Fuelling Discord (2.4mb)
BAYELSA STATE BUDGET 2009 (1.4mb)
This report looks to explain the remote and immediate causes of communal conflicts in oil bearing communities in the Niger Delta area. It examines the evolution of three communities in the region particularly impacted by oil – Ogoni, Rumuekpe, and Ikarama – and makes recommendations on issues of governance, transparency, and accountability aimed at a multitude of stakeholders.
After citing a recent increase in the incidence of communal conflicts in the petroleum-rich communities of the Niger Delta region, this report looks to the roots of these conflicts, and find that most often, they lie with techniques and processes of oil and gas exploitation, with the policies of governments and oil and gas companies, and even with the protest movements of communities “impacted by petroleum exploitation.”
It argues that it is not hard to pinpoint major catalysts for conflict in the Niger Delta, as so many of its residents have experienced impoverishment, the destruction of local sources of livelihood, and the pollution of their environment through oil spillages and endless gas flaring for decades, largely as a result of oil extraction. But the report also makes the more nuanced point that structural factors – such as a lack of land ownership and the absence of legitimate political representation in Niger Delta communities, in addition to the systemic neglect of communities by oil companies– cannot be overlooked, and that attention to these factors might well be the most effective way for governments, civil society actors, and companies to address oil-related communal violence in the Niger Delta region.
