The recently released United Nations Environmental Programme report on oil activities in Ogoni might have achieved more than its intended outcome.? While some communities are happy that the report will put some money in their pockets by way of compensation, the people of Bodo West in Ogu /Bolo LGA of Rivers State, are licking their wounds over the report that lumps them with their Ogoni neighbours and consequently denies them the benefits accruing to other oil-bearing communities. Deputy Editor, Soni Daniel reports that the report has? widened the gap between the oil company and one of its landlords.
The euphoria that greeted theUnited Nations Enviromental Programme (UNEP) report has since fizzled, but the dust thrown up by it is yet to settle. In Rivers State, the home of the Ogoni, on whose behalf the federal government initiated the investigation that led to the report, the outcome is a source of joy for some and a setback to others.
The people of Bodo West in Ogu/Bolo local government of Rivers State are bitter over the incalculable damage that the result of the investigation has done to them. And they are not taking the matter lightly.? As soon as the report was made public, the community fired back at UNEP. Last month, the community wrote a strongly worded letter of protest to the minister of Petroleum and chairman of the special review committee on the UNEP Report, complaining that they had been expropriated.
In the letter signed by a legal practitioner and native of the community, Barrister?? Mela Oforibika, the people contended that it was illegal for UNEP to lump them with Ogoni and by so doing deny them? the benefits that should naturally accrue to them as an oil-bearing community.
In the report, which was copied to the Ministers of Environment, Finance, Justice and Niger Delta Affairs, National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, the community called for immediate steps to correct the infraction.
The part that irked the people most is contained on page 53 of the UN agency report. It states: “Bodo West is an area within the extensive network of deltaic creeks. Though uninhabited, it includes a number of oil wells. These wells themselves are submerged, while the associated production station (now decommissioned) is on land.
Bodo West is officially mapped as belonging to Ogu/Bolo LGA but since there are no local settlements, it has been regarded by both Shell Petroleum Development Company and the Ogoni people as part of the Ogoniland oil facilities,” UNEP stated.
While the agency might have done its work and submitted its report without fear or favour, the ripples are beginning to unfold. The Bodo West community regard the report as a subversion of the Nigerian constitution by the oil company and an attempt to provoke them.
“The people of Bolo community regard this as the grandest subversion of the Nigerian constitution by SPDC with the unilateral attribution of territory within the boundaries of the local government area (Ogu/Bolo) officially recognised under the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, to another LGA (Gokana) without any court order, judgement or official boundary adjustment. It is to say the least, the act of a ‘super state.’
“The people of Bolo reject any assertions by SPDC, the Ogoni or indeed the UNEP, that areas where there are no settlements can now be claimed by people or communities outside the boundaries of that local government area. This is a definite recipe for inter ethnic conflicts” they stated in the letter to the committee.
To appease them, the community wants an immediate review of the report and justice done to them for years of marginalisation by the oil firm.
They said: “We therefore draw the attention of all government agencies, especially the special review panel on the UNEP Report to take note of the facts and to effect a critical review removing all areas in the Bodo West belonging to Bolo community in Ogu/Bolo LGA from the report as they do not fall within the scope of the UNEP report on Ogoniland.
We also want justice for the people of Bolo community that have been victims of obnoxious subterfuges of SPDC, which has utilised the oil and devastated the environment through numerous oil spillages and denied the community thier rights in over 50 years,” the aggrieved community demanded.
Although the friction over oil benefits between SPDC and the Bolo community has been raging for over five decades, the release of the UNEP report appears to have stoked the embers of their lingering row.
Neither the issue captured in the UNEP report nor their disagreement is new. It was the same issue that forced the community to approach a Port Harcourt High Court in November last year to compel the company to pay them compensation worth N5 billion for years of oil exploration and environmental degradation.
In the suit with No. FHC/PH/CS/72/2010, in which the community joined SPDC and the minister of state for Petroleum Resources as defendants, they prayed the court to declare that the company acquired the surface rights into 13 Bodo West oil wells without their permission.
They also asked the court to declare that the oil company or any other that might take over the rights to operate the oil wells in Bolo West should negotiate afresh and pay adequate compensation and royalties to the landlord.
They equally sought an order of the court compelling the company to clean up its sources of water and swamps and the remediation of their environment to its pristine status.
But SPDC countered the submission of the plaintiffs, saying that it lawfully entered the community through a Deed of Lease signed and dated July 1, 1975 covering 12.1 acres of land, including the land belonging to the Bolo communities in Ogu/Bolo LGA and encapsulating the area known as the Bodo West Oil Fields.
The company also denied the degradation of the community through oil spills arising from its operations, maintaining that its facilities were in good state.
SPDC also stated that the community was not entitled to the payment of N5 billion compensation as its operations did not degrade the environment in any way.
But while the community and the oil firm await the outcome of the case, it is certain that the UNEP report will continue to infuriate passions and widen the gap between the oil company and its landlords.
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