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Meeting with President Tinubu: What Ogonis want – Legborsi Piagbara

• Why previous presidential negotiations failed

By Obiabin Onukwugha

As reactions continue to trail the recent meeting between Nigeria’s President, Bola Tinubu and Ogoni Leaders, at the State House, Abuja, stakeholders have insisted that the Ogoni crisis that led to the shutting down of the oil wells must be addressed before production can recommence.

Ogoni hosts no fewer than 33 oil wells that contributed about 60% of oil revenue to Nigeria before it was shut down as a result of the environmental crisis.

This insidtence was made by former President of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People, MOSOP, Legborsi Piagbara, during an interview.

Piagbara, who spoke with NatureNews, clarified that there have been issues of environmental crisis, development and rights of the people, which the Ogonis have demanded in its Ogoni Bill of Rights.

Piagbara, who was a pioneering member of the Governing Council of the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project, HYPREP, mentioned that previous attempts to re-enter Ogoni for oil production have failed because such moves failed to address the root-cause of the crisis in the first place.

Piagbara said: “The approach has always been the biggest challenge, the approach of focusing on oil resumption. If you look at this whole thing, it started in the early ’90s.

Piagbara reviewed previous meetings in the process of the Ogoni crisis resolution:

“Just as you mentioned, there have been series of high level meetings. We had a first high level meeting then with Aliu Mohammed in 1993, and then in 1994 the Don Etiebet committee led a ministerial team to Ogoni and after then nothing happened,” he recalled.

“In 2001, the Oputa Panel also engaged in this process and of course after 2001 we had the Coker-led process. And just like you mentioned, Obasanjo came here couple of times and after then we started having all these other visits.

“I think the challenge has always been putting the issue of oil resumption as a basis for the negotiation or talks. And that is in terms of looking at the entirety of what you may call the Ogoni question or the Ogoni crisis. And I think that part of that situation comes from the way the media has presented this whole issue.

“I had invitation to come to Abuja and the invitation was all about meeting with the president and I think in fairness to him, in his presentation he had only talked about addressing the issue of injustice, addressing the issue of development and of course, peace and regulation in Ogoni, which for me is the centrepiece of the engagement.

“But when the media went out, the report is, Ogoni leaders are meeting with the president for oil resumption, which for me is the wrong way of communicating the message and that is what is putting what is seen as a push back to this whole engagement.

“Definitely, of course the struggle was launched on the basis of government responding to engage with the community, but every point that engagement is fashioned, is always tilting towards achieving one objective, which is putting the issue of oil resumption as the main issue.

“Meanwhile, there are justice issues, these are development issues, there are big issues that need to be put into all the package.

“I can remind you, what led the Coker process to fail, was also this issue of over emphasis of oil resumption. MOSOP as a group had demanded that before talking about cleanup we need to do an environmental assessment.

“As part of our submission, we submitted what has been the environmental challenge in Ogoni and then we raised issues about the political challenge and of course, economical challenge.

“We asked Coker to invite the different parties because these issues were going to be handled by different parties. The federal government needs to be brought to the table. Coker did not at any point brought the federal government to the table and that was why that effort failed in trying to redeem this whole issue.”

Piagbara, also the Chairman, United Nations Voluntary Funds and Executive Director, African Indigenous Foundation for Energy and Sustainable Development, applauded Tinubu’s stance on addressing the Ogoni question.

He also mentioned that Shell and the Federal Government was yet to pay compensation to the Ogoni as recommended by the United Nations Delegation.

He said: “I welcome this present initiative with strong courteous optimism because in his statement, the president made it clear that he is looking at addressing the issue of injustice, addressing the issue of development, addressing the issue of peace and I think that should be our focus before even taking about oil resumption.

“Of course, you cannot move into Ogoni and start drilling oil looking at the fact that you are talking about community where over 2,000 souls were lost in the course of this repression where over 14 communities were sacked and today people have not returned back to those communities. These are issues that need to be put on the table.

“And beyond that, the entire issue of managing security in the present day reality; how do we put all these together in terms of this discussion. And I think that these are part of what we need to put on the table. I think the message is, the president has indicated interest to address the Ogoni question or what you may call the Ogoni crisis.

“And within the context of that discussion of course there will be issues raised from the government side, there will be issues raised from the community side and then we will come to some middle point.

“But to just put the whole thing about oil resumption in front will of course make people to push back on the whole issue.

“So, I think that the messaging from the government side have not been quite good and for me, what has even put us in the process is because we hear about justice, because there has been injustice around the Ogoni question, there has been issue of development challenge around the Ogoni question and of course, how do we return the community back to peace.

“No compensation was paid to Ogoni. What happened was that a community in Ogoni, the Bodo community took Shell to court in London and there was out-of-court settlement, which of course settled the payment. The payment was just to Bodo community and not to the entire Ogoni.

“Now, if you recall you will remember that in the heart of the Ogoni crisis, United Nations Secretary General then, Boutrous Ghali and followed by Kofi Anan set up what they called UN fact-finding team that came to Nigeria and they visited Ogoni and also submitted a report.

“Part of that report recommendation was that independent agency should be set up to address the economic condition of the Ogoni people and other minorities of the Niger Delta.

“That report also recommended that compensation should be paid to the families who lost lives in course of this whole crisis.

“If you can recall, during our preparation for the Oputa Panel in 2000, the panel received over 10,000 petitions. Only Ogoni submitted over 8,000 petitions which gave a graphic illustration of the level of human rights abuses, of killings that took place in Ogoniland.

“So, in terms of discussion, how do you look at this whole thing? How do you address the question of compensation to the whole Ogoni community members who lost lives in the course of this crisis?

“How do you deal with the situation of lack of infrastructure? Because in the best practice in the world today, i have said it before, discussion about development is no longer about government/company relationship. Today development discourse has shifted to government/community and company relationship.

“So, in that discussion, it now becomes, what is government going to get out of this, what is the company going to get out of this, and what is the community going to get out of this. And that is one of the things we need to look at. You are talking about oil exploration to start, what percentage of that is going to go back to the community.

“The community cannot just take the pollution and then you government take royalty and you company take the profit. It is not obtainable anywhere. And that are some of the things we are challenging. If you want to do oil exploration no problem, but what are you giving to the community.

“Of course, the Ogoni Bill of Rights talks of fair proportion of the Ogoni economic resources for Ogoni development. Even if it is one percent, two percent, three percent, from the oil exploration, we can manage it.”

He stated that the Petroleum Industry Act, PIA, has its own challenge because host communities were not part of the enactment process.

On the insistence that the oil resources belonged to the federal government and by extension, the Nigerian people, the former MOSOP President questioned the rational behind the presidential mining initiative that allow people to mine gold and lithium, questioning why it can’t apply to the Niger Delta region.

He added that “We cannot move against what is happening internationally and today we have a United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Foundation Peoples which quite recognise the rights of communities to their resources and Nigeria is part of the international community and they cannot at any point say they will not respect what the international community has said.

“United Nations Declaration on Indigenous People which was passed in 2007 clearly puts resources in the hands of Communities. It said resources, the land, territory, belong to them.

“So I think we should start moving away from the state-centric management of resources that we inherited from the British and start defining how we run our communities.

“Because these were communities that were well established before the intervention of British colonialism.

“So you can’t say at this point that I have something in my backyard, that it belongs to everybody. Yes, in as much as we believe in this country just as the Ogoni people said in the Ogoni Bill of Rights, we are not saying we are not part of Nigeria, we are saying give a fair proportion of Ogoni resources for Ogoni development.

“That is what is stated in the Ogoni Bill of Rights. We are not saying give us all, we are saying give us a part for us to develop ourselves.

“Because there was a time this country depended in groundnut, people in the West were doing cocoa, in the North they were doing groundnut, in the East they were doing palm oil and they used that to run their economy, they used that to give scholarships, they used that to build the cocoa house, Liberty Stadium, one of the first television stations in the whole of Africa. Those were resources from cocoa.

“Why do we have a presidential initiative on gold mining, that Zamfara can do gold mining and then I cannot do oil mining in the Niger Delta. That is purely injustice. Today you launch lithium mining in Nasarawa State. Niger is waking up to it, Kaduna is already talking about it which is one of the sources for renewable energy.

“All the states doing lithium mining are already negotiating with different companies because is a mineral. Why can’t I do so in Ogoni? Why can’t I do so in Rivers State? So this whole thing is based on injustice that must be challenged.

“There is no reason why we should have dual laws. A law that deals with solid minerals is different from law that deals with oil minerals. Why must it be so? Why can’t we have a harmonious law on that of mineral exploitation in this country.

“People are busy mining gold in Zamfara, mining in other parts of the country, yet I cannot mine here. So what I have belongs to the nation and what others have belong to them, noo, it cannot work.”

Meanwhile, Environmental Defenders Network (EDEN) has joined in calling on the federal government and all relevant agencies to address critical concerns before any resumption of oil operations in Ogoniland.

Executive Director of EDEN, Chima Williams, while reacting to the presidential meeting, pointed out that Ogoni communities have suffered environmental degradation, livelihood losses, and violations of their fundamental rights for decades.

He stated that the Federal Government must engage the Ogoni people in meaningful dialogue to determine clear entry points and expectations for all stakeholders.

Williams also demanded for mutual expectations, involving commitments from the government, investing oil companies, and the Ogoni people themselves, adding that a detailed framework of operational guidelines, standards, and environmental protections must be developed and agreed upon by the Ogoni people, environmental experts, and relevant stakeholders.

He further charged the Federal Government to provide a clear, transparent process for holding oil companies accountable for environmental damages and community violations.

“Investing oil companies must provide an environmental bond—funds set aside in advance to address any potential mishaps or operational damages, regardless of the cause.

“The funds must be accessible to regulatory bodies to ensure prompt remediation and compensation without delays. Local content laws must mandate that Ogoni professionals are given priority for all technical and non-technical roles in the oil operations.

“Agreements must ensure the protection of livelihoods for those relying on the land for survival, with clear provisions for compensation and sustainable alternatives,” he stated.

It could be recalled that former President Muhammadu Buhari made a similar effort in 2022. Also, former President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2006 visited Ogoni land with the same appeal, but Ogoni elders, leaders and different interest groups are yet to come to clears terms on the resumption of oil production in the area.

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