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Niger Delta Fund Initiative: Alamieyeseigha Blames Youth Restiveness On Oil Companies
http://allafrica.com/stories/200504080368.html
April 8, 2005
Vanguard (Lagos)By Olubusuyi Adenipekun
LagosGovernor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha of Bayelsa State has identified the activities of oil and gas companies in the Niger Delta as the major cause of youth restiveness in the region.
According to him, the exploration and production activities of oil and gas companies in the Niger Delta have contributed to its agricultural land encroachment and environmental degradation leading to youth restiveness.
Speaking as guest lecturer at the quarterly Governors' Forum of Ikeja Country Club, Alamieyeseigha said that some ten per cent of the Niger Delta's mangroves have been lost to deforestation due to the activities of big oil companies, adding that they have also opened up hitherto pristine forests to commercial loggers, with the result that mangrove and rain forest trees are being gradually wiped out.
Stating that his administration has no problems with the phenomenon of youth restiveness, Alamieyeseigha, also known as the Governor-General of the Ijaw nation, added that the oil-producing communities have known only poverty, misery and sorrow since 1956 when Shell struck the first oil well in Oloibiri.
Stressing further the social, political and economic basis of youth restiveness in the Niger Delta region, Alamieyeseigha said that oil spillage pollutes farmlands, fishing streams and ponds and the indiscriminate flaring of gas also poisons the air.
He lamented that the Niger Delta peoples do not receive a fair share of the oil proceeds realised from their land in spite of the hardship which they contend with.
His words: "the bulk of the oil proceeds is appropriated by the central government and the big oil companies. We are all aware that prior to the discovery of oil and gas, the principle of derivation was the major basis for revenue allocation. Even the beggarly 13 per cent accorded resource endowed areas of the country by the 1999 Constitution has not been faithfully implemented as the government at the centre contrived the onshore-offshore dichotomy to further impoverish our suffering people. Therefore, the limitation of the principle of derivation to 200 metres isobath remains unacceptable."
Other key causes of youth restiveness in the Niger Delta, according to Alamieyeseigha, include the neglect of the region by successive federal, state and local governments, the employment of the divide and conquer tactic by oil and gas companies in their host communities and the improved educational level of the youths who are now aware of their plight and the need to reverse it.
He further identifies factors such as compromise with oil companies by a few indigenes, the excessive use of force by armed and security agencies, the deliberate refusal of oil companies to honour their obligations to communities among others as the key causes of youth restiveness.
Explaining how Bayelsa State has remained the most peaceful state in the Niger Delta despite the harsh realities on ground, Alamieyeseigha said that his administration achieved this feat by developing a youth policy which has at its core the provision of employment, education and constructive engagement to youths.
http://www.earthrights.net/nigeria/news/restiveyouth.html