Last Saturday’s reading of The Riddle of the Oil Thief authored by King Bubaraye Dakolo, the Ibenanaowei of Ekpetiama Kingdom in Bayelsa State, was both timely and topical. Nigerian authorities have been very troubled of recent about the dwindling returns from the production of crude oil in the Niger Delta and have attributed the downturn to the activities of crude oil thieves in the region. One version said more than 300,000 barrels of the product are stolen everyday and shipped out of the country.
Coming at a time when Nigeria should be making fortunes out of crude oil sales because of the war in Ukraine, it is understandable why the authorities are desperate to stop the purported theft of the product. Curiously, fingers are pointing to the creeks of the Niger Delta for the culprits, supposedly, the poor operators of artisanal refineries, locally known as Kpofire.
But King Dakolo, who is also the chairman of Bayelsa State Council of Chiefs, debunks all that in his book, The Riddle of the Oil Thief. Arched like a judge reading a judgment on the podium of Alliance Français, Port Harcourt, the monarch took his time to read portions of the book to show why the poor people in the creeks of the Niger Delta that had been labelled oil thieves were actually the victims of the actual oil thieves who are tucked away in their comfortable paradises in Abuja, Lagos, Dubai, London, Paris and New York.
He said out of the about $3 trillion worth of oil that had been produced and sold from the Niger Delta, $1trillion was stolen outright, positing that had the stolen oil money been utilised properly, the about 90 million poor Nigerians would not be there. “If you don’t have extremely poor people you won’t find anyone that will go and blow themselves up,” the king said.
“Most of those they call oil thieves here in the creeks are actually the victims of the oil thieves. How many of you would have a good job and want to go and bust a pipe? It is when you are so useless and hopeless that you will take that kind of risk to your life,” King Dakolo said.
He pointed out that the real oil thieves and the beneficiaries of oil theft are the same people behind the fraudulent importation of refined petrol. “They are the actual oil thieves. They don’t have to come to the Niger Delta. Those found breaking pipelines are actually victims,” he said, as he explained that distinguishing who the real oil thieves are from the victims was what informed the title of the book.
“An oil thief will not sleep in any of the mosquito infested and polluted environments overnight. If anyone sleeps in the creeks and has no one guarding him, he cannot be an oil thief. He is a victim,” King Dakolo said. “Shouldn’t an oil thief own a yacht, a private jet and own property in Dubai, London and New York?”
He dismissed the notion that the people of the region were militant and aggressive. “If we are aggressive then nobody would have taken our crude oil for 70 years,” he said.
The reading session, which was anchored by Prof. Helen Okujagu and Prof. Priye Iyalla-Amadi both of Ignatius Ajuru University of Education, Port Harcourt, was organised by Nigerian Literary Society in collaboration with the Reading Association of Nigeria and English Language Teachers’ Association of Nigeria. It had prominent professors, writers, academics, journalists in attendance.
Describing the book as a Faction (combination of facts and fiction), King Dakolo, said writing the book was a huge challenge because, “it is the boldest exposé of the oil industry; and coming out with it you must be very careful.”
He said 70 years of oil exploitation in the Niger Delta has degraded not just the environment but also the people that inhabit the region. “They pollute and make money and end up not clearing the mess at all. Cases of cancer in Bayelsa State from the teaching hospital are now higher than other cases though there is no data linking it with the oil industry,” he said. He said until all the spilled oil is removed, the risks of disease from oil pollution will still be around.”
Apart from the issues of the damage to the environment and disease, the author lists social dislocation and abuse of women and young people as consequences of the production of oil in the Niger Delta.
“Seventy years of oil and gas, 70 years of pollution, 70 years of stealing what belongs to you has made you so hopeless that you could pollute yourself and die in it.
“What you see as Kpofire (crude artisanal refining) is 70 years of deliberate pollution of the people and they want to kill themselves without counting the costs. That’s the consequence of the situation. It will be folly for a right thinking person to regard these people as oil thieves,” he said.
He however said the situation is not entirely hopeless pointing out that those who dehumanised the people of the region and destroyed their environment can also reverse it by giving the people back their humanity and environment.
“The way forward is to tackle the man that makes us feel stupid. In the 70s – 90s, nobody did it (Kpofire) because the economy was good. The way forward is to improve the economy and Kpofire stops instantly,” he said. He also said raised consciousness among the people of the Niger Delta and the resort to the use of alternative energy sources will also help the situation.
The Riddle of the Oil Thief is not all about oil, anger, theft and oppression. King Dakolo also took steps to look at the beauty of the Niger Delta environment, the flowers and fauna. “This beauty, this paradise. This is a place to be; the place for human habitation,” read from a portion in chapter 29 of the book.
The reading also featured exciting contributions and questions from the audience. Prof. Priye Iyalla-Amadi, commended the author as a brave man who was not frightened out of mentioning the names of some of the people indicted for their roles in the Niger Delta debacle.
Prof. Ibiere Ken-Maduako, the chairperson of Reading Association of Nigeria described The Riddle of the Oil Thief as an unusual book, an insider’s rendition of the issues of the Niger Delta.
Dr. Joel Kerebo, who performed a “literary autopsy of the book, said the book will be useful for people who are doing a study of the entire Niger Delta because it’s full of the statistics of the region.
In her contribution, Ibinye Agbadugba of the English Department of the Federal College of Education, Omoku, said the people of the Niger Delta are very simple but the politics of oil is splitting them apart.
Mrs. Ngozi Akalonu, a retired comptroller of Immigration, also made contributions during the session.
