Ben Owen Asuk
The Ogoni Youths Development Initiative (OYDI)* has notified the Federal Government of its intention to stage a statewide protest against plans to resume oil operations in Ogoniland without the creation of *Bori State*.
In a statement signed by its Global President, *Comrade Imeabe Saviour Oscar*, and made available to newsmen on Tuesday, OYDI said the protest would involve a total shutdown of any attempt to restart oil activities in the area.
The group said It is not opposed to economic progress or oil exploration, but insisted that justice must come first.
_“The ground of Ogoniland is soaked in the blood of our heroes who died fighting for justice, equity, and the survival of our people. We cannot, and will not, allow their ultimate sacrifices to be in vain,”_ the statement read.
According to OYDI, the only outcome that can commensurate with the lives lost and the environmental devastation suffered in Ogoniland is the immediate creation of Bori State.
The group accused the Federal Government of insincerity and lack of transparency in the ongoing oil resumption process. It cited the laying of pipelines across Ogoniland while stakeholders’ dialogue is still ongoing as evidence of bad faith.
_“This act proves that the current process is designed to exploit us once again and cause more chaos in our midst rather than ameliorate the years of suffering,”_ OYDI stated.
OYDI listed two key demands including:
The Immediate disbandment of the Ogoni Dialogue Committee (ODC) saying that it has lost confidence in the committee due to lack of transparency and poor inclusion of youths.
Also demanding the full adherence to the Ogoni Bill of Rights: Beginning with political autonomy through the creation of Bori State.
The youths warned the Federal Government and all joint-venture partners to halt all clandestine moves to force oil operations back into Ogoniland without addressing their core demand.
_“In the coming days, OYDI will fully mobilize Ogoni youths across all kingdoms for massive, widespread protests. We will peacefully but firmly shut down any attempt to resume oil operations until Bori State is created and the fraudulent dialogue processes are dismantled,”_ the statement added.
It concluded: _“We have chosen the path of justice for our fallen heroes. Create Bori State, or leave our oil in the ground. That is our demand.”_
Copies of the notice were sent to the Senate President, National Security Adviser, NNPCL GCEO, Ministers of Petroleum and Gas, Rivers State Governor, Service Chiefs, Security Agencies, NLC, and other stakeholders. Beyond the debate over resumption of crude oil exploration lies a larger question: who should control, manage and benefit from the resources beneath Ogoni soil?
The debate over the proposed resumption of crude oil exploration in Ogoniland has continued to generate divergent opinions, passionate arguments and, understandably, deep emotions. But beneath the immediate controversy lies a much larger question—one that The Newswriter believes deserves serious and sustained national attention: what are the aspirations of the Ogoni people, and what political and economic framework can best translate those aspirations into sustainable development?
The Newswriter has continued to engage with the multiplicity of perspectives surrounding this important issue. The newspaper has, among others, reported the views of prominent Niger Delta voices, including Engr. Ebipamowei Wodu, former Secretary-General of the Ijaw National Congress, whose recent intervention has added another dimension to the growing conversation.
More recently, Professor Walter G. Ollor challenged stakeholders to confront three fundamental questions: What are the aspirations of the Ogoni people? How can those aspirations be achieved by and for the people of Ogoniland? And what resources are available to serve as inputs and assets for the transformational development of Ogoniland?
These are questions that deserve answers beyond the immediate argument over whether oil exploration should resume.
THE OGONI QUESTION MUST BE HEARD
The Newswriter believes that the aspirations of the Ogoni people cannot be adequately addressed without listening carefully to the intellectual, political, cultural and community voices that have historically articulated the Ogoni position.
The Ogoni Bill of Rights remains an important reference point in this regard. Whatever one’s position on contemporary oil exploration, the document represents a significant expression of Ogoni aspirations concerning political autonomy, environmental protection, economic justice and control over resources.
Organisations such as KAGOTE have also contributed to the continuing public conversation. Their interventions, alongside those of other Ogoni organisations, professionals, traditional institutions, activists and community leaders, demonstrate that the issue cannot responsibly be reduced to a simple choice between “oil exploration” and “no oil exploration.”
There is a deeper question of ownership, participation, environmental responsibility and equitable benefit.
The Newswriter therefore considers dialogue around these issues indispensable.
FROM EXPLORATION TO RESOURCE CONTROL
The newspaper’s position is that the broader question of resource control affecting the minority ethnic nationalities of the Niger Delta cannot be permanently avoided.
The region’s experience with petroleum has produced a profound contradiction. Communities in which petroleum resources are found have often borne the environmental and social consequences of extraction, while major decisions concerning ownership, licensing, production and revenue distribution have historically been made elsewhere.
This contradiction is particularly difficult to reconcile with the aspirations of communities seeking sustainable development.
The debate over Ogoniland should therefore not be allowed to become merely a contest between those who favour immediate resumption of oil production and those who oppose it. The more fundamental question is whether any future exploration regime can adequately address the legitimate aspirations of the people whose ancestral land contains the resources.
The people of Ogoniland possess considerable human capacity, intellectual resources and organisational experience. There is no inherent reason why they should be treated merely as beneficiaries, spectators or security personnel in an economic enterprise conducted on their ancestral territory.
THE QUESTION OF THE 13 PER CENT
Nigeria’s derivation principle currently provides mineral-producing states with 13 per cent of federally collected revenue derived from natural resources produced within their territories. The remaining revenues enter the federation’s distributable pool under the constitutional revenue-sharing framework.
The significance of this arrangement becomes clearer when viewed against Nigeria’s earlier regional experience.
Under the fiscal arrangements of the First Republic, regions retained a substantially larger proportion of revenues derived from resources within their territories, while contributing to the central government through specified taxes and contributions. The contrast between that historical arrangement and the contemporary federal system has remained an important part of the resource-control debate.
For the Niger Delta, therefore, the issue is not merely about percentages. It is about the fundamental relationship between resource ownership, environmental responsibility, political authority and economic benefit.
THE OIL-BLOCK QUESTION
Another dimension of the debate concerns the allocation of petroleum licences and oil blocks.
Over the years, the allocation of petroleum assets has generated persistent controversy, particularly over the extent to which indigenous communities and producing areas have benefited from ownership and participation in the petroleum economy.
The concern frequently expressed in the Niger Delta is straightforward: if communities provide the land and bear the environmental consequences, why should they remain peripheral to the ownership and management structures through which enormous wealth is generated from their resources?
This question cannot simply be dismissed as agitation.
It deserves an institutional answer.
Nigeria must examine whether its petroleum governance framework has adequately promoted indigenous participation, equitable economic opportunity and the long-term development of producing communities.
The emergence of enormously wealthy individuals and corporate interests from the petroleum economy, alongside persistent poverty and environmental degradation in many producing communities, has made the perceived imbalance even more difficult to ignore.
OGONI MUST LOOK BEYOND THE IMMEDIATE
The Newswriter does not believe that the future of Ogoniland should be determined exclusively by the immediate economic attractions of renewed oil production. Nor should the concerns of those who favour resumption of exploration simply be dismissed.
The central challenge is to develop a framework in which economic activity, environmental restoration, indigenous participation and community benefit are treated as interconnected objectives rather than competing interests.
If exploration resumes without addressing the underlying questions of ownership, environmental protection, community participation and equitable benefit, the country risks reproducing the very grievances that contributed to the historic crisis in Ogoniland.
Conversely, if the debate remains permanently frozen around opposition to oil extraction without developing practical economic alternatives and institutional mechanisms for sustainable development, the aspirations of the people may also remain unrealised.
THE NIGER DELTA’S LARGER STRUGGLE
The Ogoni question is ultimately part of a larger Niger Delta question.
Across the region, minority ethnic nationalities continue to demand greater participation in determining the economic destiny of their territories. The resource-control struggle is fundamentally about ensuring that communities are not reduced to custodians of resources from which others derive disproportionate economic and political advantage.
The Newswriter therefore believes that the Ogoni people must continue to articulate their aspirations clearly, peacefully and intelligently.
They must determine what development means to them, what role petroleum should play in that development, what environmental safeguards are indispensable, what degree of indigenous participation is required, and what institutional structure can ensure that the benefits of their resources remain substantially within their communities.
The ultimate objective should not merely be the return of oil production.
It should be the emergence of an empowered Ogoni society capable of determining its own development priorities and participating meaningfully in the management and utilisation of the resources beneath its ancestral soil.
A CALL FOR CONSTRUCTIVE ENGAGEMENT
Professor Ollor’s intervention is therefore timely because it moves the conversation beyond the immediate controversy and challenges stakeholders to ask the fundamental questions.
What are the aspirations of Ogoniland?
What resources are available to achieve them?
And what governance framework can transform those resources into lasting prosperity?
These questions deserve a broad, honest and intellectually rigorous conversation involving Ogoni communities, traditional institutions, professional bodies, civil society organisations, governments, petroleum-sector stakeholders and the wider Niger Delta.
The Newswriter believes that the answer cannot be another cycle of confrontation. Nor can it be a return to an arrangement in which the people remain spectators while others determine the value and destination of the resources beneath their feet.
The time has come to move the conversation from who gets to extract the oil to who determines the future of the land, the resources and the people.
For Ogoni, and indeed for the wider Niger Delta, that is the unfinished question of resource control.***
