Rivers State Governor, Sir Siminalayi Fubara has commended the report of the Socio- Economic Rights and Accountability Project(SERAP) on the Niger Delta region.
The governor made the commendation while speaking at an interractive session organised by SERAP for relevant high-profile stakeholders including senior executive members of ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), senior members of media including the Nigeria Guild of Editors (NGE), High Chiefs, community/religious leaders of the Niger-Delta region, members of the diplomatic community, and other critical stakeholders to discuss the findings of its recent report titled: ”We are all Vulnerable: How Lack of Transparency and Accountability is Fuelling Human Rights Violation in the Niger-Delta”, and to make suggestions on how to address the issues raised and documented in the report, and effectively implement its recommendations, at Sheraton hotel, Lagos.
Represented by the Commissioner for Finance, Hon, Barr. Isaac Kamalu, the governor said that the Rivers state government is appreciative of the contributions of SERAP in promoting accountability and transparency in Niger Delta region.
“I want to commend SERAP for finding time to look into this area and particularly thank ford foundation for supporting them in this course.
”SERAP did a good work to say let us focus and look at how corruption is undermining the very little effort government is making towards developing the Niger Delta”, he said.
He further said the state government is prepared at all times to embrace any collaboration that would help to address the social and economic hardships in the region.
”We thank SERAP for this wonderful report and we assure you that we will work with you and other Nigerians to ensure that we create a Niger Delta that both the people of the region and Nigerians will be proud of.
Furthermore, he charged SERAP to ensure that the report was properly circulated to the people.
He informed the gathering that Rivers State Government has set a road map to ensure that resources accruing to the state were utilised in a transparent way to the benefit of the citizens.
“The past eight years in Rivers state has been years of magnificent growth in infrastructure and virtually in all areas of public governance.
” We are continuing on that tradition. In fact, this first one hundred days we have over 50 projects that the governor will be commissioning and flagging off.
”So, for us we are delighted to be part of you. We welcome you and we are happy to realise that at least an effort is being made to address issues of Niger Delta. We are willing and ready to work with you”.
Earlier in his welcome address, the Deputy Director, SERAP, Kolawole Oluwadare said the aim of the event was to use the recommendations contained in the report to draw attention to specific issues and challenges facing Niger Delta communities, promote increased demand for transparency and accountability in the management of resources in the region, and encourage and advance citizens’ active participation in the fight against corruption, as well as promote improved access of Nigerians to public goods and services as a matter of human rights in the Niger Delta.
Presenting the 75 pages report, Dr. Bunmi Afinowi pointed out that it was carried out and launched in 2022.
She said, “the report looked at ways in which the government respond to social, economic and environmental injustices in the region as well as the level of transparency and accountability on the part of agencies of government and extractive industries in managing developmental projects in the host communities within the region. We were on ground in the Niger Delta to carry out the study.
“The research examined the economic activities conducted in Niger Delta; the socio-economic effects of these activities on the people of the region and how the government has responded and continue to respond to the socio-economic and environmental injustices as well as the remediation and reparation activities by oil and gas companies within the region and the level of transparency and accountability.
“Specifically, the research was conducted based on four questions which are to what extent have oil exploration activities affected the development of the Niger Delta region? What compensatory strategies have the government and oil and gas companies formulated to make up for the environmental degradation in the Niger Delta? What mechanisms are in place to track community development projects implemented by the government or the companies? What is the level of suitability, sustainability and viability of the various projects implemented in the region and what is the level of citizens’ engagement( participation and feed back system) with community projects?
“The research also identified the key players in the region and sector such as NNPC, NDDC, oil and gas companies, host communities, Civil Society organisations(CSOs) etc.
“From our research, speaking to the people in the Niger Delta, these were the challenges and things that we found: unemployment, absence or depletion of major infrastructure, lack of access to water and hygiene, abandoned projects, insufficient roads and transportation and lack of health care facilities.
“We drew our participants from across stakeholders, government agencies, CSOs, people working in the oil and gas companies and members of host communities. Participants age range were 18 – 25, 36 – 45, above 60.
” In our survey, the most frequent description of the Niger Delta was unbearable and negative. On the part of CSOs, 85 percent say the conditions in the region were negative while 15 percent held the views that communities have been positively impacted by the presence of the oil and gas companies. 66 percent of participants from government agencies and departments were of the view that the communities had been negatively impacted. However, most participants from the host communities lamented the absence of infrastructure within their communities and most facilities which they lamented about were schools, health care centre, safe running water and electricity.
“From the data available to us which we gathered, most of the community projects were carried out by the government while the oil and gas companies embarked on a considerable number of projects. However, despite all these efforts, 85 percent of participants held the views that the interventions did not sufficiently make up for the negative impact that have been experienced within these communities.
“Yes, there is an acknowledgement that there is work going on but the fact remains that the work is insufficient to close that gap between the degradation and the needs of the people.
” Specifically, on suitability of the projects, what came out majorly for us is that there is no needs assessment; there is no rubbing of minds with people or carrying out of a proper survey to find out what the people want and what most alleviate the challenges within the community.
“Participants also noted that only about half of the projects had been completed and were functioning optimally while others were at various stages of completion or have been abandoned or were suitable or functional.
“From our research, our own conclusion on the suitability of resources and development project, is that there seems to be a gap in communication between the government and the people on the project or feed back system. There doesn’t seem to be a suitable feed back system on what the people want and how suitable the project is to them.
“Our key finding which is most relevant to our gathering here is that alot of information about the extractive industries and their activities, environmental audit and other relevant information are not available to the public even though they are required by law to make this information available but they are not available anywhere. If you go to their websites, they will just tell you that they carry out their social responsibility , environmental impact assessment but you do not find the results. Such information is often shrouded in secrecy and where it is made available it is very limited and it is unclear and provides no actual information.
“There is also lack of public participation in governance system in terms of development. So the public participation doesn’t follow a clear cut structure. Communities have no say in the tracking and monitoring structure. There is also alot of marginalisation of vulnerable groups and so you hear that some voices are more predominant than others within the region.
”Our conclusion is that there is extensive degradation. There are loopholes in the monitoring of activities within the extractive industries and public participation is almost nonexistent within that area and the government does not have an effective governance structure or feed back system to foster interactions between regulators, the companies and the communities.
“There are several lapses in community engagement. So, there is a need for constant needs assessment.The only way success can be achieved is by continuous collaboration not with a selected few but the whole community. There is need for collaboration in determining projects to be undertaken. These lapses have culminated in unsuitable projects abandoned or ill executed.
“There are lots of information on oil and gas companies but these information do not say anything about accountability and transparency.
”Our key recommendations are that the governance system should be decentralised and entail participation from all stakeholders ranging from commumity members to pressure groups, CSOs, oil and gas companies, and relevant MDAs.
”More specifically, the federal government should provide for effective monitoring and sanctions on activities of the oil and gas companies in host communities; make it mandatory for reports and assessments to be made public to foster transparency; sufficiently empower MDAs with the necessary logistics to carry out monitoring, tracking and evaluation of exploitative activities and CDPs; enforce both civil and criminal liability for any party (oil and gas companies, MDAs, community leaders) that fails to fulfil its obligations or is complicit in corrupt practices in relation to CDPs; establish corporate social responsibility guidelines that oil and gas companies are required to adhere to in relation to the communities where they carry on their activities; take steps to ensure personal liabilities on executives of oil and gas companies for the failure of the companies to adhere to the CSR guidelines; work towards the instalment re-development, cleaning up and rehabilitation of host communities based on the Niger Delta development plan to determine successes, failures, needs for improvements, and so on.
” State governments should play a fundamental role in the development and rehabilitation of host communities.
” Civil Society should conduct collaborative research on accountability in the oil and gas sector; and development in the Niger Delta region with other like minded CSOs; carry out continued campaigns, counter accounting and advocacy on the state of socio- economic rights, environmental protection and sustainable development in relation to the Niger Delta region; seek grants and funding from international partners and other international organisations to create further awareness and seek accountability from the government and oil and gas companies for the environmental and social economic remediation, restoration and development of the Niger Delta region; conduct public interest actions to ensure liability for environmental damages and abuse of human rights.
” There is need to call community leaders to order and account for their failure to represent the interest of their communities.
” Finally, the government, oil and gas companies and all other key players must make concerted efforts to recognise the right to clean and healthy environment , and set up a frame work towards its actualisation first in the Niger Delta and in Nigeria as a whole”.