<afrigeog@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu>


        As I noted in a previous e-mail, the Niger Delta communities have
achieved a significant tactical victory.  At 2 p.m.  (Washington D.C.
time) on 3 August 1999, the US Congressional Sub-Committee on Africa began
conducting hearings on Nigeria.  One of the topics tabled for discussion
is the role of US Oil companies in the Niger River Delta.

        I'm writing a longish post--part general context, part a guide to
some web sites (many of these are great for teaching aids and leading
discussions), and in part a request for more information.

I.  GENERAL BACKGROUND / CONTEXT


        Most of you probably know that there are various credible accounts
that American and other foreign owned oil companies have provided the
Nigerian government with weapons to use in the Niger Delta.  Also,
observers report that the oil companies have transported military forces
and riot quad "Mobile Police"  units to sites of demonstrations and
occupations by local Delta communities--those demonstrations were
subsequently broken up with the use of lethal force.

        While the death of Sani Abacha has resulted in remarkable
political liberalization in Nigeria, and the country now is ruled by an
elected civilian government, the conditions in the Delta are still
perilous.  Some estimates are that 1/3 of Nigeria's oil production was
halted by various protests (some peaceful, some not) in January
1999--before they were broken up in part by police and military reprisals.

        Because of the intransigence on the part of the Nigerian
government, one preferred strategy of groups in the Niger Delta has been
to find allies abroad among human rights groups and especially among
international environmental organizations.  The Niger Delta groups then
press their complaints to the various international bodies: the UN, the
Commonwealth, etc.  Today it's the turn of the US Congress Sub-Committee
on Africa

        The Congressional hearings are in some sense civil society at
work.  But the paradox in the Nigerian case is that the growth of civil
society (a term which is coming to mean everything and nothing--here I
mean delta groups dedicated to political reform and justice through
peaceful means) has come with an alarming upsurge in violence, including
interethnic violence.  Just today it was announced that fifty people were
killed during fighting between the Ijaw and the Ikale (the Ikale are a
riverine Yoruba sub-group).  Several months ago there was extensive
fighting in the oil city of Warri.

        This last week I presented a seminar paper discussing the long struggle
of the peoples of the Niger Delta for a greater share of the oil revenue
derived from their lands, for greater pollution abatement, and for freedom
from repression by government agents.

        The paper I just presented (which will be a dissertation chapter,
and which I will presenting again at the MAAAS conference in Lawrence KS
this September) focuses on the role of ethnic mobilization by Nigerians to
address these serious problems.  Various groups of Nigerians, organized
along ethnic lines, have found it largely futile to seek redress from the
Nigerian government.  (This may change under the new civilian president
Obasanjo--so far as I understand it all little has come so far except a
proposed .5% tax on oil companies in the Delta to be used for local
development).

        I think things will get better with Obasanjo in power.  But they
may not get better enough fast enough.  It is also quite possible that the
Nigerian state's alternation of repression and liberalization will lead to
a hardening of attitudes and greater intransigence--at least among some of
the militant youth groups.


II. SOME WEB SITES YOU MAY ENJOY

        You may find some of the following web-sites interesting.  In
rough decreasing order of usefulness for the non-specialist...

1.  Association of Nigerian Scholars for Dialogue.

        (see their page on Southern Minorities and International Oil
Companies.  Links to official declarations by Ogoni ethnic group (Ogoni
Bill of Rights), Ijaw ethnic group (Kaima Declaration).  Especially note
links to Human Rights Watch/Africa's latest two reports on Niger Delta.
The most recent is "Crackdown in Niger Delta."

http://NigerianScholars.AfricanQueen.com/opinion/oilmainpage.htm

2.  Letter from Honorable Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) asking that Congress hold
the current hearings

http://www.seen.org/kucinich1.html


3.  Karen Fung's list of Nigeria web sites.

        Look especially under Ken Saro-Wiwa.  When the Nigerian government
executed him they made him world famous--as is well known in retrospect.


http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/africa/nigeria.html


3.  Essential Action's "Boycot Shell" page

        Has e-mail archives


http://www.essentialaction.org/shell/

4.  South of Nigeria Alliance

 http://www.africaservice.com/sona.html


ETHNIC BASED SITES

5.  Ijaw National Congress

http://www.nigerianext.com/ijaw.html


6.  Ibibo Community in the America's Incorporated

http://www.akwaibomstate.com/ibibio.htm

7.  Ugbajo Itsekiri USA (Inc)

http://www.itsekiri.net/

8.  MOSOP (Movement for the Survival of Ogoni Peole) (London)

http://www.oneworld.org/mosop/

9.  MOSOP Canada

http://www.mosopcanada.org/index.html


10.  BEST COMMERCIAL NIGERIA SITE (?)

Nigeriaweb.  By Odili.  News, many links to local associations (even some
ethnic and hometown associations).


http://odili.net/nigeria.html


11.  Mostly available through Penn's African Studies WWW


        You can find most of these, eventually, by starting from the U.
Penn's African Studies Center WWW site--from there go to "country
specific," "Nigeria," etc.


http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/AS.html


=-=-=-=-=-=

III. REQUEST FOR MORE INFORMATION


        If you've gotten to the end of this message, you must still be
interested in the topic.  One of the things I'm looking for, in my
research, is theoretical and empirical pieces on the interface between
these local ethnoregional movements, often couched in environmental terms,
and "international civil society."

        I know the Nigeria literature pretty well, although there's so
much of it it's hard to have the impression you've ever exhausted it.  One
thing I would like to find more articles on "postmortem strategic
analysis" of the Biafran accusations that the Nigerian federal troops were
engaged in a genocidal jihad.  I once read an article on that--alas the
citation is lost and the article was loaned to someone who never returned
it.  I think it was chapter in an book of colloquium proceedings or
similar.  The author asserted that the Biafran claims of genocide (which
were actually more like horrible pogroms in North and reprisal killings
during Federal reconquest of the MidWest) were the most effective tactic
used by the leaders of Biafra.

        More generally, I'm interested in finding more theory and
comparative work on this.  A lot came out on the Niger Delta and related
topics after the execution of the Ogoni Nine in November 1995.  If anyone
has citations for broader and more comparative works, or similar cases
elswhere, I'd be grateful to hear about them.

        I should note that here at u iowa, Rob Nixon gave a very nice
seminar this spring which focused in large part on this very
problem--looking at the Nigeria Delta oil producing communities' problems
in Nigeria, and similar dilemmas, injustices, and conflicts occuring in
places such as Colombia, Indonesia, and elsehwere.  In particular, he
noted that there are unsung Ken Saro-Wiwas all over the place--it's a
peculiar public relations exercise and alchemy that catapults some to
prominence and leaves others to be forgotten.  (I might note in passing
that some among Nigeria's Ijaw are now passing off their former rebel,
Isaac Adaka Boro, as a sort of forgotten Ken Saro-Wiwa).

        A final point--in one sense what's going on in the Delta
represents the failure of federalism, and especially local grievances
about federal appropriation of the oil rents.  But there are more issues
in here, too.  Ethnic mobilization and identity politics.  The vital role
of the Nigerian diaspora.  The support of outside groups.  Many Nigerian's
own relative ignorance about the Delta--even among Southerners, let along
folks in the Middle Belt and Core North.  And of course Nigeria's utter
dependence on oil revenues.


        Please direct general comments to the h-africa--or to me if you
prefer.

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