Resource Control: Separating Reality From Rhetoric
By
Babangida Dangora
April 28, 2005
Judging by the amount of attention
it is generating in the public domain, “Resource Control” must rank as the
dominant agitative issue in the country today ever since the issue of June 12
was laid to rest with the ascension to power by President Obasanjo to compensate
the Southwest for the annulment of June 12 elections by the military
administration of President Babangida.
Considering the way the issue of Resource Control has been canvassed and
pursued, we are likely to inflict upon ourselves yet another political
misadventure as with similar other issues like “zoning”, “power shift” etc, from
which we are yet to recover. Like most issues in this country, the campaign on
Resource Control has been conducted more on the emotive, sentimental plane than
on the factual, practicable and most importantly, realistic plane. The campaign
has been for the most part conducted without taking the realities of the
Nigerian situation into consideration. It is intriguing that with the array of
legal luminaries and men of letters lining up behind the Resource Control
bandwagon, we have not been availed of any scintilla of legal light that can
stand up to critical scrutiny, on the issue. What is more, none of the figures
pushing the issue has been able to provide us with political antecedents
anywhere in the world of the type of Resource Control concept they are
canvassing. Ask any of them where such principle exists in the world and what
you are likely to get is a jumble of ill-defined and digested definitions,
concepts and ideas. Yes we are often told that Resource control exists in the
United States of America, which is touted as the best example of constitutional
government and from where most of our constitutional statutes are borrowed. But
is that right? Do the states of Texas, Oklahoma or California or any publicly
owned institution in those states directly control oil leases and exploration
rights? Is that not the preserve of private sector capitalist entrepreneurs not
just limited to those states?
For the purpose of our argument on Resource Control should it not be more
appropriate rather to cast our gaze towards OPEC countries or other oil
producing developing countries whose circumstances are more suited to us? In
which of the OPEC countries or oil producing developing countries is Resource
control practised? What are the antecedents and lessons available to us on the
relationship between the foreign multinational oil companies and the various oil
producing developing countries? Is it also lost on the proponents of Resource
Control that the control of any resource especially one that requires heavy
capital investment as oil, is a function of who invests in the venture? Which of
the states where oil is found in Nigeria has the capacity to make the massive
capital investment either jointly or individually to prospect and extract the
oil therein? As a concept, where and how can we fit Resource Control within the
context of both our constitutional statutes and international law? As
constituents of the Federal Republic of Nigeria who were created by that same
entity, on what locus can the resource control states seek to control something
which neither the constitutional statutes of the country, nor those of
International law accords them? On what legal platform will they derive the
power to enter into joint venture agreements with foreign multinational oil
entities? For example, which multinational oil giant will want to enter into
concessionary agreements on oil issues with a state or group of states that do
not have any iota of sovereign power over what is to be agreed upon? What
guarantees can such an oil company have from such states for the protection of
its operations and investments? Hypothetically, what will a Federal Government
that is divested of its powers on such issues be expected to do when legal,
security and other problems arise between the resource controlling states and
the multinational company or companies? Can’t we take a lesson from how the
Bakassi issue has turned out? What will happen to the legal status and structure
of the Nigeria National Petroleum Company, NNPC as the sole entity recognised to
enter into agreements with foreign oil concerns for the purpose of exploiting
the nation’s oil and gas reserves? Will Resource Control oust the powers of NNPC
in this respect? Will this lead to formation of state oil concerns and fresh JV
agreements between the resource controlling states and multinational oil
companies? If so what legal recognition will be available to such agreements
locally and internationally? How can we extricate ourselves from the tangle web
of legal and constitutional issues that will result from this?
But then why the emphasis on oil only? What about the countless other and no
less important mineral resources that abound in this country? Are we to assume
that the Resource Control formula if granted will also cover the other mineral
resources that can be found in the country?
Lest we get carried away by the largely emotive effusions of the Resource
Control seekers, let us pause and examine critically, the place of oil in the
world political economy. The world of oil producing countries can be broadly
divided into two; those who produce the oil, but do not export it as a
commodity, and those who produce and export it as a commodity on the world oil
market. The distinction between the two lies in the fact that while the former
prefer to retain the bulk of oil they produce to principally power their
industrial production, (in effect regarding oil essentially as a source of
energy and power) the former being relatively and less industrially developed,
see oil as a source of revenue. For the oil producing industrial countries, oil
is valued more for the energy it provides for powering industrial machines that
churn out goods for export (value added inclusive), than whatever the resource
can attract in the world market which in comparative terms is nothing to shout
about. In relating this to the Resource Control argument, not only is Nigeria
currently short-changing itself by laying emphasis on bulk exporting the one
resource that should serve as a resource base for its industrial take-off, think
about what could happen if that same resource is controlled not by business
concerns but by states. The question is, how would our future industries and
industrialists fare in their quest for energy and power, if the oil they need is
under the control of state governments and their bureaucracies. Would a
Lagos-based industrial conglomerate of steel and chemicals for instance be
required to negotiate with the oil holding company of a particular state in this
regard? Are we not actually styming the necessary quest for Nigeria’s industrial
future by handing over control of this vital energy resource to the control of
state bureaucracies?
The strand of the Resource Control argument which seeks justification under the
reasoning that when the regional structure was in place, the various regions
were allowed control of revenues from commodities produced in their domains,
sounds and looks like comparing oranges with apples. Cocoa, groundnuts, palm oil
and other primary commodities cannot be equated nor compared to oil in terms of
mode and process of production as well as the capital and technological
investment involved. While one is the result of human capital and production
relations largely involving organized indigenous efforts by peasant farmers in
collaboration and support of the state, the other is a venture primarily at the
behest and ultimate benefit of foreign concerns. While the legal cover and
support for the one is statutory in nature, the other is necessarily sovereign
in recognition of the multinational background of the other party involved.
Following from this, it is therefore logical for a local government, state or
region as the case may be, to retain revenues from commodity production being a
factor of statutory collaboration and involvement with individual or organized
groups of indigenous farmers. In the case of oil production because the
production relations is largely under the control of the multinationals, and the
arrangement being akin to one between two states, the principle of sovereign
responsibility is what applies here. From this it follows therefore that the
states where oil is found cannot as constituent parts, seek to exercise direct
control over the revenues of oil production. That power rests with the Federal
Government which is the sovereign authority and whose powers under such matters
cannot be ousted by its constituents whether as regions, states or local
governments.
Aside from these legal posers, we need to examine critically the political,
social and security situation within the states demanding for Resource Control
to determine the sustainability of the issue.
From a social perspective, the various societies in the areas where the call for
Resource Control is emanating are arguably the most fractious within the
Nigerian milieu. In his classic study of the social and political history of the
area titled Trade and Politics in the Niger Delta, the late Professor Kenneth
Dike attributed this to the impact of foreign negative influences over the
centuries, which cumulatively helped to destroy the social fabric of social
networks and structures in the various societies making up the area, resulting
in a state of perpetual social and political ferment. Both in pre-colonial and
postcolonial times the area has been a cauldron of ceaseless intra and inter
societal conflict with powerful individuals, city-states either singly or in
alliance with others waging perpetual wars against one another over trading
rights for such items as liquor, slaves, mirrors, palm oil and second hand
clothes from Europe. From Jaja of Opobo to the King of Akassa, to Nana of
Itsekiri to Ovonramen of Benin, to Ibanichuka of Okrika and Igbanibo Will Braide
of Bakana, the potentates of the various states of this area had run one
gauntlet or another against representatives of foreign commercial interests that
have sought to establish and sustain trading links here. More often as Dike
pointed out, the potentates of the various communities here were not enamoured
on seizing the opportunities that foreign connection brought to strengthen the
social structure and building viable self-sustaining states. They were more
interested in acquiring the false trappings and instruments of coercion and
subjugations that the foreigners brought to strengthen their hold over their
people in a bid to hold tenaciously to their status as middlemen to the European
adventurers. This of course more than any other factor helped to destabilise the
structure of social relations in the entire Niger Delta states and it is no
wonder that the history of the area is replete with dethronements, banishing and
sackings than any other area in Nigeria’s history.
Today the situation is no different. Oil bearing communities and those where
plat forms, flow stations and pipelines of oil companies run through are
perpetually at war over who gets what from the oil multinationals and their
service companies. Communities routinely fight over who owns what land and who
should control lucrative contracts, employment and empowerment opportunities
that come from oil companies. Only recently two neighbouring kindred communities
in one of the states at the forefront of the Resource control issues laid waste
to one another killing local government officials and a pregnant woman on
account of which of the communities own the land earmarked for oil drilling by a
prominent multinational company operating in the area. In yet one of the states
it has become routine event for orgies of violence to be staged between the
three prominent ethnic groups in the heart of the oil producing district in the
state. Routinely, state officials and powerful individuals both in government
and in the communities retain well-armed militias to attack opponents, and steal
crude from oil pipelines. Just as in the days of old when potentates fought over
who should control trading routes and commodities, present day powerful elites
and individuals jostle over who should corner compensation revenues over land
acquisition and other such benefits. The revenues accruing from such
arrangements instead of being used to lay a sound social infrastructure for the
people of the area, is expended on ostentatious living by such individuals. It
has gotten so bad that some of the multinational oil companies have been forced
to seriously consider scaling down or in some cases totally shutting down their
operations in some of the more intractable oil producing areas.
In this deadly cocktail of intra and intra group crises that cover the whole of
the Niger Delta, Resource Control would fittingly be the oil that will fuel more
crises turning the area into one vast killing field worse than anywhere else in
Africa. Would the Federal Government of Nigeria which had had to intervene in a
number of countries where tragedies of this nature occurred allow itself to be
goaded into setting the stage for this to occur in its own backyard on account
of the greedy and selfish interests of a few disconnected elites of the Niger
Delta?
Having examined the issue critically, one would admit that Resource control is
not without its merits. The level of poverty and environmental degradation
suffered by the vast majority of the inhabitants of the area is perhaps
unprecedented in Nigeria. Furthermore it is incongruous with the law of social
justice that an area from where such wealth is being generated should remain
paradoxically without the basic necessities for decent, meaningful existence.
The state of the Niger Delta with all its contradictions of stupendous wealth
existing side-by-side abject poverty is a metaphor for present day Nigeria. For
being not just the area from which the bulk of state revenue is sourced, but
also for the strategic reason of being the area from which our country is most
vulnerable to foreign attack there is a strong and compelling case for decisive
intervention by the Federal and state governments of the area to massively
improve the living conditions of the area. I firmly believe that improving the
conditions of the Niger Delta will have a positive ripple effect on the rest of
Nigeria in quantum terms. Such intervention should however be balanced
side-by-side the larger interest of not creating conditions for unhealthy
regional dichotomies in terms of wealth and development in the country. Oil is a
national patrimony which collectively as Nigerians own, for which defence many
have fought and died.
Babangida Dangora is based in Kano
