port Harcourt. So, I can tell the truth my eye-witness accounts.

I have addressed the Niger Delta crisis on the BBC and on the Nigerian Times International Forum and Nigerian Times blog.

See:
Nigerian Times: SHELL, ASARI DOKUBO AND THE NIGER DELTA CRISIS23 Jan 2006 ... Welcome To Nigerian Times Blog. The First Nigerian News and Current Affairs Blog. Read the news and articles and watch the news videos. ...
nigeriantimes.blogspot.com/2006/01/shell-asari-dokubo-and-niger-delta.html

I support the just cause of MEND, but what has the leaders of MEND done with the millions of dollars they have made from illegal oil bunkering and ransoms from the foreign oil workers they kidnapped and released?

Most of the leaders of these so called militant groups are partners in crime with the oligarchy of the ruling class actively engaged in illegal oil bunkering in the Niger Delta since the early 1980s to date.

Top Nigerian politicians, retired and still serving military officers and top Nigerian business men and women are all stakeholders and shareholders in the illegal bunkering, illegal allocations of oil blocks and misappropriation of oil revenues. They are all gangsters in the oil mafia.

These criminals are not invisible, we all know them and the so-called militants know them.
They do not need to blow up pipelines and kidnap foreign oil workers, because the multinational oil companies are not responsible for the deprivations of the host communities of the multinational oil companies operating the Niger Delta region of Nigeria.

One of the so-called militant leaders bought a leather-padded Navigator Jeep and moved into a luxury mansion in Port Harcourt.
He is a college drop out.

All the millions of dollars he has made from fishing in the troubled waters of the Niger Delta have been used for his selfish status symbols and he has not even spent any money to provide any social amenity for the deprived communities he claims to be fighting for on the CNN.
Hypocrites are worse than sinners.

These so-called militants are not fighting for the suffering and dying poor masses in the Niger Delta, they are only using them as the lame duck excuses for their criminal activities and power tussles over the black gold in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria.

We know them all and they are not more than 300 and they can all be arrested and prosecuted like the U.S. has been doing in the war against the drug lords in the Americas.

If the U.S. Government wants to secure the oil supplies from the Gulf of Guinea, then the U.S. Government must deal with the criminal oil cartel in the Niger Delta as it is dealing with the criminal drug cartel in the Americas.

Let us stop playing the politics of capitalism with the human and mineral resources in the Niger Delta and get rid of the lunatic fringe elements plundering the Niger Delta region of Nigeria.

They are in the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) of Nigeria, the generals in the Nigerian Army, the captains to the admirals in the Nigerian Navy and the directors of the major banks in Nigeria. They are the major shareholders of the three star and five star hotels in Port Harcourt, Warri, Calabar, Lagos, Kaduna and Abuja.

See:
Niger Delta Kidnappers Plc - NairalandNiger Delta Kidnappers (NDK) Plc is the fastest growing public liability company in Nigeria with an annual turnover of over $1 Billion. ...
www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-35746.0.html

They should all the invited and the list of their implications to indict them should be shown and their prosecution should commence according to the rule of law without compromise or waivers.

MEND knows them all.
The members of MEND cannot deny what I have stated.

interesting article. also interesting to see everybodies theory of why gasoline is so expensive in the U.S.
however the reason the costs of oil and gasoline is going up is because of the oil future market, which has increased from 50 billion usd. in year 2000, to about 250 billion usd. in 2007. It is not a problem of supply. also if you live in the U.S. you are being penalized by the dollar devaluation.
see: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8878
you can disregard his "peak oil" theorys

The struggle in the Delta region is a genuine struggle for distribution of wealth. The resource rich area have been devastated and neglected by the oil business. It's hard for the natives to do what they naturally do best-fishing. The Federal government of Nigeria and the oil companies are virtually doing next to nothing to invest in the region. It is in America's best interest to address the situation because of the regions importance in its oil security. There is apprehension among the African people in general that America and the economic super powers are only interested in cashing in on the natural resources of the continent and care less about the struggling mass of people. Left unchecked, the world may wake up one day to face another revolt of an unimaginable proportions we are witnessing now.

That's something of a dilemna. To share the oil proceeds with the citizenry takes a nationalized oil & gas industry, but the actions of the US globally have been devoted to privatizing natural resources at the expense of the impoverished masses. Public opinion may well favor the struggle of the "little guy" seeking socio-economic justice, but if the US government gets involved in any way it will surely be on the side of the private oil companies. We are internationally infamous for breaking labor unions and enriching the already obscenely wealthy. Is it possible to engage Mr. Carter without getting the US State Department involved? It is to be hoped so, but don't bet your lunch money on it!

While it is easy enough to sympathize with the struggle of a people seeking to get a portion of the nation's oil wealth, we also cannot forget that these are militants and real people are getting hurt. On the whole, MEND has shown considerable restraint in its activities relative other militant movements. Perhaps we should analyze the situation by first finding who is benefitting from the current arrangement. Without a question it is the foreign oil companies and the central government. Corruption in Nigeria means distribution compromises. The losers of the arrangement is the disparate majority -- and so the analysis falls back on the age old problem of an unfair distribution of wealth. The only way I know of that has proven to change the arrangement, then, is struggle and contestation, peaceful or otherwise. Jimmy Carter is a "doer" but, as Theo Grutter wrote, "Good intentions make great, yet ignorant doing." Indeed, as our anonymous emailer has suggested, an end to the violence will result only in endless dialogue.