It is an undeniable fact that Urhobo land and her people are blessed by nature. In resource endowments, Urhoboland ranks among the richest in Nigeria. In intelligence, creativity and resourcefulness, the average Urhobo individual can compete favourably with his counterpart from elsewhere. Despite this fact, the contradiction remains that Urhoboland is about the poorest, least developed and backward in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria!
Despite the continuous drilling of oil and gas, and the discovery of new wells, there is the irreconcilable situation of worsening underdevelopment and biting poverty among the people.
The present case with the Eyara Community of Ughievwen where I come from has helped me in devising an explanation to this hydra-headed oxymoron, which is that the oil companies sort out some gullible greedy saboteurs within the communities, lavish them with cash the size of which they had never seen, then promise them further percentages of what was suppose to belong to the community as part of the CSR, and then mandate them to go back to their people to keep them quiet, while aiding them with armed force to shut down (indeed shoot down) dissenters. The oil company then have a free reign to operate the oil wells and rake in millions of dollars undisturbed.
This formula has been operational all across Urhoboland. While the oil-bearing communities retard in development, the few saboteurs enrich themselves, laundering billions, building mansions out of the dirty business of sabotage they have entered with the oil companies. The story is told of a Dutch, a high officer in Shell, who visited Ogunu for the first time in those days and wondered whether this was the same Ogunu they hold in high reverence over there in Holland for its stake in the fortune of Shell and the Dutch economy itself. He had expected to see a city-state with high rise buildings, quality roads and massive infrastructure. What he saw were wretched looking people living in mud houses!
Whereas the representatives report to the headquarters that all is well and their people are in good state, they keep the largesse that is meant for the people to themselves and their collaborators.
To perpetuate this criminal procedure, the companies and these evil representatives make themselves community kingmakers who must influence and decide who become the leaders of the communities, the qualification being willingness to cooperate with the existing status quo of sabotage and betrayal.
The best example of this practice is the Utorogu Gas Plant hosted by the three communities of Iwhrekan, Otughievwen and Otorudu. The Plant is the largest in sub Saharan Africa and a strategic component of Nigeria's energy source.
With transparency and due diligence, the whole of Ughievwen 32 communities and Udu 33 communities should feel enormous positive impact of that company. Even more so, the three immediate communities should be mini cosmopolitan cities of their own. But what you find there are mud houses, inhabited by helpless voiceless subalterns, stricken by poverty, through the devises, not of God or nature, but evil men who for their belly have sold out the rights of their people. These callous saboteurs build mansions sandwiched between these rickety houses, so that they are close enough to the Gas Plant and to the largesse that flow from it daily.
It is these saboteurs in collusion with the oil companies that are the real problems of Urhoboland. That they live on the blood and fortune of their people is not only a dent to their alleged integrity, but a sure visa to hell whenever the clock ticks for them to depart this earthly plane with their evil legacies.
Eyara Community is just about 3km away from the Utorogu Gas Plant. An oil well which had gone dry for about three decades has suddenly become viable. A company which deliberately left itself nameless, without a signpost or any clue whatsoever, got the Eyara Community Chairman and some easy-to-deceive and greedy layabouts, and before you could say Jack Robinson, equipment had been moved to site and drilling commenced, with full armed military personnel stationed at the gate to intimidate any justice seeker. Not even a simple courtesy of calling for a meeting with community stakeholders at the Townhall for formal introduction of intent as visitors, and engagement, followed by negotiations, were deemed fit. All relations were done through the gullible community chairman, one Mr Etawarien Gbogbo, who, it is doubtful, can produce proof of a secondary school certificate.
Mr Gbogbo is certainly not acting alone. He is in collusion with few members of his cult, a gang of community saboteurs who can now afford permanent rooms in air-conditioned hotels paid for by the company.
Mr Gbogbo acting as spokesperson for the company called a meeting in which he announced the sum of 15 Million Naira as community fund to the community. No document was given to support this statement. He then distributed this amount both to himself, his Exco and the community hierarchy according to a formula designed and arranged by himself.
The company through the same Etawarien Gbogbo, in a way to placate the exploited citizens, managed to engage only about 20 people from the community as "employees" - but only as ghost workers! They are prohibited from going beyond certain bounds within the yard, apparently so they do not gain hands-on-experience and acquire skills required to operate the equipment. They are only to report to the food vendor to sign in their names for breakfast and lunch, which guarantees them a salary of three hundred thousand naira per month, and two meals daily. That list will then be submitted to the headquarters as proof that they have employed members of the community as staff who come to "work" daily.
The gullible youths who see the three hundred thousand naira pay as windfall now no longer consider the loss of skill incurred in remaining as ghost workers. They also do not care that their Yoruba and Igbo counterparts who are engaged as Staff earn over four times that pay along with privileges attached and experience gained.
Here is another shocker! The company has no direct dealings with these community ghost workers - whose status, as they see them, are not better than rabbits and goats. And so the company pays their salaries to the same Community Chairman Etawarien Gbogbo, who would then cut out his own chunk before transferring to individual accounts.
These issues are not only traumatizing, they are also nauseating. And to imagine that among Mr Gbogbo's collaborators is one who poses around as a human rights activist makes the saga even more disgusting.
It is also truly disappointing that the Ughievwen monarchy, the President General as well as other Ughievwen respected leaders have been ball-watching while this trend is perpetuated. I think institutions all over the world are put in place to check excesses and wrongs such as these. Otherwise, they lose their relevance and propriety.
Definitely, all legal processes will be explored to check this menace for the right thing to be done. The helpless old woman in Eyara Community, the elder who can no longer go to the farm, the indigent student whose dream is to be educated, the untarred road in the community etc., all these must feel the positive blessings of the possession of oil in their land. The oil is not meant to masturbate the account of some riffraffs who would enrich themselves and their cronies at the expense of the collective good.
_*Emmanuel Ogheneochuko Arodovwe is from Eyara Community in Ughievwen, Delta State.*_
emmaochuko@gmail.com
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