It is almost impossible to imagine, as we sit in a
well-lit, fully functioning gas station on Main Street, USA, that
a community blessed with oil riches under its soil could look as
impoverished as Yenagoa in the Nigerian state of Bayelsa.
Yenagoa is the site of one of Nigeria's first oil
wells, built in pre-independence 1956. Yet, as in many communities
in Nigeria's oil rich Delta region, most people of Yenagoa live
in mud huts. Some reside only a few feet away from the oil wells.
But they lack electricity and indoor toilets. They have no hospitals,
no running water, and no schools. And there is unemployment too.
Oil companies like Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Chevron, and Exxon Mobil
bring in foreign workers for even the most menial jobs.
I recently took a trip to Yenagoa as part of a tour
of three African countries—Nigeria, Chad, and Liberia—that may well
fuel future U.S. energy needs. Historically, the United States has
gotten two-thirds of its oil from other countries. Most U.S. oil
imports come from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Mexico, and Canada. Increasingly,
as the United States, China, and other nations expand their thirst
for oil, and instability deepens in the Middle East, Sub-Saharan
Africa is becoming a more attractive source for crude. The U.S.
National Intelligence Council estimates that Africa could supply
25% of U.S. oil by 2015.
The three countries I visited could well play a role
in meeting that goal. Each is at different stages of oil production.
In Nigeria, oil exploration dates back to 1956. In Chad, extraction
started just three years ago. In Liberia, where I spent much of
my childhood, the potential of oil off its expansive coastline holds
hope for the future. In each of these countries, a complex web of
geo-political actors, from oil company executives and government
officials to military agents, makes decisions that impact the lives
in the communities that produce the oil that flows straight to consumers
in the United States.
Nigerian Injustice
The residents of Yenagoa lack jobs and basic social
services. What they do have in abundance is environmental damage
from decades of oil spills, compounded by the constant burning of
gas flares necessary to extract the crude. Farmland is rendered
useless while rivers and waterways, once well-populated with marine
life, are now barren. One local chief explained that he received
from Shell Oil 150 Naira ($1.15) for each acre of land used by the
company. I was astonished when he went on to say, “150 Naira, once
every four years.” With oil prices at historic highs, how could
the compensation to communities, long suffering the health impacts
of oil spills and gas flares, be such a pittance?
Military and security personnel blanket the area around
Yenagoa to protect oil interests. The communities are under siege.
In Odi, a community adjacent to a well built in1958, villagers are
demanding basic services like clean running water,
electricity, and schools. The response from security agents has
been severe. Our delegation watched in horror as one young man after
another came forward to show fresh wounds from 5 days earlier. They
told us that uniformed military men had grabbed 15 youths as they
walked home from an adjacent village in the middle of the afternoon.
The young men were beaten, tortured, and imprisoned, as a warning
to others in the village. For almost a week, the youths languished
in a prison miles away. Their family members were forced to walk
for a day and a half to see them or bring them food in that decrepit
prison. Their crime? Clamoring for basic rights.
As oil companies celebrate record profits and the
price of oil hovers close to $65 per barrel, African communities
ostensibly blessed with the curse of oil languish in squalor. In
fact, with no useable farmland or waterways, many in Nigeria say
that they are worse off than their grandparents were before the
discovery of oil.
Hope in Chad?
Recognizing the plight of their neighbors in Nigeria,
communities in Chad's oil producing areas worked hard, even before
the onset of oil production in 2003, to minimize environmental damage
and maximize the benefits to communities from which the oil flows.
The 650-mile Chad-Cameroon pipeline (Africa's biggest investment
project) links landlocked Chad to world export markets through Cameroon's
port city of Douala. It was funded through loans and other support
from the World Bank. Heroic measures initiated by activist, civil
society, human rights, and religious community leaders led to a
forward-looking revenue management law to manage the flow of oil
revenues in a transparent way, ensuring resources for future generations.
However, the Chadian government has subverted its
own revenue management law. It has diverted spending away from the
original priorities of agriculture, health, and education and toward
“security.” As a result, money that only now is beginning to flow
from oil production is spent on weapons and other military equipment,
instead of poverty reduction and the interests of future generations.
The oil wells in Chad are newer, so its oil-producing
areas haven't yet experienced the damage caused by decades of oil
spills. However, gas flaring, with its related health and environmental
damage, is an integral part of the production cycle. When the wind
blows, the smell of the burning gas blankets villages miles away.
In a community near Doba, with gas flares as a backdrop, villagers
told us about increased death and dying in the past few years from
respiratory ailments and contaminated water supplies.
Meanwhile, in Chad's fertile agricultural zone, mangoes,
cotton, gum Arabic, and cattle are abundant. Yet there is not one
factory transforming the raw produce into goods for domestic or
international markets.
In spite of these challenges, Chadians maintain that
their vigilance will minimize negative social and environmental
impacts of oil and secure poverty reduction. Chad could easily feed
itself and its neighbors if productive capacity were built in the
agricultural sector. Oil revenue directed at building an education
system, providing healthcare, as well as basic electricity, running
water, and roads, could go a long way toward improving the condition
of people's lives.
Throughout the country, in spite of a recent coup
attempt and the elections in April that the majority of people boycotted,
Chadians remain hopeful. From the capital city to the Southern oil
fields, everyone seemed confident that future generations will experience
a better life.
Liberian Alternatives
Liberia, the third country I visited, has recently
emerged from 25 years of war. People there are hopeful too, despite
the 85% unemployment rate and the complete lack of functioning schools
or healthcare.
Liberians hope that concessions now being granted
for off-shore oil exploration will lead down the road to a new source
of revenue. Liberia's National Oil Company negotiated two contracts
with the Nigeria-based Oranto Petroleum Limited and British-based
Broadway Consolidated PLC. With exploration already underway, few
in Liberia think that leaving the resource untouched is a viable
option.
The key question is, whether and how Liberia can escape
the oil curse that so clearly has hurt Nigeria, Angola, and other
countries in Africa's richly endowed Gulf of Guinea region.
One possibility is for countries like Liberia to consider
alternative models for oil development. What, for example, can Liberia
learn from Venezuela's example of 61% national control of oil revenue
and management? Or from Norway's use of oil revenue to diversify
the economy while advancing social services?
Like many Africans, I fear that oil companies look
to Africa for its resource wealth without seeing the people. Resource-rich
communities are dehumanized and the color line is ever present as
the greatest profits flow steadily to wealthy white men who already
control enormous wealth and power.
The price of oil has nearly tripled since President
George W. Bush took office in 2001, yet the majority of the people
who live in the countries from which the fuel flows still experience
grinding poverty. Viewed side by side, the $10 billion quarterly
profits of Exxon Mobil, Chevron, BP, or Shell and the $1.15 per
acre compensation paid (every four years) to some farmers in oil
producing zones show just how unfair the global oil industry has
become.
The next time you pull up to the pump, stop a moment
and remember that the thick black crude is extracted from the earth's
crust at great social, political, and environmental cost. Then do
whatever is in your power to demand dignity and proper compensation
for those whose land or sea may be cursed with the blessing of this
natural resource.
BC Editorial Board member Emira
Woods is co-director of Foreign
Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies. |