This file photo taken on May 18, 2005 shows Shell Oil’s oil and gas terminal on Bonny Island in southern Nigeria’s Niger Delta. – Nigeria’s parliament on July 1, 2021 voted to approve a long-delayed oil and gas law that aims to attract new foreign investment to the OPEC country’s petroleum industry.
Chief Edwin Clark, foremost voice of reason, equity and justice from the beleaguered region, denounced the PIB and threatened that if there was no reversal, the ‘Niger Delta people may be forced to take their destiny into their hands’, because the ‘IOCs may find themselves denied access to their oil activities in such communities’.
Once again, the great north-south divide which has become exacerbated under the Buhari administration has cropped up. Crude oil the blessing, crude oil the curse and crude oil the destroyer of the Nigerian State! To be sure, there are fixed positions on the oil industry. There is great disenchantment with the federal authorities over oil blocks allocations, and appointments to positions in the oil firms. Powerful people from distant lands own oil blocks in the Niger Delta.