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Niger delta governor seeks equity share in Nigeria's oil blocks
By Joel Olatunde Agoi
AFP
UYO, Nigeria
Petroleumworld.com 04 11 06Governor Victor Attah of Nigeria's oil-rich southern state of Akwa Ibom Monday canvassed equity participation by local communities in the country's lucrative oil blocks as a recipe for peace in the volatile Niger Delta region.
Nigeria is Africas largest oil producer and OPECs sixth biggest oil exporter, accounting for some 2.6 million barrels per day, the bulk of which comes from the region, where multinationals have their operational bases.
Nigeria derives more than 95 percent of its foreign exchange earnings from oil.
Armed militants have this year killed at least 24 members of the security forces, kidnapped and released 13 foreign oil workers and blown up several pipelines, forcing firms to cut Nigeria's 2.6 million barrel-per-day exports by more than a fifth.
The state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) holds 60 percent equity participation in the multi-billion-dollar oil sector while the oil majors like Anglo-Dutch Shell, American ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, Italian Agip and French Total take 40 percent.
"It will make greater understanding of the whole oil thing if for instance today the NNPC agrees that it does not have to continue to maintain 60-40 percent relationship between it and the oil majors," Attah told a group of foreign journalists in the state capital.
"I ask what will be wrong in a 40-20-40 situation where the NNPC will hold 40, the states 20 and the oil majors 40. What will be wrong in that?" he said.
"There will be even more eyes overseeing this thing (oil). There will be greater local involvement. People will now begin to feel that this resources belong to us and we must protect it," he said.
"They must protect what belongs to them and so on. I think even the vandalisation and hostage-takings will cease. Not just because more people will be employed and involved but they will know it is their own.
"Right now, they don't see this thing belonging to them and so they indulge in destruction, violence and attacks," he added.
Attah said current agitation for an increase in the percentage of revenue for the oil states was not enough to douse the violence in the region.
"My conviction is clear that...the involvement aspect (of stakeholders) is very critical to peace," he said.
The governor commended President Olusegun Obasanjo for convening a meeting to end the violent unrest in the Niger Delta.
Obasanjo met with political, community and opinion leaders from the region in Abuja last week.
"The situation in the Niger Delta has been a situation that has been calling for attention since our independence," the president said, promising to chair a committee to consider development projects designed to improve the lives of the delta's 22 million mostly poor residents.
The meeting is scheduled for April 18.
The delta is a 70,000 square kilometre (28,000 square mile) swathe of swamp and forest on Nigeria's southern coast and is home to several restive minority groups and to Africa's biggest oil industry.
Nigeria earns almost 30 billion dollars per year from oil wells dotting the region's mangrove swamps, but the inhabitants live in poverty in polluted fishing communities and overcrowded cities.
Conflict experts estimate that more than 1,000 people a year are killed in violent unrest, and in recent months attacks by ethnic Ijaw separatists have forced oil majors to cut exports by 535,000 barrels per day.
AFP 04 10 06 1552 GMTCopyright © 1994-2006 Agence France-Presse. All Rights Reserved.
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