 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
||||||
 |
|
||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
Niger Delta Fund Initiative: Oil community groups resolve to press for resource control
Daily Independent Online
Tuesday, September 30, 2003By Akanimo Sampson
Daily Independent, PHSome 56 oil bearing and oil producing community groups of the Niger Delta, among them the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), the Federal Niger Delta Ijaw Communities (FNDK), rose from a meeting at the weekend in Port Harcourt, Rivers State capital, resolving to press ahead with their clamour for resource control.
The groups said they would continue with the agitation whether the Federal Government likes it or not. They also insisted that not even the excessive militarisation of the Niger Delta region would stop them from demanding for their right.
According to the obviously angry communities, the alleged know-it-all attitude of the Federal Government and its development agencies in the volatile region is incapable of addressing their real needs.
Mr. Patrick Naagbanton, an Ogoni rights activist, and Mr. Jaye Gaskia, the South South co-ordinator of the United Action for Democracy (UAD), who were at the meeting, told Daily Independent that the concerns and needs of the peoples of the Niger Delta included those of resource control, environmental security and livelihood protection.
They added that for the oil communities, the demand for resource control was their major strategy for development.
Dr. Festus Iyayi, who teaches business administration at the University of Benin (UNIBEN), said the Niger Delta crises arose from the character of Nigerian capitalist economy.
Iyayi warned that a repossession of the oil resources by the communities within a capitalist economy would, at best, leave the problem of the Niger Delta unsolved.
He contended that unless the question of who controls resources is answered in favour of the subordinated social group rather than the rich and ruling elite in the Niger Delta, "underdevelopment will increase rather than decrease in the area".
The don agreed, however, that the resource control argument as a basis for the development of the oil communities had a great deal of merit.
Copyright© 2002. All Rights Reserved Independent Newspapers Limited
Block5, Plot 7D, Wempco Road, Ogba, P.M.B. 21777, Ikeja, Lagos State, Nigeria.
www.dailyindependentng.com
http://www.earthrights.net/nigeria/news/resourcecontrol.html