BY NORM DIXON
The sheer quantity of rhetoric about promoting the noble ideals of democracy, human rights and government transparency notwithstanding, US President Bill Clinton's three-day visit to Nigeria, which began on August 26, was all about strengthening Nigeria's discredited military as imperialism's regional cop and boosting the capacity of Nigeria's strategic export oil industry. That is bad news for the people of the Niger River delta.
The media posse that accompanied Clinton studiously avoided mention of the fact that his visit comes at a time when Nigeria's military and police are escalating their attacks on the people who inhabit the oil-rich Niger delta in the south. The escalation coincides with Shell's announcement that it intends to resume operations in Ogoniland in the Niger delta, home to the 500,000-strong Ogoni ethnic group.
Shell was forced to halt its activities in Ogoniland in 1993 following massive opposition led by the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People. The Nigerian military's attempts to defeat the Ogoni people and allow the return of Shell led to the deaths of thousands of Ogoni. This culminated in the infamous hanging of MOSOP leader Ken Saro-Wiwa and nine other Ogoni leaders in 1995.
Military dictator Olusegu Obasanjo was elected president of Nigeria in February 1999, ending the military's rule, which had been almost continuous since independence. Before Obasanjo's election, the Western media and his admirers in the Washington made much of his "democratic" credentials, which rested on his 1979 decision to hand power to a civilian government and his 1995 imprisonment by dictator General Sani Abacha. Obasanjo's own three-year reign as dictator was usually glossed over.
Obasanjo's presidential campaign was openly supported and bankrolled by "retired" army generals, former dictators, wealthy businesspeople and prominent politicians. Nigeria's ruling class is dominated by fabulously rich serving and retired military officers and their business cronies, mainly from the north, whose wealth has been accumulated from decades of corruption, kickbacks and embezzlement of the country's enormous oil revenue (worth US$17 billion in 1999).
Washington
The US government has adopted Obasanjo as its man in West Africa. Since his election, US economic and military aid to Nigeria has topped US$170 million a year (up from $7 million), the largest amount given to any country in sub-Saharan Africa by a wide margin.
During his brief visit to Nigeria's capital, Abuja, Clinton declared Nigeria "a pivot point on which all Africa's future turns". Reflecting Washington's anointment of Nigeria as imperialism's regional cop, Clinton's visit was preceded by an announcement that up to 200 US military advisors would be deployed to train and equip five Nigerian army battalions for "peacekeeping" duties in the region. The value of the military aid project is estimated at $42 million.
The US president also pledged to help develop Nigeria's oil and natural gas infrastructure and boost the country's oil and gas exports. Obasanjo promised Clinton that Nigeria, as a member of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, would use its influence to "bring an element of stability" to rocketing oil prices.
During the visit, officials of the US Export-Import Bank and the US Trade and Development Agency signed US$1.2 billion worth of export agreements with Nigeria that will buttress increased Western investment in Nigeria's energy export industry.
The US presently imports about 16% of its oil supply from Nigeria and Angola. It expects this figure to steadily rise to 25% in the next 10 years. The US is Nigeria's largest crude oil market. Oil accounts for more than 90% of Nigeria's export income.
The Nigerian government recently announced that it intends to increase Nigeria's crude oil reserves to 30 billion barrels, from 25 billion barrels, and that daily production will be increased from 2 million to 3 million barrels per day by 2003. To achieve this, annual investment in the industry must be, from 2001, about US$8 billion, much of which will come from the Western oil corporations operating in Nigeria. Part of this massive sum will be spent on opening new oil fields in the Niger delta and the waters off-shore.
Blind eye
Obasanjo's close ties to Nigeria's oil-soaked ruling class and his new role as Washington's regional enforcer and as the pliable manager of one of the West's increasingly important sources of crude oil explains why Clinton turned a blind eye to the human rights abuses being inflicted on the people of the Niger delta. It also explains why Nigeria's "democratic" government is stepping up its attacks on behalf of the giant Western oil companies, without so much as a murmur from Western governments and the mass media.
The 70,000-square kilometre Niger delta region, home to more than 6 million of Nigeria's 120 million people, is the source of most of Nigeria's oil output. Shell, US-owned Chevron, Mobil and Texaco, Italian Agip and French Elf operate, In partnership with the state oil company, under the protection of armed troops.
Shell produces 50% of Nigeria's oil. Nigeria, the world's eighth largest oil producer, accounts for almost 14% of Shell's global oil production.
In the Niger River delta, Shell's oilfields have yielded an estimated US$30 billion since 1958, yet the 6 million people who live in the region remain desperately poor. There is no electricity, no running water, no adequate hospitals and few schools.
It costs Shell between US$3 and $5 to produce one barrel of Ogoni oil, which is sold at around $30 a barrel on the world market. This is one reason why Shell is one of the world's largest and most profitable companies.
Drinking water in the delta contains levels of petroleum hydrocarbons 350 times that allowed in the European Union. Between 1976 and 1991 there was an average of four oil spills a week in the delta. Shell operates in 100 countries, but 40% of its oil spills have occurred in Nigeria.
Shell admits to 3000 polluted sites affected by oil operations on Ogoni soil. Shell also admits to flaring 1.1 billion cubic feet of natural gas each day (many flares have burned continuously for 35 years), causing acid rain that destroys crops and sickens residents.
Protests and repression
A January 17 report in the British Financial Times caused an uproar. It claimed that Shell "appears to be on the verge of the first 'significant breakthrough' in its estranged relations with the Ogoni tribe since the execution in 1995 of Ken Saro-Wiwa" and that "the company says 'real reconciliation (with the Ogonis) may not be far away'" after a series of meetings with "Ogoni representatives".
In response, MOSOP issued a statement that "the Ogonis have neither authorised nor attended meetings with Shell officials either in Nigeria or elsewhere" and that those who Shell claimed to be Ogoni representatives are "a handful of corrupt, greedy and selfish individuals" who "continue to betray the people". "Any secret negotiations between these persons and Shell is not binding on the Ogoni people", the statement said.
Police and military forces swept into K. Dere, an Ogoni village, on April 11, in response to peaceful protests against Shell's efforts to restart its operations. According to residents, security forces killed five people and burned 20 homes.
In late March, Shell contractors had begun the construction of a road. The K. Dere protests highlighted the contractors' failure to hire local labour for the project.
According to Peter Ndonake, a leader of the National Youth Council of the Ogoni People (NYCOP), MOSOP's youth wing, around 2000 young people on August 7 prevented Shell personnel from resuming work at Korokoro. However, at around 2am on August 8, mobile police and "thugs sponsored by Shell" attacked Korokoro, destroying houses, stealing property, and beating and raping people. Many villagers fled to the bush and refused to come out.
On August 10, more than 5000 Ogonis from all over Ogoniland converged in Tai, Rivers State, to demonstrate against the local government's use of force to allow Shell to resume operations. Their banners and placards read: "No to Shell, no oil for blood"; "Shell, stop drilling our blood"; "Shell's agents, repent and join the people of Ogoni in their just struggle". The protesters marched to Shell's Korokoro flow station. According to MOSOP's Emmanuel Aluzim, "Some forces trained and loyal to Shell" attacked the marchers with machetes and axes.
On August 14, 3000 people were mobilised by NYCOP outside the Rivers State House of Assembly in Port Harcourt to protest against Shell's return.
In other parts of the delta, opposition to Shell continues. Following an oil spill on August 13, angry villagers in the Ughelli area of Delta State prevented Shell workers from gaining access. Five oil pumping stations have been shut down. Around 500 police were sent to "beef up security and keep peace", reported the Lagos Comet. Communities staged a peaceful demonstration to demand that Shell "stop coming to the area".
In the most serious human rights outrage during Obasanjo's rule, Nigerian troops razed an entire town, Odi, in Bayelsa State, on November 19. More than 42 people were killed in the attack by 2000 federal troops to quell militant protests by young people from the Ijaw ethnic group against Shell and other Western oil companies. Soon after, on November 22, Obasanjo met with oil company executives to reassure them that the government was "very much aware of the concerns of the oil-producing companies for law and order".
In January, the US-based Global Exchange and Essential Action issued a report — "Oil for Nothing" — that accused "Big Oil" of continuing to closely collaborate with the Nigerian military in the Niger delta and of destroying the environment, livelihoods and public health. The report's authors, who visited the Niger delta in September 1999, noted: "Everywhere we visited, we witnessed the destruction of the local environment, and the oppression of communities affected by what can accurately be described as an outlaw oil industry."