23 Nov. 1998

Allow me to express, in the pages of your newspaper, my
profound shock and outrage about the oil pipe-disaster at
Jesse. It is distressing that oil-prospecting and management
authorities and relevant government agencies did nothing
more positive to avert the horrendous carnage. News reports
talk of a helicopter from Shell hovering over the spillage
warning of the grave peril in which the villagers helping
themselves to the scarce commodity stood. Other reports claim
that the leakage had been there for months.

It is clear, therefore, that the authorities had time before the
explosion to react to the dangerous emergency either by
cordoning off the area or by immediately cutting off further
pumping of refined and highly inflammable oil to God-knows-
where. These simple safety measures were evidently not
taken. The sad result today is nearly a thousand impoverished
citizens whose lands daily bleed out the life-sustaining fluid of
this great nation, have been violently ripped off the surface of
the earth. If we cannot call this genocide, we can at least call it
culpable negligence.

In the same vein, the authorities ought to be alert to the fact
that the recent resurgence of restiveness in the Warri area
represents another case of fuel spillage. Government has the
moral responsibility, and the resources, to act swiftly to bring
lasting peace to this area before an accidental ignition forces
on us another avoidable human tragedy.

It is high time Nigeria stopped asking: ‘What the hell do these
people want?’ and started asking, ‘What indeed do these
people need?’. The people need a more-than-Ompadec federal
attention. The people need much more than helicopter visits
and belated warnings. The nation can make sacrifices, if it truly
desires, in the area of a capital city and additional local
governments.

The nation can annually budget for the provision of selective
social amenities aimed at mitigating the high cost of living in
the oil areas and dulling the rude glare of the oil-based wealth
of visitors. We must learn to have human sympathy for fellow
countrymen whose neglected towns and penurious villages
squat, ironically, on rich black gold changeless year after
changeless year.