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Oil: Who is a
parasite in Nigeria?
Tribalism is one of the key reasons that
has led and continues to deter Nigeria away from real growth and
development. Tribalism is defined by the Oxford dictionary as
“behavior, attitude etc that are based on being loyal to a tribe or
other social groups.” In Nigeria, it manifests in the North South
dichotomy. It is from the perspective of the Hausa/Fulani, Yoruba,
Igbo that are the major tribes in the larger Nigeria. At state
levels, pockets of tribal sentiments and local dissentions also
manifest all over Nigeria. Even for the same tribe where some local
dialects are uncommon, cling or show affiliations. Religion whether
Islamic or Christian does not appear to remove these cleavages even
among the same adherents who may belong to different tribal groups.
The Hausa, the Yoruba, the Igbo clearly do have such. They group
together to corner certain benefits say I come from Katsina or Kano
or I prefer one from my locality. The Kano among the Hausa is the
most intense, although, many come from Nupe, Kanuri, Edo and Yoruba
origins but claim to be more Kano Hausa than the Hausas or Kanawa
than Kanawas.
The Ijebu in Yoruba and the Esu in Igbo are similar cleavages that
add to the confusion. When one adds the dynamics of the over 700
tribes in Nigeria, it is jungle. The biggest tribal manifestation in
Nigeria is the question of oil. The North/ South tribal divide is
being oiled by the so- called black gold which generates
petrodollars that Nigerians lack the knowledge, technology and
knowhow to fish out- on shore not to talk of the off- shore. Yet we
are bombarded by noise makers that there are some productive
Nigerians and there are parasites.
The fact remains that, if the oil companies desert Nigeria
completely, it will be difficult to see a Nigerian indigenous
technology completely independent of the Western expertise. So where
are the so-called productive southern Nigerians? Was the oil not
there hundreds of years before the arrival of the white man with
their fore fathers worshipping idols and lacking the capacity and
even the knowledge to dream of the existence of the oil that was
below “their lands.”
In fact Nigerians cannot even distribute the refined products
successfully to eliminate distress among their people. In all the
Northern and Southern states, the story is nearly all the same. The
oil proceeds are looted with little trickling down to the larger
majority or 90% of the people. The NNDC and the chunk of the federal
allocations that go to the oil producing states, if judiciously used
will have by now cooled tensions and empowered the locals sentiments
aside. But since reasoning is not the issue, but abuses and greed by
a cabal who will not improve the lives of their people if given the
whole Niger Delta wealth, we are in an unnecessary quagmire. tribal
champions have bad mouth, which they use to secure cheaply or
parasitically what they are not entitled to.
I believe this is the motivation. Even if it is given to them, they
do not share it among their people. But rather purchase hotels, real
estates, golf resorts abroad. That is the bane of the blackman and
especially the dirty Nigerian. He will use tribal platforms to
vilify others, while absolutely on his part has nothing to show. In
fact if one is looking for a parasite, these tribal champions are
the parasites.
In December 1977, I joined the NNPC and reported at the Warri
Refinery then under construction. We were lodged at the River Valley
Hotel. In the morning, it was common among the people working around
to hear them say; hey you Ishekiri man hey you Urhubo man. They see
themselves from tribal prisms. Suspicions and the inter-tribal
killings are common on flimsy reasons in these enclaves. With oil
one can imagine how it would be. All contrived to feather some
nests. They do not reason. They do not want to reason. They do not
want to see logic at all.
On the core issue of the piece that is who is the real parasite and
who is the productive Nigerian. That the southerners rant in the air
and their newspapers keep orchestrating. It would appear to be like
the power shift that the Yorubas took advantage of. And when one of
their own Obasanjo took over on a flatter of gold, he misused and
abused it in the extreme. The immoral acts in between in addition
contributed to the generation of the polity.
Tome, it is now the name of the game and the pattern that is being
replayed on account of who is a parasite and the productive. A
cattle calling pot black in oil exploration. Locational advantage of
oil or mineral resources anywhere like iron is not the basis for
productivity. If so, Japan will not have been where it is today.
Germany with iron ore, not as rich as that found in Nigeria has
developed its steel industry to the benefit of their people as
opposed to Nigeria. Hiding under tribal myopia does not work and it
will not work. Lets talk of something else.
Again according to the Oxford, the productive is the one doing or
achieving a lot. The parasite is the one that relies on or benefits
from other people and gives nothing back. Now, with regard to oil,
what is productive on the part of the southerner? Is crude oil
production like palm oil or cassava products that one can grow in
his farm land and then can give away free of charge? Is that the way
it is? If the southerners were that productive, why did they allow
simple palm oil production to die?
Indeed, oil is a natural commodity buried deep on the ground or deep
in the blue sea. There is no southerner or Niger Deltan that has the
wherewithal or capacity to explore it on a stand alone basis, in
history and probably in the next one hundred years in a country
where we cannot even produce nails. But only a proliferation of fake
parts bought from Asian countries. If it were so, where were the
Southerners when they allowed the Shell Petroleum to come and
exploit it? Before then, they were producing cassava and the value
was nothing to write home about. However, if one talks about the
environmental degradation now as result of oil spillage that is
logical and these issues must be addressed. It is however, an open
secret that some oil spillages are direct sabotages caused by some
vested interests. to cry foul The North produces food, livestock for
Nigeria. The beans, the maize, the rice, the yams, the meat that
Nigerians eat come from the sweat of the Northerners. The oil, the
shell, Mobil, Agip, produces does not come from the sweat of the
Southerners. In fact, the war that kept Nigeria one, that protected
the Niger Delta came from the blood of the Northerners and some
Yorubas.
Today, the hospitality, the landmass, apart from food and the
freedom to pursue business in the north cannot be over looked by the
southerners. Do they offer the northerners similar benefits? In
fact, one should ask where and which local governments in the south
can one find oil? In how many states down south can one find oil? In
more than 70 percent of the LGs down south there is no oil. So one
should then ask who gets the oil. What is the criterion for
allocating the ownership? Is it on local government basis? If it is
the local government, the question also arises as to which community
as owns it? This is evidenced by the clashes between the minority
tribes in the region afflicted by narrow mindedness and pettiness.
Who and where the benefits should accrue on even projects like Eleme
Petro-Chemicals and Port Harcourt refinery among others.
The talk about the parasites and the productive is one tribal
jingoism initiated and sustained by irrelevant, naive and greedy
people. If they are serious, let them convince the southerners to
migrate enmass to the south voluntarily, where there is oil. Those
without it, then migrate to there non- oil producing area, the
north. It is then we shall know who is productive and who the real
parasite is. Otherwise they should shut up and the northerners
should not be intimidated like the case of power shift. I believe,
when greedy people are allowed to share a booty, they will end up
inflicting permanent damage on themselves to the extent that they
all end up as the losers.
On a final note, what of the money from the groundnuts, cotton,
cocoa, hides and skins and tin that were used as seed capital to
finance the oil exploration by Nigeria that led to its discovery.
What of the scramble for Africa that Europeans and in particular the
British curved for its interests. As a Hausa man, it is not my wish
to have been in Nigeria. It is an unfortunate reality of history
that many nations find themselves. If the Niger Delta are honest
with themselves and not greedy today, they should have opposed the
British or defeated them so as to control their oil resources and
would have rejected any contributions from the north. It is silly
and dangerous to use tribal platforms to deceive ourselves that one
Nigerian is productive and the other is a parasite on account of
locational advantage of a resource . One is afraid that with the
quantum of oil money that the Niger Delta collects including the
off-shore which has no basis yet without development in their
religion it is not likely that even if they are left with all of it
and any good will come out of it.
FARI contribute this piece from .....
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