Quelling Militancy in Post Amnesty Niger Delta

The success of the amnesty programme of President Musa Yar Adua is not in question any more. What is in question however, is the fear of skeptics of the sincerity of the federal government in delivering its post amnesty pledges. It is also true that government largesses are not keeping quiet about government good intentions for the people of the Niger Delta.

The recent federal government pronouncement that ten percent of oil derivation will be given to oil producing communities was received with a lot of excitement by people from the South South region and by followers of the Niger Delta crisis. Causing even more excitement is the federal government intent to include this ten percent derivation policy to oil producing communities in the Petroleum Industry Bill currently in the National Assembly.

All hail President Yar Adua. “PDP – progress for the people.’ For once in more than twelve years since the party came into existence, have they been seen to be doing the right thing. Good as it may look, there are questions about this federal government pronouncement of relinquishing to the oil producing communities a whopping ten percent of oil revenue. The question is, which community falls under the classification of 'oil producing?

I was just wondering how the oil companies under the GMoU arrangement are able to categorise communities in the Niger Delta as oil and non-oil producing communities. If a particular community is given a development grant based on the premise that an oil company operates in their home land, what happens to the many other communities which suffers from oil spills, destruction of farmlands, aquatic and marine lives, and pollution of their source of clean drinking water?

I can not understand the logic whereby you give money to community A as oil producing, whereas community X, Y,Z gets nothing and yet suffers from the effects of oil producing activities in its neighborhood. A situation such as this is bound to spell doom.  Obviously, the so called ‘oil producing’ communities will be happy, the oil companies will enjoy relative sporadic peace from beneficiary communities, but other non-oil producing communities suffering from the effects of oil production activities which are not beneficiaries of such grants from oil companies and the federal government will be agitated.

A larger proportion of the restive youths in the Niger Delta who are now fighting in the creeks are actually from the so called ‘non-oil producing communities. Both the oil companies and the federal government should know that there is a big price to pay if this issue of ten percent derivation to oil producing communities is not well managed.  The situation may degenerate into intra-communal clashes leading to a retraction of militants to the creeks.

The success or failure of the post amnesty programme largely depends on how the oil companies and indeed the federal government is able to structure the distribution of the ten percent derivation to oil producing communities.