Dangerous Privatization Of Niger Delta Communities By The Violent

The past three decades have seen regular and intermittent events of violence across many communities of the Niger Delta especially those that are oil bearing. While some communities have managed to pick up the broken, often still blood stained pieces of their lives and moved past the violence to enjoy some semblance of peace, some other communities have remain broken, divided and with a thin skin of normalcy covering scars and festering wounds that have refused to heal. These scars and the deep wounds they cover, blight these communities and present a scary visage of the Niger Delta in the 21st century.
Across the communities of many Local Government Areas today, are spaces of fear where community persons walk on eggshells so to speak. As bonafide community persons, they are entitled to walk free, enjoy the wealth that lie in their rivers and waterways. Yet, they enjoy no real benefit from these resources. Some have actually been compelled to move out of these communities to places of refuge in the state capitals of principally Port Harcourt, Warri and Yenagoa, as well as other theatres of oil fuelled violence in the Niger Delta. One example is Obelle in Emohua Local Government in Rivers State. Obele, an oil rich, once upon a time agrarian community lies desolate in over three months as most community persons have fled. Several houses were also burnt down in attacks and counter attacks by gun wielding gangs that were once driven out of these communities due to incessant acts of killing of community persons by gangs of violent cultists. Perhaps tired of living in exile in other communities where they enjoy protection from prosecution as these communities are controlled by the heads of notable cultists in the state. Many sons and daughters resident in the state capital and others, have been forced to in the past weeks and months, to make hurried arrangements to remove aging often ailing parents to safety in other communities.
At the root of the persistence and festering of this state of siege, is the link between these controllers of violent spaces and the role they play as violent arms of the major political parties and powerful, politicians. Like Rivers State, Delta and Bayelsa State have their fair share of this ugliness.
One other source of this unsavoury troubling situation of communal life, is the reality that on the one hand there is the semblance of diminishing visibility of the oil companies who while ostensibly moving away from their onshore assets, are interestingly still active behind the scene, pulling puppet strings of violence giving muscle to their accomplices who in some communities determine who gets any benefits in the communities. In recent years, some of these stooges of the oil companies have become so powerful that they determine who accesses political office and other benefits in the oil rich communities. Some of these accomplices include the men of violence who some oil company community staff empower as their contractors, including those involved in environmental clean up. Many of these characters have become so rich that they have increasingly moved to seek and take over political positions themselves as well as determine who gets into office especially in the local government administration.
All of these baleful realities offer some pointer to why the Niger Delta has remained backward violent and its people poor. Its impact can be seen in the non prominence given to discussions of pressing issues of community development even in a pre-election year, both at the subnational and national levels. An imperative therefore exists for civil society groups, respected opinion leaders, professional bodies and media in the Niger Delta to rise up to the challenge of putting back the issues of education, health, peace, women, youth empowerment, persons with disability and other marginalised segments and real development back on the front burner of discourse. Indeed, only people of the region, who suffer the impact of pollution and violence instigated by violent gangs , their patrons in the oil industry who do not wish to be held accountable for the violence and rupture in the communities, can steer the conversation to the issues that place them at the centre of important state wide and national discourse.