Date Published: 03/04/10

Ogoni: Amaechi And Illegal Bunkering From Abandoned Shell Facilities By Ifeanyi Izeze

Though the Rivers state governor, Chibuike Amaechi has a very funny way of expressing his feelings on serious matters, he sure was really angry when he directed the Secretary to the State Government Mr Magnus Abe, to convene a meeting of Ogoni stakeholders to urgently address the issue of illegal bunkering and oil spills in that part of the state. The emphasis was that “Ogoni elites and leaders must re-assure the federal and state government as well as the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) officials of their collective resolve to fight illegal bunkering in the area.”

Reports of massive illegal oil bunkering and its attendant oil spills in Ogoniland is an outright irony of everything the people has been fighting for since the days of Ken Saro Wiwa. It took The United Nations Environmental Project Coordinator Mr Michael Cowing in his presentation on the update of the project, for groups like MOSOP to know of new major oil spillages caused by activities of saboteurs who are thriving on illegal bunkering. This is incredible. Its very funny.

And the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) should be held liable for looking the other way while miscreants mess up all that the real Ogoni people fought and stood for- criminal exploitation and perceived environmental devastation by Shell.

Is this present MOSOP the same organisation that characteristically alerted the whole world of oil spills from Shell facilities barely one hour from any leakage anywhere in Ogoniland? Haba! Something is wrong.

Shell before its eviction from Ogoniland had five oilfields with 98 oil wells streamed into five flowstations in the area. These include Bodo West, Bomu (K-Dere), Yorla and Korokoro flowstations. And pathetically, most of these facilities particularly the well heads and flowstations have been converted into criminal platforms for tapping of crude oil for illegal bunkering for both local refining and outright crude sales. The worst aspect of all these is the devastating oil spillages from these bunkering points. What a shame! Saro Wiwa must be terribly grieved in his grave over the current happenings in Ogoniland.

Truth be told, whosoever that has been chasing away investors from the area, either through criminal activities or informed propaganda campaigns must be an accomplice in this menace of illegal bunkering and environment devastation.

The Ogonis evicted Shell from their land for alleged environmental irresponsibility from the company’s destructive extraction of oil. Now few years later, the same people are now causing even more terrible devastation to their own environment. Ogoni people make una judge the case by una selves before God go judge una o!

The right question to ask is: who is actually doing or rather who can do illegal bunkering in Ogoniland without the permission of the natives?

At best, it appears naïve in the extreme, for MOSOP to look the other way while the entire area is being turned into one field of cluster home-made illegal refineries and crude oil bunkering arena. And o f more significance, is the manner in which MOSOP has continued to shirk its responsibilities for this mess and its responsibility for stopping it.

It is no longer acceptable for Ogoni rights organizations like MOSOP to blame everybody but themselves in whatever woe the real people of the area were subjected  to, initially by Shell and its joint venture partners and now by full-blooded Ogoni natives. Though MOSOP claimed it duly reported the menace of oil spills from bunkering activities to the JTF, its allegation that the task force has failed to check the criminal activities because of what looks like “a good understanding” between perpetrators of this heinous crime and officers of the JTF in the area could best be described as outright nonsense. The question is: why did MOSOP not petition the Rivers state government or even the Presidency on the matter? Why didn’t MOSOP organize its usual press conferences to expose the menace? So who is fooling who?

MOSOP, the previously sole Ogoni rights organization has been so engrossed in leadership tussles and fractionalisation and has completely become an offshore organization rather than an Ogoni -based organisation. The group spends more time abroad telling all kinds of lies and at the same time neglecting the continued battering of the real Ogoni people this time not by any foreign multinational company but by Ogoni sons who have become so strong that nobody in the entire kingdom can call them to order.

If the Ogonis want to be serious in addressing this menace, they should use Ogoni language and tell themselves the hard truth. And that truth is that nobody born of woman can enter anywhere in Ogoniland to tamper with oil facilities if that person is not an Ogoni man or working for an Ogoni man. So the problem is squarely an Ogoni problem and should only be solved by the Ogoni people themselves.

Where do you have an NNPC refinery in the entire Ogoniland? None! The nearest to Ogoni is the plant at Eleme/Okrika axis. Is it not surprising that  up till now the so called leaders including MOSOP have not bothered to raise alarm about the fleet of funny trucks (trailers) carrying oil (crude or locally refined) out of the area? Most of these bunkering and local refining activities are carried out in the day times. So if the Ogoni people pretend not to know the people behind this bunkering and its accompanying oil spills, they are merely deceiving themselves.

Good enough Governor Amaechi rightly detailed Chief Ngei Abe, the Secretary to the State Rivers State Government, himself an Ogoni man, to convene a meeting of his people to address this problem which is purely an Ogoni problem.

 Agreed that “the stakeholders meeting has become imperative to avoid waste of money, time and energy in the clean up of impacted oil spill sites when the natives are engaged in causing more damage to the environment through their illegal bunkering activities,” the state government failed to call a spade a spade in this matter.

There is a definite “understanding” between officers of the JTF in the Ogoni area and the perpetrators of this criminal activity. And the SSG should be bold to look eyeball to eyeball with whoever is in charge of the JTF operation in the state and in the Ogoni area and tell them the outright truth whether they like it or not.

Sometime ago, the state governor on one of those his rambo visits, was shown fleets of illegal refineries operating on Ogoni home- grown technologies. He ordered the JTF to destroy the few that was unraveled but how the JTF carried out that instruction was at best blurred and at worst obscured. But that’s not the issue now.

The Secretary to the State Government should impress it on the commanders of the task force that it is only the JTF that can stop these illegal bunkering activities. No traditional ruler or community leader has any clout to confront these heavily armed and ready to kill gangs. And the JTF should not shy away from the only reason why they are parading the area in the first instance.

Except Magnus has been converted (deviated from what he used to stand for), his capacity to thoroughly address this problem is beyond doubt and he should do everything within his power not to disappoint the trust reposed on him. This assignment will also serve as a test for his leadership strength and ability to produce results in his immediate constituency.

What is happening in Ogoniland should not be treated with laxity because the arms build up in the area will ultimately end up in a very devastating violent armed crisis in Ogoni and this should interest all concern Ogonis especially the different diaspora groups. The Ogoni sons in collaboration with their joint venture partners from outside the area involved in this unholy act of illegal bunkering from abandoned Shell facilities have amassed and are still acquiring sophisticated weapons which ultimately will be used to fight in Ogoni either among the different groups or one section of Ogoni against the other. Mark my word!

IFEANYI IZEZE IS AN ABUJA-BASED CONSULTANT ON STRATEGY AND COMMUNICATION (iizeze@yahoo.com)