http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/327/44280_nigeria_niger_delta.j... Bassey examines the factors behind the economics of oil and conflict in the Niger Delta and concludes that the violence in the Delta is “a boom for merchants of crisis capitalism”.

Simple lessons are not necessarily easy to learn. For example: oil is a non-renewable and limited resource. The fever our planet is suffering—global warming or, more accurately, climate change-- cannot be allowed to run its course. To do so would be to allow the global transformation of this planet, with even greater inequity than now exists between North and South, rich and poor, frail and strong.

Oil and conflicts appear to be twins in today’s world. When people think of oil, in general terms, what comes to mind is ‘progress’. Thus, people speak of oiling the wheel of progress. Today, however, much is being seen of oil as greasing the wheels of conflict. And this is very much the case in the Niger Delta.

The crisis we are witnessing needs to be viewed both in economic and political terms as a major for profit venture. Understanding it through this filter is crucial to our seeing why we appear trapped in intractable murky waters and it will also help us construct bridges over which we may come out of the malaise.

In answer to a question on what the likely consequences of the continued exploration of oil in the Niger Delta by oil corporations would be I had to recall first and foremost that the lure of oil is its cheapness as well as its easy yielding in the refining processes. What we mean is that oil is a cheap source of energy. It is cheap partly because its extraction in the Niger Delta and much of the tropical world is carried out in ways that pay scant attention to environmental costs. Thus the consequence of continual exploration and exploitation of the Niger Delta is that the poor people continue to subsidize the costs of crude oil by the losses they suffer in environmental services, quality of life and extreme environmental degradation. The result is, and will continue to be, deepened conflict as opportunistic groups as well as gangs find space to extract financial gains from the system; and ultimately as the people will eventually struggle to regain their sovereignty over their environment and resources.

The Niger Delta situation, rather then being resolved, appears to be getting more intractable. Meetings, programmes, commissions and what have you are being held or set up, yet the problems are growing more legs. As we examine the economic mechanics fuelling these tensions, it is worthwhile for us to have an overview of the local and global scenario exerting influence over related events here and globally.

Profiting from Crisis: the economics of war

The path of crude oil development has been strewn with skeletons and soaked in human blood across the world. The ongoing case in Nigeria is a glaring example. The case of Angola is still fresh in memory. In 1999, as the first barrels of crude oil were shipped from Sudan, so did the war between government forces and those of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army escalate. When we turn our eyes to the Middle East we see the raw situation of war waged for profit and resource appropriation and control.

The issue of the profitability of disasters has been expertly exposed by Naomi Klein in her new book. She states that “With resource scarcity and climate change providing a steadily increasing flow of new disasters, responding to emergencies is simply too hot an emerging market to be left to the nonprofits – why should UNICEF rebuild schools when it can be done by Bechtel, one of the largest engineering firms in the U.S.?” She also asks the question, “Why deploy UN peacekeepers to Darfur when private security companies like Blackwater are looking for new clients?” In a 2005 article with the title Allure of the Blank State she articulated the advancement of preventive war as normative behaviour by the government of President George W. Bush.

It should be instructive that at a time when oil fields have become hotbeds of conflicts and insurgency, that is precisely when oil companies are making record breaking profits. This boom is also enjoyed by those involved in weapons trade, deconstruction/reconstruction, private soldiers and the like. In the month of October 2006 when the highest Iraqi civilian casualties of 3,709 were recorded, a market analyst stated that Halliburton’s quarterly profit was “better than expected.” By the last quarter of 2006 this company had enjoyed an inflow of up to $20 billion from the Iraqi war alone.

Writing on the Niger Delta situation, a researcher declared that, “the low level of accountability is also attributed to weak electoral administration and process, and a pervasive undemocratic political culture which not only serves the interest of the political class but also encourages the personalization of state resources by those who wield political power, a bureaucratic culture of secrecy and impunity, which nurtures an already entrenched abuse of power by the political and administrative class.”

Its manifestation is ubiquitous and its pinch is directly felt by the peoples of the Niger Delta who have become nothing short of pawns on the chessboards of political manipulators. The manifestations are seen on the boardrooms of corporations, shareholder dividends, and in the proverbial excess crude funds in the case of Nigeria. The ‘excess crude’ euphemism is a concept by which the political executives in Nigeria purposely base revenue projections on estimates far below the market value of crude oil in order not to be caught off guard by a slump in price, and probably also to skim off the ‘excess’ funds that must come where there are positive differentials, as always is the case. With current price of oil pushing beyond $90 per barrel, and with the current Nigerian national budget based on a $40 per barrel benchmark, political actors at various levels are already angling to share the ‘windfall’ which often have been seen as nothing but the ‘loot’, utilized without accountability. We note that for 2005 and 2006 budgets the benchmark was $30/barrel of crude oil and for 2008 the proposal stands at $53/barrel/

The Nigerian State: trapped in the barrel

One activist posited that the Nigerian government is a victim of disaster capitalism and that the new government is caught in the web of supremacist gangs engaged in the business of kidnappings and abductors of oil workers and children and parents of politicians. In a phrase, while both the government and oil companies are the beneficiaries of the crisis raging in the oil fields through huge profits and so called windfalls, both are equally vulnerable. Both face the challenge of access to oil fields and with time, not even the offshore installations will be so secure. This will come to pass unless steps are taken to look away from short term profits and to work for security of the environment, livelihoods and the rights of the people to live in a way that is favourable to their development.

Moreover, deep seas and far off offshore locations do carry special financial risks besides the physical ones. It will get to a point where oil prices will be so high that not even the producing countries will be comfortable with it. The costs spiral may in the long run assist in the finding of alternatives to crude oil and when that happens, unprepared nations like Nigeria will be in a quandary.

It appears the only real addition to our oil resources are with regard to the bitumen deposits to the west of the Niger Delta. Bitumen has a huge environmental downside. Like tar sand, the extraction of bitumen releases much more Green House Gases than the extraction of crude oil does. It also potentially has a heavier environmental footprint. The potential of replicating a violent mineral belt here is very real.

Oil Companies

Oil corporations are huge beneficiaries, and may even be said to be instigators, of the crisis related to the industry. The surge in global awareness about peak-oil and climate change, all-time-high price of oil as a result of conflicts in Nigeria, Iraq and disturbances in Turkey, Pakistan, Iran, etc can become rather unsettling. Add to this the indication that government is likely to renegotiate the contracts with the oil companies. These are all worrisome signals to a cartel that has always had its way and that is quite happy with business as usual as long as they hold the right end of the stick. If government goes through with the renegotiations, it is hoped that at the end of the day the companies will no longer have the lame excuses by which they heap blame on the government for not putting up the money to stop gas flaring, among other things.

It can only be in a state where impunity reigns that a corporation can leave a court order unchallenged for two years, not obey it and not be sanctioned over it. This is the case with a High Court judgement delivered on 14 November 2005 in which Shell was ordered to stop gas flaring in Iwerekhan community. The judgement has not neither been challenged nor vacated and yet the flaring continues unabated. An unwillingness to accept judicial decisions is a clear case of provocation, a clear attempt to ignite a fire where there ought to be none.

January 2008 has been set as the deadline for routine gas flaring to be ended in Nigeria. The oil companies have made some efforts at compliance. Only one of the majors has announced that they would be unable to meet the set target date. That is Shell. They state in their Sustainability Report 2006 that they would end gas flaring everywhere in the world by 2008 except in the Niger Delta where they claim that some of the locations are either inaccessible or it would mean shutting down production if the gas flares are to be shut off. Another indication that the flares out date may not hold is the recent announcement by the Federal Government that a fine of N12, 700 or $100 will be imposed for every million cubic feet of gas flared after the set date.

The government stated that oil companies would only be allowed to flare gas from their oil fields after reaching an agreement with the Federal Government to pay $100/Mscf. Moreover, from January1, 2008, oil companies who make false declarations will be fined $500/Mscf. The official who made the announcement added that “no excuse will be tolerated from any oil firm flaring gas without the approval of the Federal Government. Going by the state of preparedness, experts including officials of the World Bank are looking as far off as 2011.

Apart from being human rights monstrosities, gas flares are known to cause a cocktail of diseases and untimely deaths. Diseases associated with gas flares include cancer, respiratory illnesses and blood disorders.
The ‘benefits’ of disaster capitalism to oil companies include:

• Operating behind military shields as they have always done. This way the state apparatus of coercion does the dirty job and the oil companies involved can claim they were not a party to the assault.

• Refuse to pay adequate taxes unless publicly pressured.

• Make false declaration on the amount of reserves they have in Nigeria, get punished elsewhere and stay happy and quiet in Nigeria with no questions asked. False declaration ultimately is nothing but an exercise in self delusion.

• Be found guilty of bribing Nigerian officials by investigators outside Nigeria, whereas no questions are asked in Nigeria where governments make plenty of noise about fighting corruption.

• Declare that oil spills are caused by sabotage even where there is no evidence to support such claim. And based on these spurious claims, such spills are left unattended to.

Niger Delta Communities: beaten by all sides

The usual assertion that Nigeria suffers from a resource curse may not be true because the resource that we are endowed with is a blessing rather than a curse. Resource wealth does not necessarily have to subvert development. One would agree however that the scramble for the wealth does subvert our collective ability to resolve the conflicts into which we are immersed. And this is primarily because of the privatisation of public funds generated through the exploitation of these publicly held resources.

The crisis situation can best be seen as a result of interplay of a web of interrelated factors, and not the result of a single determinant. As an analyst put it, “While most of the attention is often placed on local actors: the state/political elites, militia groups/warlords, and weak and inept bureaucracies, very little attention is paid to the role of external and transnational actors and the lack of transparency that shrouds the extent of their involvement in these conflicts.

High Tide

Let us conclude by stating that much of the violence experienced in the Niger Delta has been inflicted without any shot being fired. For example, whenever the word restiveness is mentioned images of rampaging Niger Delta youths come to mind. A cursory look at the other geopolitical zones in Nigeria will reveal that youths are just as restive in those parts as they are in the Niger Delta. Secondly, whenever there is a pipeline tragedy consequent upon a fire or an explosion, most reports jump to the conclusion that pipeline vandals were responsible. By these ingrained constructs, the region is now known as a volatile region where the unthinkable become the expected.

It is time for us to calmly re-examine ourselves and strive to uncover the truth. It is time for the Niger Delta to show the way in a collective drive to reconstruct our regional as well as national psyche. This will start by our people understanding that the violence in the Delta is a boom for merchants of crisis capitalism. The gun runners, the kidnappers, the ballot thieves and those engaged in illegal bunkering differ very little irrespective of whether some of them are tagged Excellencies or Honorable. In one short phrase, it is time for us to regain our sovereignty and to ensure that our ballots decide who holds the reigns of our government, who makes decisions and how and when we want our resources extracted. We propose here that as climate change pushes the world towards a cataclysmic brink, a major move is to tackle the trend at the root cause. It is estimated that temperatures in West Africa may rise by up to 4 degrees Celsius and that sea level rise is expected to lead to a loss of over half of the land of the Niger Delta by 2050. There will be an increase in vector-borne diseases as well as severe dislocations. With the downward march of the desert, environmental refugees from the south and from the north will put extreme pressure on the middle belt and raise new levels of crises.

We recommend that Nigeria halts all new oil field prospecting and no further auctioning of oil blocks. If we follow the example of the demands of Ecuador with regard to oil exploitation in the Yasuni national park this will not mean a reduction in our national income. Ecuador is demanding that they should be compensated for keeping the oil in the ground. The argument is that by that action the release of Green House Gases are blocked at source since the fossil fuel is not brought up for use. This is true carbon sequestration and deserves to earn carbon credits instead of the fictional approaches used to exploit an unsuspecting and at times gullible world.

In conclusion, we wish to state that keeping the oil in the ground will plug the holes of exploitation, violence and profiting from degradation and dehumanizing activities. We say NO MORE OIL BLOCKS until and unless it is with the express consent of the people. Our life and our future are in our hands.

This is an edited version of a paper delivered by Nnimmo BASSEY at the Niger Delta Roundtable held at Ibom Hall, Uyo, on Thursday, 1 November 2007

* Nnimmo Bassey is the Executive Director of the Environmental Rights Action, ERA/Friends of the Earth Nigeria with head offices in Benin City, Nigeria.

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Rather than proposing techno-fixes to problems of agricultural development in Africa, donors could better assist in the development of rural infrastructure such as roads and water supplies, and education to empower the younger generation in the study of useful science. African farmers, along with peasants around the world, are seeking respect for their right to decide on what to plant and how to plant it, as well what to eat and how.

It is a common saying that when a man has a hammer in his hand every problem appears to be a nail. It takes a wise man to know that a hammer is just one of the tools in the craftsman’s box. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation made money from technology. It is understandable that they should think that problems can always be solved with a technological fix. Nor is it surprising that the Rockefeller and Gates Foundations should plan to jointly plough $150,000,000 into their so-called Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). Tragically, the biotech solutions proposed by AGRA are likely to deepen rather than solve problems of hunger, poverty and malnutrition in Africa.

The Gates Foundation has recently taken on scientists from the biotech industry. It is expected to fund projects in areas such as biotechnology to improve seeds and crop yields; fertilizer, irrigation and other farm management systems; access to markets; and advocacy for improved agricultural policies. They may claim otherwise, but the idea of AGRA is anchored around agricultural modern biotechnology or genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Yet, genetically modified crops, on the admission of the US Department of Agriculture, do not give better yields than conventional crops. In addition, the plan’s entire framework would turn African farm practices on their heads, wiping out local knowledge and creating more poverty, hunger and strange new diseases.

What is not being said is that people are not going hungry today because of insufficient food production. Indeed, it is generally agreed that there is enough food in the world to meet everyone’s basic needs. An action plan adopted in March by ministers of the Economic Community of West African States admits that food production in West Africa has doubled over the last 20 years and that only 19 per cent of food needs are met from imports.

So what is the real reason behind the emphasis on biotechnology? The biotech industry has invested hugely in attempts to penetrate Africa – through food aid channels and other channels of assistance, as well as through commercial routes. However, the food aid channel blew up in the face of the industry and that of the World Food Programme in 2002 when Zambia rejected genetically modified corn as food aid.

AGRA’s biotech thrust is wrong-headed: rather than solving problems of hunger and poverty in Africa, it will deepen them. Genetically modified crops create dependence on chemicals such as herbicides as some varieties are engineered to be herbicide tolerant, which often leads to the emergence of super-weeds. Efforts at popularising GMOs have been carried out by both USAID and the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture in circles that have excluded critical opinion. Wherever contrasting views have been elicited, local people and farmers generally reject this technology. AGRA’s suggestion that Africa needs a 'green revolution' does not appear to have considered the many pitfalls of that revolution.

Efforts at introducing GMOs in Africa have so far yielded poor returns. To take just one example, that of cassava engineered to overcome the cassava leaf mosaic disease. This has so far failed. There are already non-GM varieties that do withstand the disease. Why waste resources that could be better used to strengthen agricultural production in Africa, drawing on the rich pool of local knowledge and ensuring food sovereignty, as demanded by farmers and civil society groups at the recent forum in Selingue, Mali? Africa is not seeking handouts in order to improve its agricultural production systems. And certainly not a push towards a so-called green revolution baptised in chemical fertilizers and other imported inputs. African farmers, along with peasants around the world, are seeking respect for their right to decide on what to plant and how to plant it, as well what to eat and how.

Agriculture means far more than the mechanical multiplication of seeds. It is the basis of the African’s life. It provides the platform for cultural, religious, economic and even political relations. If the Gates and Rockefeller Foundations wish to extend the hand of fellowship to the African continent, they should move away from strategies that favour monoculture, lead to land-grabs, and tie local farmers to the shop-doors of biotech seed monopolies. Instead, they can assist in the development of rural infrastructure such as roads and water supplies, and education to empower the younger generation in the study of useful science.

This article was first published in Alliance [http://www.alliancemagazine.org/">

* Nnimmo Bassey is Executive Director of Environmental Rights Action, Nigeria.

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Pambazuka news is a reference point for those of us who need analytical presentation of news. It has become an indispensable tool for analysts and policy makers who want to know what the real issues are and what drives events and paves the way for a preferred future. One of the things that Makes Pambazuka stand out is the way issues are reported and treated holistically with all threads and linkages brought out to clarify situations. What surprises me is that the crew is able to put out reports of such depth and importance on a weekly basis.

The only thing I have not seen much of is a deliberate targeting of the younger audience. A section for youths as well as children will be a great addition

* Nnimmo Bassey is Director Environmental Rights Action (Nigeria)

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/295/Genetically-modified-rice.j... introduction of genetically modified rice into Africa is being justified by presenting it as a solution to diarrhoea, responsible for 2,000,000 deaths per year (mainly children) in the global South. However there are other very simple means of reducing cases of diarrhoea such as improved sanitation and cleaner, free water supplies.

On 6 March 2007, it was reported in the media that a new variety of Genetically Modified (GM) rice containing human genes obtained preliminary approval from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) for large-scale planting in Kansas. California-based Ventria Bioscience, the developer of the rice, claims that it can be used to treat diarrhea. A BBC TV report on 6 March 2007 showed images of African children in a hospital as an example of some supposed beneficiaries of the new rice.

Friends of the Earth Africa believes that our continent does not need genetically modified solutions to diarrhea and condemns the use of African children as a tool to promote the new GM rice produced by Ventria Bioscience. Diarrhea is an illness that has well-known causes, and proven, inexpensive solutions. Ventria’s GM rice is unproven, unnecessary, and a distraction from ongoing programmes to save children suffering from diarrhea on our continent.

Monitoring activities undertaken by Friends of the Earth Africa in 2006 revealed that Africa has been contaminated by illegal GM rice LL601 in Ghana and Sierra Leone, main African recipients of rice as commercial imports and food aid from the US.

The dust raised by the revelation of the contamination of the food chain by an illegal rice variety, LibertyLink Rice601 (LLRice 601), had barely settled when news arrived of new contamination episodes in other parts of the world. On the 5 March 2007, the USDA announced that it was prohibiting the planting of another type of long-grain rice after confirmation of a new case of contamination. The genetically modified contaminant detected in a long-grain rice variety known as Clearfield CL131 was not authorised for commercialisation. Therefore, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) decided to prevent its planting and distribution.

Just a few days before this latest contamination episode, it was reported that the USDA had given preliminary approval to a large-scale planting of a new variety of GM rice containing human genes. The rice, produced by a company called Ventria Bioscience, has been engineered to produce recombinant human milk proteins to be extracted from the rice for a variety of suggested uses. In the media, Ventria claims these proteins will be used in oral rehydration solutions to treat diarrhea. But elsewhere, the company says it will use them as supplements in yogurt, sports drinks and granola bars.

If that earlier contamination was worrisome, the USDA’s support for planting up to 3200 acres of Ventria’s 'pharmaceutical rice' is even more so. We are particularly concerned that this massive planting of drug-containing rice is going forward even though the US Food and Drug Administration has refused to approve Ventria’s recombinant pharmaceutical proteins as safe.

The first GM food crop containing human genes is set to raise many socio-economic, cultural as well as ethical questions, besides environmental and health concerns.

This rice is being produced by Ventria Bioscience, a biotech company based in California, USA. According to Ventria Bioscience, the rice, which will be planted on up to 3,200 acres in Kansas, is endowed with human genes that produce recombinant versions of human proteins, including bacteria-fighting compounds found in breast milk and saliva. If Ventria’s application is fully approved by USDA, this will be the largest planting of a drug-producing food crop in the US.

Ventria has been field-testing rice engineered with human genes since 1996 to produce three pharmaceutical proteins–lactoferrin, lysozyme and serum albumin. When farmers, consumers and food companies protested against their field trials in California and Missouri, concerned that the engineered crops would contaminate rice destined for the food supply, Ventria shifted to Kansas.

According to analysts, pharmaceutical (pharma) crops such as Ventria's rice pose a threat to human food supply and public health, as the proteins they contain are intended to be biologically active in humans, yet have not undergone adequate testing or received FDA approval as drugs, and thus may thus be harmful if eaten accidentally. The chances of contamination are also high when such compounds are produced in food crops grown outdoors. The contamination routes are numerous, including cross-pollination and seed mixing during commercial growing and seed production.

Ventria’s rice has already been publicized in many written and audiovisual media as an important solution to one disease that particularly affects poor children in the Third World: diarrhea. On 6 March, a BBC report showed images of ill African children in a hospital as an example of some of the supposed beneficiaries of that new GM rice.

'We can really help children with diarrhea get better faster. That is the idea', said Scott E. Deeter, president and chief executive of Sacramento-based Ventria Bioscience. The proponents of this GM rice say they want to widely introduce their products into oral hydration solution,'which is consumed by at least half of the world’s children'. They define their product as 'the Holy Grail' of rice and assert 'that is what every mother would want for their child'.

From the company’s sources, an experiment using this technology has already been conducted in Peru on 140 infants from five to 33 months in age, in hospitals attended by the poorest sectors of the population. Several reports indicate that parents of the children were not adequately informed of the experimental nature of the treatment, and at least two mothers of infants in the clinical trial reported that their infants suffered from allergic reactions, causing the Peruvian government to launch an enquiry into the experiment.

Does Africa need a genetically modified solution for diarrhea? Diarrhea is responsible for over 2,000,000 deaths every year, the majority in the Third World. Despite being a major cause of deaths among children, particularly those under five years old, today there are already well-known measures to prevent and treat diarrhea. In fact, these proven and effective measures have already reduced the mortality rate of children suffering from diarrhea from 4.600,000 deaths in 1980 to 1,500,000 to 2,500,000 million deaths today, and is regarded as one of the greatest medical achievements of the 20th century.

Simply put, when a person has loose or watery stools, he has diarrhea. If mucus and blood can be seen in the stools, he has dysentery. It can be mild or very serious and may come suddenly or remain for many days. It is known that the disease is more common among young children and especially so with the undernourished ones. A well nourished child would usually recover from a case of diarrhea even without any medical treatment. For a poorly nourished child, on the other hand, an attack of diarrhea can easily prove fatal.

One of the most prevalent causes of diarrhea is linked to the limited access to safe water supply and sanitation coverage. In Africa, nearly 40 per cent of the population has an unsafe water supply and poor sanitation coverage. The World Health Organisation (WHO) found that a reduction in the number of diarrhea cases and deaths due to diarrhea was directly related to access to safe water supply and sanitation services. As the Water Quality and Health Council indicates, 'if access to safe water and sanitation coverage were improved there would be a smaller frequency of diarrhoea cases', which consequently would mean that patients would avoid costs related to treatment expenditures, drugs, transportation and time spent going to hospital and clinics. The WHO concluded in a 2004 study that simple technologies for improvement of water and sanitation 'would lead to a global average reduction of 10% of episodes of diarrhoea'. WHO concludes that if the level of intervention was higher, the reduction of diarrhea episodes could be higher: 'access to in-house regulated piped water and sewerage connection with partial treatment of waste waters, could achieve an average global reduction of 69 per cent'.

Diarrhea is a symptom of infection caused by a host of bacterial, viral and parasitic organisms most of which can be spread by contaminated water. It is more common when there is a shortage of clean water for drinking, cooking and cleaning, and basic hygiene is important in prevention. Water contaminated with human faeces, for example from municipal sewage, septic tanks and latrines, is of special concern. Animal faeces also contain micro-organisms that can cause diarrhoea. Diarrhea can also spread from person to person, aggravated by poor personal hygiene. Food is another major cause of diarrhoea when it is prepared or stored in unhygienic conditions. Water can contaminate food during irrigation, and fish and seafood from polluted water may also contribute to the disease (World Health Organisation).

It is important to note that diarrhea usually lasts a day or two and goes away on its own without any special treatment. Only prolonged cases, however, present indications of other problems Thus, special treatment for diarrhea is needed only occasionally. What children suffering from this condition need is rehydration as they lose a lot of water through the diarrhea. There are already very cheap and accessible ways of fighting dehydration by simple oral rehydration therapy.

It is obvious from the above that the world does not require rocket science in order to combat incidents of diarrhea. More than anything else, what is needed is basic hygiene, safe water access and the provision of infrastructure that would support that. Moreover, investing in GM solutions when 'simple' solutions exist constitutes a diversion of energies from the already challenging objective to guarantee the right to clean water and sanitation.

Interventions

Key measures to reduce the number of cases of diarrhea include:
- Access to safe drinking water
- Improved sanitation
- Good personal and food hygiene
- Health education about how infections spread.

Key measures to treat diarrhea include:
- Giving more fluids than usual, including oral rehydration salts solution, to prevent dehydration
- Continue feeding
- Consulting a health worker if there are signs of dehydration or other problems
(World Health Organisation).

African children have been used once again in the media in order to facilitate acceptance for a new product which is not needed in our continent. Diarrhea is a disease with well-known causes, as well as solutions. If deaths from a preventable disease such as diarrhea are to be stopped, more efforts should be undertaken to tackle its causes and greater investments should be made in improving basic water and sanitation conditions in our continent.

We once more state that Africans do not need GMOs and by no means want 'medicine crops' beyond the ones already supplied by nature. Africans do not need these expensive, experimental fixes.

* Nnimmo Bassey is the Director of Environmental Rights Action (Friends of the Earth Nigeria)

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Nigerian elections have always been surrounded by intrigue, corruption and violence. Nnimmo Bassey says that as the country prepares for the first elections where one civilian government hands over to another, it appears little has changed.

April 2007 looms near as the month in which Nigerians expect to go to the polls to elect a new set of political officers. Even as the days get closer, the entire exercise is shrouded in uncertainty and Nigerians have been left guessing who the candidates of the various parties would be.

Candidates whose names had been submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) have to contend with the fact that clandestine clearing procedures are being conducted by any number of agencies and panels. It is a curious situation that with less than two months to go before the elections, the Nigerian people do not know their electoral choices.

One of the presidential candidates of one of the political parties is still battling to be cleared by INEC. That candidate is Atiku Abubakar, currently vice president of Nigeria. Mr Abubakar’s attempt to run on the platform of Action Congress after decamping from the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has been strenuously fought by the PDP and the presidency. The presidency has so far unsuccessfully tried to declare the seat of the vice president vacant on account of his changing parties, and for being disloyal to the president. In a judgement on the matter at the Appeal Court, the judges ruled among other things that the loyalty of the vice president is primarily to the nation and not the president.

Judiciary interventions have helped to curb the rabid rush for the impeachment of governors by state legislators. The courts have been heroic in their handling of thorny political matters in the build up to the elections. In fact, the judiciary appears to be the real hope for salvaging the forthcoming elections, even before they are held.

The rift between the president and his vice climaxed as they attacked each other in full public glare, in a manner that would shame writers of soap operas. They threw mud at each other over which one of them corruptly handled funds from the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF). While the vice president accused the president of having diverted funds for less than official purposes, the presidency accused the vice president of making unauthorised bank deposits with resources of the PTDF. So far even the investigations of the Senate have not managed to settle the dust.

The conflict between the two top citizens of the country has largely overshadowed the real issues that ought to be addressed by politicians on campaign trails at this moment. With so far unproven corruption charges flying both ways, the episode has taught election watchers that the Nigerian electoral processes are a long way from being on track. As at the time of writing this piece the Atiku Abubakar’s name had not found its way onto the ballot, even though the electoral body asked for and received his photographs, ostensibly for that purpose.

The 2007 elections may well be one in which candidates spent more time struggling to have their names on the ballot papers than on the soap box enunciating their manifestos and programmes. Only recently, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) released a list of persons it considers to be corrupt and who should not be allowed to seek elective office in the country. While some analysts insisted that EFCC had no statutory powers to screen candidates, the presidency went ahead to set up a committee who reviewed the EFCC list. Out of their activities, it released a somewhat moderated list of persons who will not bee able to run for office at the forth coming elections.

The names on the ballot are not the only names to worry about. The names on the voters register may prove to be another headache. For example Nigerians were apathetic during the voters’ registration exercise. There were a number of reasons for this. People did not have a clear sense of where the registration centres were. Where the spots were known, there was a dearth of registration equipment. It was not until the last few days of the exercise, declared work free days for public officers, that people thronged to the registration centres. Registration of voters has historically offered corrupt politicians the opportunity to engage in multiple registrations, inclusion of fictitious names and the accumulation of voters’ cards with which they perfected their ignoble acts. The recent registration exercise had at least one incident in which registration equipment was allegedly found in the house of a chieftain of the ruling party. While some of the chieftain’s staff were reportedly arrested, the chieftain has not been brought to account.

One may call this selective justice, but that would pale in comparison with the spate of selections that seem to have overthrown elections among the political parties. The parties had to hold primaries aimed at nominating candidates for the forthcoming elections. It turned out that in many instances, the primaries were exercises in futility. How could that be? This happened in two ways. In some cases, the primaries were simply occasions for selection rather than election of candidates. The winners were predetermined by political godfathers even before the primaries were held. The primaries were thus a rubber stamping process. The parties wasted more precious energies in the primaries after candidates who had been announced as winners at the primaries had their names erased and substituted by others, either at the party headquarters or with any other person with sufficient clout to twist the arms of members of such parties.

It was rather intriguing when all the governors, for instance, who wanted to run for the office of the president suddenly, stepped down for Mr Yaradua, governor of Katsina State. Governors of Akwa Ibom State, Rivers, Cross River and a number of other states stepped down for Yaradua at the convention field. Observers wonder why they had spent so many millions in preparation and campaigns if they were not seriously seeking to contest the election.

Throughout this process, persons who never wanted to be on the ballot found themselves there. And it does appear that some of them are depending on the parties that threw up their names to also conduct campaigns and win them the elections as well.

In this perilous situation we cannot avoid mentioning the volatile Niger Delta, where it is difficult to predict whether people will be able to vote freely. The Niger Delta remains an example of a festering ulcer that the nation has failed to heal over the years, and which may infect the entire body politic, if left for much longer without the needed political treatment. Armed resistance is not new in the Niger Delta. It was first utilised in an organised manner by the Isaac Adaka Boro’s led Niger Delta Volunteer Service (NDVS) in 1966. In that struggle, they NDVS declared an independent state of Niger Delta Republic that lasted only 12 days before it was crushed by the Nigerian state. Today the armed groups are not declaring secession but are insisting on political negotiation and that the social-economic and environment debasement visited on the region be addressed.

One would have expected that the question of the Niger Delta would dominate the campaign trail. This has not been the case. In fact only a few of the parties are making any serious attempt to address it. In a situation where candidates are busy struggling to place their names on the ballot and where others are struggling to keep their names off the corruption list, very little energy is expended on issue-based campaigning. It could also be said that campaigning on issues is also difficult because many of the parties are effectively only different in name.

The Niger Delta issue, has however, resonated in a way watchers never expected. On 30 January 2007 while commissioning his campaign headquarters in Abuja, the vice president announced to the world that the government was spending the sum of US$2 billion in arms acquisition in order to crush the insurgents in the Niger Delta. He was quickly accused of playing politics. There was oblique denial of any arms build-up in the region. But not long afterwards the president stated while campaigning for the PDP’s presidential candidate that there were many militia camps in the Niger Delta, to which no government could turn a blind eye.

Investigation by some journalists revealed that a huge investment in arms has indeed been made by the government with the Niger Delta in mind. The sum mentioned is 100 billion Naira, about US$800,000. This sum was allegedly provided by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) through an extra-budgetary arrangement.

Recently the president was quoted as saying that the election would be a do or die affair, or a matter of life or death for his party, and for the nation. This declaration sent shivers down the spine of a nation reeling in violence and insecurity. There have been no retractions. It is thus an open question if the spirit of sportsmanship will be anywhere near the election field when the whistle is blown - or when the gun is fired, for that matter.

The build up to the 2007 election has seen more high profile assassinations and murders than have been seen in other elections in the country. This has raised considerable concern among election watchers as to what level of violence will be unleashed during the actual voting, whether the ballot will count this time around, or whether political thugs will rake up fictional votes. According to Priscilla Achakpa, executive cirector of the Women Environmental Programme (WEP), a Nigerian NGO, 'the whole world is watching Nigeria and it is likely that the politicians will exercise some caution and not act with impunity. We cannot say categorically that the peoples’ votes will not count. What we can say with full confidence is that the electorate is much more enlightened today than they were in 1999 and in 2003'.

This election is not just another election in Nigeria. It is an election with deep historical significance. It will mark the first time a civilian government has handed over power to another civilian government. With dark clouds over the transition route, many are asking: will votes count? Will the electorate stand up to defend their votes? Only time will tell.

* Nnimmo Bassey is the director of Environmental Rights Action (Friends of the Earth, Nigeria) Visit

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at pambazuka.org

Nnimmo Bassey argues for clean and renewable energy. “The truth is that Nigeria has been immersed in the murky waters of energy crisis for many years now and with current groping in the corridors of power it does not seem that there is light at the end of the tunnel,” writes Bassey.

President Olusegun Obasanjo, while inaugurating the board of Nigeria Atomic Energy Commission (NAEC) which he chairs, declared among other things that although Nigeria was “unequivocally committed to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, the country cannot but embrace the global trend in the utilisation of nuclear energy for the generation of electricity."

Unless this trend is seen in the light of activities going on in Iran and South Korea, it is difficult to see new developments in the nuclear power generation sector as a popular move among nations. However, it is also thought that this commission will provide the answer to the “imminent energy crisis facing the country.”

The president must have been making a politician’s speech when he spoke about an imminent energy crisis facing the country. The truth is that Nigeria has been immersed in the murky waters of an energy crisis for many years now, and with the current groping in the corridors of power it does not seem that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

This writer fully agrees with the president that Nigeria should look for alternatives to existing oil and gas, hydro or thermal sources. But we think that looking at nuclear energy is a misstep and this thinking should be revisited and reversed.

When people think of nuclear power the pictures that come to mind are those of a cheap and clean energy option. Some analysts even suggest that nuclear energy is one of the solutions to climate change, as it would not lead to the release of greenhouse gases as fossil fuels do when they are used to generate energy. There is also the rather romantic view that the power plant would possibly be so small you could compare it to the size of an atom. In 1980, a presidential candidate in the United States of America was quoted as saying that the matter of nuclear waste ought not to worry anybody as “all the waste in a year from a nuclear plant can be stored under a desk.” (See the book, The Experts Speak, the Definitive Compendium of Authoritative Misinformation by Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky).

At present, Britain has an estimated 470,000 cubic metres of radioactive waste. This includes 2,000 cubic metres of high-level waste at Sellafield, stored in surface vaults across the country. But the lack of any long-term disposal strategy has alarmed experts, who fear an accident or terror attack, according to a recent report published in the Guardian newspaper. Three years ago, the government set up the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management to find a long-term solution to the nuclear waste problem. Their published report proposes that a concrete bunker, cut into solid rock at least 300 metres (1,000ft) underground, would be needed to store the waste. It is also reported that the ‘so-called "deep geological disposal" would require a repository that would take 35 years to build and 65 years to fill’. It sounds like this would not fit under a desk! And now the British government is currently planning to ask regions to compete to see who would provide the hole for this hazardous waste.

In return, the regions would have new projects provided as compensation. They would also be trained to act as monitors over the permanent hazard they would inevitably be exposed to. It reminds you of promises made to Niger Delta communities after their environment had been wrecked.

Cape Town’s chapter of Earthlife Africa, a South African environmental NGO, recently raised an alarm over alleged negligence by ESKOM at the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station in that country. Reports indicate that certain maintenance works may have been neglected at the power station for over ten years. The organization lamented this laxity saying “Safety at a nuclear power station is of the highest concern. The potential for accidents at nuclear power stations and the consequences of such accidents have been well illustrated by historic events at Chernobyl and inthe USA and Japan. These accidents have resulted in numerous deaths and environmental destruction as well as a legacy of radioactivity that isresponsible for illnesses and deaths until today.” Would Nigeria do better?

Conceiving of nuclear energy as clean energy is only possible if one turns a blind eye to the entire production cycle of the energy. This may be true when considering only reactor operations, but if we consider the process by which uranium is mined, transported and processed it becomes quite clear that this is not a clean energy form.

What about the uranium enrichment process, fuel fabrication, and the unavoidable long-term radioactive waste storage? Nuclear power stations may generate little greenhouse gas but their radioactive by-products are among the most toxic substances imaginable, and remain so for thousands of years. We see the dilemma for the British. Nigeria can simply not handle it.

Perhaps the president needs to take another look at nuclear power generation in Nigeria. It is still early in the day and this is the right time to retrace our steps. We need to look critically at how much we have failed as a nation at efforts to provide electricity supply through the rather conventional hydro and thermal generation systems. President Obasanjo has failed spectacularly to deliver on his first term promise on this matter. Nuclear energy is not a solution to the abysmal infrastructural deficit confronting us as a nation.

Nuclear power is basically about energy generation. Nuclear power reaches users through a power-grid system. In other words, it is not a wireless system. And if truth be told, the distribution grid in Nigeria is rather substandard. This is because of weak controls and because home owners often extend power lines to their properties with very little official oversight. This has engendered a situation where cables of diverse qualities reign in the land, and electricity transformers are often camouflaged by weeds. Thus, even if sufficient electricity power were to be generated today, we lack the infrastructure to deliver such power to users. Even if we were to have the power plants up and running in a couple of years, we are decades away from having a good enough power distribution network.

Another draw back is that there is a worldwide shortage of skilled manpower in this field. We can add to this concern the fact that we have a poor record of environmental safety and our emergency response mechanisms are still suspect. Nuclear energy is a ticking bomb and needs extreme care.

Besides, nuclear plants need to be shut down for periods of maintenance. Thus where such plants are in use, the country would still need to maintain an elaborate system of alternate plants thus adding to the overall costs outlay.

Why is Nigeria contemplating this energy system in a time when the world is concerned with developing sustainable energy and is gradually shifting away from nuclear energy? It is reported that industrialized countries such as Germany are moving towards more friendly energy sources. Indeed , a June 2006 report commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety suggests that “Europe could cut carbon emissions from electricity generation by 70 per cent and phase out nuclear power by 2050 using 'concentrating solar power' (CSP) generated in the Middle East and North Africa.”

It appears that if Nigeria pursues the nuclear energy path, she will end up with an unnecessary liability when the system is finally ready. I say this because the world would have shifted away from this unsustainable mode of energy generation.

Another matter that may not have been inserted into the decision-making matrix may be the fact that nuclear power stations require huge amounts of water for cooling the reactor’s core. Experts say that nuclear plants do not work particularly well in warm climes. In a nation where fire trucks often run dry and water hydrants are left literally dehydrated, it takes very little imagination to reach the conclusion that setting huge quantities of water aside for this purpose will only compound the water problem of the nation.

We have a penchant of saying that issues like this are of no consequence because we do not lay much stock in analyzing scenarios that indicate how we unnecessarily, but rather continuously, box ourselves into tight corners. We have a penchant of superstitiously repeating to ourselves that everything will be okay even when we are taking wrong decisions and sliding down precipitous slopes.

In addition, the nuclear industry is yet to sufficiently address any of the negative aspects of this power generation system. It is a dirty industry, it is an expensive venture and it is extremely hazardous. There is nothing to recommend it except that it may confer some sense of “power” on the nation to say that we are on the nuclear league.

Honestly, rather than waste the resources of the nation on this wild enterprise, the Nigerian government should take steps to popularize solar energy systems in the nation. Solar and wind power systems may be expensive at the onset, but these costs are quite likely to fall as the world turns more to it in the face of rising cost of fossil fuels and the harmful potential of nuclear plants.

Moreover, solar systems are safe, the energy is clean and the system is amendable to discrete small scale whereby even remote communities can be easily serviced. In fact with the demise of crude oil that will happen in a few decades, the oil giants who hold vested interests in solar power development will see the need to allow popular access as this will be the next profit spinner.

In his speech to the NAEC board, President Obasanjo pointed out that "The new policy initiative of the US Government on nuclear energy, The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership" seeks to popularise and expand the generation and use of electricity from nuclear plants around the world. It does appear to us that the government is once more buying into offshore economic policy thrusts. The entire idea is rigged to shore up an American industry that is set to face decline. It may be argued that the dream of nuclear electricity plants has been on the shelves for three decades now, but common wisdom dictates that we should let sleeping dogs lie!

Again, I regret to say that I totally disagree with the president’s thinking that nuclear power would uplift the citizenry to a state of prosperity. It will rather expose our hapless citizenry to untold dangers apart from being another uneconomic sinkhole.

The World Bank, in its internal report on climate change, categorised nuclear energy as clean energy and announced plans to support it. The document, which was leaked to an environmental NGO, shows that the Bank lays a lot of emphasis on what poor countries could do to reduce greenhouse emissions, and says little about what the huge polluters should do. Although the bank keeps harping on the need for clean and renewable energy, it has not slowed down on its continual funding of oil and gas projects. Could Nigeria’s nuclear dream have been concocted by alchemists at the World Bank?

We have already squandered borrowed resources that rightly belong to future generations. Let us not make the problem worse.

The Niger Delta has been described as "exploited, misused, abused, polluted, underdeveloped, and almost completely dead; like a cherry fruit sucked and discarded". [1] Nnimmo Bassey looks at the crude oil trade in the Niger Delta and finds it's anything but sweet for local communities.

The Niger Delta of Nigeria has been in the news so repeatedly that the issues merit little introduction. In one sense the issues are a mesh of politics, trade and resource exploitation. All these work to gravely undermine the rights of people in terms of the exploitation of their natural environment.

The Niger Delta is the treasure base of Nigeria, since successive governments have decided to ignore other sustainable income sources that had sustained the nation before the discovery of oil in commercial quantities in the country. Today, by official count, oil contributes about 95% of the country's foreign exchange earnings from a production of 2.2 million barrels of crude per day. An additional chunk is extracted illegally into private and corporate pockets through crude oil bunkering. These all lead to the milking of the Niger Delta to the point of near death. The area suffers a dearth of social amenities, high unemployment, environmental degradation, and other social malaise.

Oil corporations such as Shell and Chevron, who are major players in the Niger Delta, have admitted to contributing to corruption and violence/civil unrest in the Niger Delta. In Shell's Peace and Security report (published in 2003) as well as Chevron's double page ads in Nigerian newspapers in May 2005, the corporations admit that by their actions they have contributed to the state of conflict, corruption and distortion in both the Niger Delta environment and by extension the Nigerian state.

According to the Shell report: "Annual casualties from fighting already place the Niger Delta in the 'high intensity conflict' category (over 1,000 fatalities a year), alongside more known cases such as Chechnya and Colombia. The criminalisation and political economy of conflicts in the region mean that the basis for escalated, protracted and entrenched violence is rapidly being established. This not only threatens SCIN's (Shell Companies in Nigeria) future ability to operate, but also Nigerian national security." [2]

Trade has remained the major precursor of destruction in the Niger Delta. We can go right back to trade practices where highly valuable goods were exchanged for bottles of whisky, beads and mirrors, or to the days during which the Niger Delta lost human resources through the slave trade. Before the advent of the crude oil trade in the Niger Delta, we have it on record that on 22 February 1895 the trading city, Brass, located here, was attacked and levelled by British naval forces at the behest of the Royal Niger Company to ensure that the company had a monopoly over the palm oil trade for which the town was famous. Over 2,000 persons, mostly women and children, lost their lives in that attack.

In modern day times, it has been said that since Shell arrived in the Niger Delta it has been a tale of desolation. Much of the activities in the Niger Delta with regard to crude oil and its exploitation are shrouded in rights abuses, as the world came to learn from the struggles of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni people and the subsequent hanging of Saro-Wiwa.

There is an unending story of horrors coming out of the Niger Delta. Oil spills and pipeline fires are regular features and official estimates are that there are at least 300 incidents each year. Clean up exercises are spade and shovel events. They are often capped off by the setting of remaining crude oil on fire. This way forests and even rivers have been set ablaze. These crude oil spills poison the land, pollute water bodies and expose the people to untold hardship. Consider also the response to communities attempting to protect their rights:

- In 1990, the Umuechem community was visited by contingents of Nigerian police. Eighty community members were murdered in the unprovoked attack. Houses in the community were either burnt down or looted. The people of Umuechem were engaged in peaceful protests at the gates of the Shell's flow station located in their community. [3]

- On November 10, 1995, the Nigerian military regime of General Sani Abacha murdered Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other leaders of the Ogoni people of the Niger Delta after a kangaroo tribunal set up by the regime convicted them for trumped up charges of murder. The world responded with outrage. This followed the commencement of peaceful protests in1993 by the Ogoni against the destruction of their natural environment and livelihoods.

- For the people of Ilaje community, Ondo State of Nigeria, May 28, 1998 is a day they cannot forget in a hurry. Ilaje youths had occupied Chevron's oil platform in order to induce Chevron to have a dialogue with them. The Nigerian military and police swooped down in helicopters on the protesting youths. Reports have it that the attackers landed shooting, Rambo style, killing two youths on the spot. [4] A lawsuit is currently being heard on this in San Francisco, USA.

- On November 20, 1999, barely six months into his first term as civilian president of Nigeria, President Obasanjo ordered soldiers into Odi, a town in the Niger Delta. By the time they left, the destruction of Odi was complete and 2,483 people had been slain. The dead included women, children and the aged and infirm. [5]

- About 50 members of Odioma community in Bayelsa State of Nigeria were reported massacred on Saturday, February 19, 2005 during a military raid by a Joint Task Force of the Nigerian Army and Navy. [6] The soldiers also destroyed the whole community with houses bombed and burnt in a manner reminiscent of the Odi Massacre of 1999. Again, those killed were mostly women, children and the elderly. Odioma Community, located in Brass Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, is one of the many oil-bearing communities in the Niger Delta and had been in conflict with neighbouring Bassambri community over the ownership of a fishing settlement, where Shell has some oil wells. Shell planned to build an oil flow station at Obioku and had actually mobilized its contractors to the site since January 20, 2005. Work on the project was stopped by protesting youths from Odioma community because of the lack of an Environmental Impact Assessment.

Apart from vigorous protests by communities, the struggle for human rights gained momentum on 14 November 2005 when a high court sitting in Benin City ruled that the practice of flaring gas associated with crude oil extraction was an infringement of the fundamental human rights of the people living in communities where such flaring existed. The judge subsequently ordered that the top guns of Shell and the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) should appear before him to show a clear step by step plan for stopping gas flaring a year from that date. This and other gas flare cases have been filed by communities with the collaboration of Environmental Rights Action (Friends of the Earth Nigeria) as well as the Climate Justice Programme.

Gas flaring has been going on in the Niger Delta for close to 50 years and has been estimated to constitute a waste of $2.5 billion annually. Besides being an economic waste, the flares release a cocktail of toxic and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and greatly endanger the lives of people. Health problems associated with gas flares include respiratory diseases, cancer, acute nonlymphocytic leukemia and a variety of other blood-related disorders. The environmental problems, including acid rain and damage to water bodies and farms, are no less horrendous.

The government and Chevron (project executors) of the West African Gas Pipeline project (WAGP), which is planned to harvest and pipe liquefied natural gas from new gas fields in Escravos in the Niger Delta of Nigeria to industrial complexes in Benin Republic, Togo and Ghana, have been presenting it as an answer to the gas flaring problem. They also present the WAGP as a clean development mechanism project in order to claim carbon credits.

The truth however is that the project has nothing to do with ending or reducing gas flaring in the Niger Delta as a huge proportion of the gas it would convey would be harvested from purely gas fields as opposed to being associated gas. Communities affected by this project have sent a petition to the Inspection Panel of the World Bank claiming that many rules of the bank have been flouted in the project and that their rights are not respected. Indeed, the local communities in the firing lines of this project have rejected the scheme and insist that decisions have been made without first conducting the needed environmental, social and other impact assessments. The WAGP is emblematic of the rape of the Niger Delta by TNCs and collaborating governments. Projects and trade decisions are made without regard to the rights of the people.

But as the oil wells begin to run dry, the competition is getting more acute. The Chinese are making bold grabs for the oil fields of the Niger Delta. The USA sees the region as being of critical strategic interest. The World Bank and the Paris Club eye the petrodollars coming into the region as theirs for the taking. All these combine to make the future of the region more precarious. With growing resistance in the region it is anyone's guess how things will play out.

While the trade booms, having rights respected will remain illusive. The realisation of this appears to form the bedrock of the local people insisting that there should be community control over community resources. They reckon that this way they would be able to decide if they want any mineral to be exploited in their environment or not. Where the people decide to have their resources exploited they would be able to insist on certain rules that would ensure that their rights are respected and that benefits from such exploitation accrues to them.

It is conceivable that the refusal of the state to accept this proposition is the trigger to the present conflagration in the Niger Delta. Another growing demand among environmentalists such as those in the Oilwatch International network is that there should be a moratorium on new oil explorations, for say ten years. The intervening time would be used to make an audit of the pollution and abuses that have accumulated over the years, commence clean up and remediation actions and decide how the vulnerable communities would fare in a post petroleum economy when they would be left with nothing but a polluted environment.

* Nnimmo Bassey is Executive Director of Environmental Rights Action and Friends of the Earth Africa campaign co-ordinator.

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

References

[1] Quoted in Terisa E. Turner and Leigh S. Brownhill, “Why women are at war with Chevron” Nigerian Subsistence Struggles Against the International Oil Industry, New York: International Oil Working Group, 2003. Accessed at http://www.uoguelph.ca/~terisatu/un.htm on 29 May 2006.

[2] Peace and Security in the Niger Delta: Conflict Expert Group Baseline Report, SPDC, December 2003

[3] See The Shell Report by Environmental Rights Action (ERA) at www.eraction.org/modules/publications/docs/shellreport.pdf

[4] ERA The Wicked Activities of Chevron in Ilaje Land, Environmental Testimonies # 3 published in Environmental Testimonies, ERA, Benin City Nigeria, 1999. See Also Environmental Testimonies #5 in same publication.

[5] See ERA: A Blanket of Silence. The publication catalogues names of victims.

[6] See Nigerian Soldiers Destroy Odioma Community, 50 local people killed.

The onslaught of the biotech industry is a modern day scramble for Africa, with genetically modified crops being promoted as the miracle cure to hunger and poverty with little analysis of their long term impact. The people of Africa and their governments must show solidarity, ask questions, and act.

The scramble for Africa is getting hotter today than it may have been during the Berlin Conference at which she was partitioned. The partitioning of Africa sowed the seeds of discord and conflict that we are reaping today. Today, certain concepts have been painstakingly constructed and foisted on the continent. And this has been done in order to have Africa so compromised that she would simply just beg to be colonised once more. We are talking about the onslaught by the biotech industry on the innards of this continent.

The siege is on. Many people imagine that the pressure on Africa to accept genetically modified grains or other crops as food aid ended with the widely known case with Zambia in 2002. That emblematic case rightly showed that every country has the sovereign right to determine what type of food to eat, irrespective of whether it is purchased in the market or is donated as aid. And it demonstrated to the world that the predicted catastrophe of Zambians starving never happened. The country thereafter recorded food surpluses, besides the fact that in the heat of the crisis the shortage was limited to sections of the country and there were supplies in other regions of traditional crops like cassava and millet that simply needed to be procured for the needy areas.

Genetically engineered food has been presented as the ultimate weapon against hunger in Africa and the world. This is also seriously suggested in the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), meaning that this may be the direction efforts will be concentrated in the years to come. African leaders have largely been co-opted into thinking this way because they are warned that since the so-called Green Revolution train left Africa standing at the station they should not miss the gene train. It has been noted that the Green Revolution required extensive chemical and equipment inputs and although food production increased in some areas, small scale farmers were marginalised, the environment took a beating and on the aggregate hunger was boosted in the world.

The next major push has manifested in the presenting of Monsanto’s genetically engineered cotton (Bt Cotton) as the solution. This cotton variety, which has been engineered to withstand certain pests and to be suitable for use of certain herbicides, has been planted in India, Indonesia, South Africa, etc. The biotech industry touts these as huge successes, but there are many reported cases where farmers have recorded lower yields, and have gone into debt. The manifold cases of failure of Bt Cotton are so well documented that we may not need to go into details here. Suffice to say that industry’s underhand push and shove has been vividly illustrated in the bribery scandal that rocked Indonesia where a prominent biotech industry bribed as many as 144 serving and retired government officials in order to have approval for the commercial cultivation of the variety.

Last year, some governments in West Africa pledged to embrace this same variety of cotton. The next point of call of the proponents of Bt Cotton is Tanzania. All these efforts have been made under the direction of the USAID, one of whose major goals is promoting the spread of GMOs in the world and pointedly working to "integrate GM into local food systems."

The push into Tanzania gathered momentum in 2002 when USAID began meeting with Tanzanian scientists to describe the potential of engineered foods. Some of these USA advocates were also the architects of the Memorandum of Understanding signed with Nigeria in 2004 for a biotech programme managed by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, Nigeria.

The interesting thing about the Tanzanian case is that although cotton production was suspended in the southern part of Tanzania because of the spread of redball cotton disease in 1968, the country is currently experiencing cotton production surpluses. When this is coupled with the record low cotton price in the market, it becomes hard to see what arguments could be pushed for the genetically engineered variety of cotton.

Barring a change of heart, the government of Tanzania has already buckled under intense pressure and the country is set to join Tunisia, Zimbabwe, Egypt, Burkina Faso and Kenya in conducting confined field trials (CFT) for genetically modified crops. These so-called field tests will eventually open the nation’s doors to genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

As already noted, food aid is one of the main vehicles for putting GMOs on the platter of the world. Do we call that charity? Not so. One issue about some of these food aids is that citizens in the recipient country may not even know that their country receives food aid. In 2003 Nigeria received 11000.6 Metric Tons of soy meal as food aid from the United States, under the US title “Food for Progress”. Taking into account that around 60% of soybeans in the US is genetically modified we strongly suspect Nigeria has been receiving GM products without any prior information to the Government, and with our population completely uninformed on this. In 2004 the country was billed to receive 10,500 tons of rice.

People around the world have been vocal is calling for caution in the introduction of genetic engineering in food crop propagation. The biotech industry with their powerful lobby has stoutly resisted compliance with the precautionary principle enshrined in the Cartagena Protocol on Bio-safety. The precautionary principle as the name implies requires that countries apply caution when considering or opening doors to bringing GMOs into their environment. One of the reasons for this is that the safety of GMOs has not been unequivocally proven.

The biotech industry thrives on subverting the ability of people to protect themselves and their environments. They do this through deliberate contamination and illegal release of genetically modified crops into the environment. In fact, when environments are acutely contaminated, nations have no option but to legalise the illegality. Many suspect that this may have been the case with Brazil. Also, many reports from North America show that when conventional and organic farms are contaminated by genetically modified neighbours, the innocent farmers are made liable and are forced to pay compensations to the polluter instead of the other way round. This is cowboy justice.

The argument usually put forward as a response to the insistence on caution is that GMOs have not harmed anyone. But how can we know that GMOs have not harmed anyone if there are no serious studies on the populations consuming it? How do we prove damage to human health when there is little or no serious research over the toxicological, long term impacts of GM food? How do we know whether an allergy is caused by a GM crop where adequate tests have not been developed to prove the link between the GMO and the allergy? The large number of questions existing over the risks of GM crops clearly show that the world is not ready for its release until the questions are properly answered.

An example of this need is the attitude of the European Commission, which is about to start new studies to examine the potential “cumulative long-term effects” genetically modified (GMO) crops might have on human and animal health in the longer term. This is coming eight years after the EU first allowed biotech crops. If the European Commission is now commissioning such studies, it shows that we still have a lot to learn from the risks of GMOs. And if that is the approach taken by Europeans, we have every reason to pause and think.

But, the biotech industry is like a bull set loose in a china shop and needs all the controls possible. Recent reports of contamination of food supplies with illegal varieties should worry everyone. We refer to the case of Latin America where corn varieties with StarLink which are not authorised for human consumption have been found in food aid sent there in 2002 and also in 2005. Where they cannot deny the presence of the illegal grain the response of the biotech industry has been that the illegal corn is okay for consumption. No apologies.

Africa received huge quantities of corn from the USA as food aid. From reports Africa was the top worldwide recipient of US corn as food aid in 2004. Three African countries, Angola (62.400 MT), Tanzania and Burundi (28.000 MT) were among the top five. Other African countries included Uganda (20.900 MT), and Kenya (13,600 MT). We recall here that after the refusal of GMO grains by Zambia and Zimbabwe the shipments of food aid to these countries in 2003 and 2004 dropped to zero.

The push continues even though proponents like the USAID recognises that GM corn sent to Africa as food aid “would be expected to perform poorly in African growing conditions” and is “not well suited for planting” . Despite this, the maize keeps coming to Africa. If one country rejects it, it is channelled to another.

We have many reasons to worry. Another reason is that the industry does not have GMOs under control and the risks to health and environment are unknown. A few weeks ago it became public that an untested experimental crop, from Swiss agrochemicals multinational group, Syngenta, called Bt10, has been illegally planted from 2001 until 2004 in the USA. This illegal variety contains antibiotic resistance marker genes, which the British Medical Association recommended not to commercialise due to the potential risks for human health. The EU, Japan and South Korea have already protested against this and are taking measures to test the grains in order to isolate and destroy the illegal variety. All Syngenta could say is that their 1000 tons of Bt10 food entered the EU accidentally. Initially Syngenta had claimed that Bt10 and Bt11 (an already commercialised variety of GM cron) were virtually identical, and therefore there were no risks, but later on it was verified as false since Bt10 contained antibiotic resistant marker genes, while that was not the case with the Bt11 type. What other areas have confused the biotech industry?

What measures are taken by our Governments in Africa? Africa continues to be the biggest corn food aid recipient, not only of grain, but also corn soy blend and cornmeal. Are we going to continue to let our population be at risk and consume these GM products?

Genetic pollution is not comparable to oil or other environmental pollution. Chemical pollution may finally dissipate after a thousand or so years, but genetic pollution on the other hand grows exponentially with time. They simply do not diminish. The problem expands.

With the huge contamination of the world’s corn and soya stock and the risk that it may become irreversible, the biotech industry is now seriously working on commercialising GM wheat and rice. Indeed it is reported that China may release GM rice into the market in the next year. With the bulk of rice in Nigeria coming from Asia, it is a matter of time before GM rice from China floods our supply lines. This is inevitable, unless something is done, and quickly too.

Just to think about all this makes us feel really scared about the food that is placed on our plates, and the seeds that we may be planting. If we blindly follow the biotech agri-business path we are bound to find that all traditional food crops will be genetically engineered in no time and as we have seen already, when the plague hits, the chance of recovery will be slim.

This is the time for everyone, Nigerian, Tanzanian, Togolese, Camerounian, or Swazi to stand up and defend our collective right to live in dignity and to choose what seeds to plant and what foods to eat. We cannot afford to place our future in the hand of an industry that has lost control of its Frankenstein. Our governments, if they represent us, must begin now to ask questions, and to act. Tomorrow will be too late.

* Nnimmo Bassey is Executive Director of Environmental Rights Action and Friends of the Earth Africa GMO campaign co-ordinator. An ERA/TWN African Conference was held 21-23 March 2005 on Genetically Modified Organisms in Lagos, Nigeria and drew the attendance of over 50 participants from 16 countries. It focussed on the enormous and unrelenting assault and the real threat of a GMOs invasion of Africa. The conference brought together civil society groups, government representatives, scientists and academia from Nigeria, Africa, and from Asia.

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