Nigeria Hopes to Pour Oil on Troubled Waters

An upsurge of trouble in Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta has been testing the new military rulers’ tolerance of dissent, forcing them to deal with the aspirations of impoverished ethnic groups and further endangering an already weak economy.

In the recent history of the world’s sixth-largest oil producer, competing demands for the wealth generated by black gold often have made it seem more of curse than a blessing.

During the past 19 months, clashes between ethnic rivals in the southern oil town of Warri and surrounding creeks and bayous have left scores dead. The conflict is rooted in the quest for political dominance, land and control of oil.

This fall, ethnic Ijaw youths seized oil wells and pumping stations, shutting off a third of Nigeria’s exports of 2 million barrels a day. Their actions threatened the $7-billion-a-year industry.

Frustration and poverty also led to tragedy in October. About 700 people scavenging fuel from a burst oil pipeline died in a catastrophic inferno in a village not far from Warri.

In contrast to his corrupt predecessor, Gen. Sani Abacha, the new military government of Gen. Abdulsalam Abubakar has not used brute force to crack down on unrest.

Analysts agree that the trouble is not serious enough yet to derail the new ruler’s plans to restore democracy in this country of 107 million, Africa’s most populous.

However, with local elections scheduled for this weekend, analysts say the unrest could divert attention, money and manpower from the regime’s political plans. Stability is crucial for a smooth transition to civilian rule next year, as is peace among the 7 million people who sit atop the 27,000-square-mile delta that is Nigeria’s economic lifeline.

Oil revenue provides about 90% of Nigeria’s foreign exchange and about 80% of the government’s total revenue. Of that total, 13% is supposed to go back to developing the infrastructure of the oil-producing areas, something that local critics say seldom happens.

The turmoil actually could have a positive side, analysts say, pressing the government to loosen its grip on power and give more authority to local officials.

“It is likely to force issues onto the agenda like restructuring of the Nigerian federation,” Pat Utomi, a political economist at Lagos Business School, said by telephone.

He described the upheaval as “a reflection of the several frustrations the people in [the delta] region feel about being treated with regards to allocation of resources.” Communities throughout the region allege corruption and neglect by government and international oil companies.

In the early 1990s, the Ogoni people of the eastern delta began campaigning for a greater share of oil profits, political self-determination and ownership of the oil beneath their land.

The crisis came to a head in 1995, when Ogoni writer and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight others were hanged for allegedly slaying four local chiefs.

Many in the community accused the chiefs of collaborating with the government and foreign oil companies for personal gain, to the detriment of the majority of people.

In response to the Saro-Wiwa case, the United States and other Western countries imposed limited economic sanctions on Nigeria but stopped short of imposing an oil embargo.

The immediate demand of the Ijaws, Nigeria’s fourth-largest ethnic group, is for the relocation of a local government headquarters to a part of Warri they have traditionally occupied. Such headquarters tend to be sources of money and jobs.

The protesters also want construction of roads, schools and health clinics, and a greater say in local affairs.

Most Ijaws and their rivals, the Itsekiris, live in abject poverty, without basic amenities such as electricity and potable water.

Though overflowing with oil, few communities in the delta have escaped the deprivation that grips much of the country. Average income for Nigerians is about $300 a year, compared with $1,200 per year in the late 1970s, when oil wealth made the West African country one of the 40 richest in the world.

The plunge into poverty, largely the result of corruption and mismanagement by successive military regimes and the collapse of world oil prices, has left Nigerians poor, angry and frustrated enough to try to scavenge fuel from punctured pipelines.

Some analysts believe that the key to ensuring that oil profits filter down to average people lies in the delegation of more power to local and state authorities, similar to the system that existed in Nigeria in the 1960s--before oil became king.

“There was a certain level of competitive communalism,” said Utomi, the political economist. “Regions competed, one against the other, in providing a [venue] for private sector development and direct investment by the government itself. Distribution of resources was through devolution. The states kept a good part of what they produced.”

Expounding the sentiments of many Nigerians, Utomi lamented that with the domination of the military, which has ruled Nigeria for all but 10 of the 38 years since independence from Britain, “powers were concentrated at the center,” allowing top officials to pillage the country’s fortune.

Efforts to finally give Nigeria a working political system are aimed at balancing central control, ethnic and regional mistrust, and demands for more power on the local level.

Presidential elections, scheduled for February, are aimed at finding a civilian leader who has national appeal.

In the local elections, parties that win at least 5% of the vote in 24 of Nigeria’s 36 states will be allowed to participate in subsequent elections for state governors, state assemblies and a twin-chamber national assembly. In a further attempt to prove its commitment to making the country’s political process democratic and inclusive, the government has promised to publish the constitution drafted in 1995. The document was never published nor adopted by Abacha.

The move is expected to kick off a national debate in which citizens will be encouraged to submit comments to the military rulers, who will make changes on the basis of the recommendations and ratify the constitution.

Observers say this type of courting of collective opinion is long overdue.

“For a long time we have not had a solid mechanism to build a consensus on which direction we should be headed,” said Valentine James, director of African Studies at Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, Mich., and a native of eastern Nigeria.

“The real issue is consensus-building, whether it be [about] our natural resources or getting the politics moving toward a democratic process,” James said.

Though Nigeria is a major oil producer, its refineries are in such poor shape that it must rely on imports of refined fuel. Sabotage of oil installations has been rife throughout the delta.

Under Abacha, who died in June of a heart attack, the fray in Warri would have been brutally quashed by the army, as was the upheaval in Ogoni territory earlier this decade. However, Abubakar’s government seems intent on a different approach. Troops reportedly have been deployed to Warri, but there have not been reports of violent military confrontation.

Abubakar has recognized the need to reform the oil industry. One of his first moves was to take fuel imports out of the hands of Abacha’s cronies, authorizing multinational corporations to bring in supplies. Then, in an attempt to stamp out Abacha’s system built on bribery, middlemen and political patronage, the new government ruled that companies buying Nigerian crude must prove that they are either oil producers, refiners or well-established global traders.

Renovations are underway at the 110,000-barrel-per-day refinery in the northern town of Kaduna. The government has given the green light for basic maintenance to begin on the country’s biggest refinery and a smaller sister facility in Port Harcourt.

Local pro-democracy activists remain skeptical about whether Abubakar will follow through on all of his promises of democracy.

However, others believe that Abubakar is giving Nigeria a new lease on political and economic life. “Abubakar has shown tremendous signs of doing the right thing,” said James, the Kalamazoo professor.