In the beginning, Urhoboland was another Eden, a paradise where life was lived to its fullest. The people lived a life that was measured and certain. The rains came when they should. The dry season followed. Then harmattan knew when to register its severe presence. The trees were green and grew untrammelled.
The animals enjoyed a free rein. The fishes in the many rivers that irrigated the land, multiplied and were numberless in species. The soil was fertile and it sustained food crops and fruits. The air was rarified and the people were healthy. The avian family manifested itself in the innumerable species of birds that came and went with the seasons; there was omoko as well as okpemu, so were agbreren, okareko, okan, oso, apiapia and others. The trees, okpagha, okpobrisi and uloho were sacred. Okpagha stood out in its toughness, okpobrisi in its mysteriousness just as Uloho was phenomenal in height. Harvest time was song-full because the fertile soil yielded bounties. Cassava, yam, cocoyam, groundnut, maize, pepper and more graced the harvest barn with aplomb. Palm tree, the king of trees yielded ripe and alluring iledi, palm bunches in their numbers during oke oro, the dry season. The people celebrated gods, ancestors and the coming of different seasons through festivals and rituals. Life was bliss in its pristine state and every moment, every activity had a song. That was before Shell BP (British Petroleum) invaded Urhoboland in the name of oil exploration and exploitation.
Shell struck oil in Urhoboland first at Afiesere in Ughelli, now in Delta State, in 1957, three years before Nigeria’s independence. The company had begun exploration for oil in Nigeria around 1908 and discovered it first at Oloibiri in the present Bayelsa State in 1956. Afiesere was probably the second place Shell got oil in Nigeria after Oloibiri. For over fifty years, Shell the Anglo-Dutch oil potentate, bestrode Urhoboland leaving the terrain in ruins comparable to the worst form of ecological degradation. After discovering crude oil at Afiesere, Shell was egged on by the optimism that it could strike more oil in communities that are contiguous to the somnolent settlement. Soon, Shell discovered the black gold in Kokori, Evwreni, Effurun-Otor, Erhuemukohwarien, Agbarha-Otor, Amukpe and in many other Urhobo communities. It operated thirteen out of the fifteen oil fields in Urhoboland from which it obtained between sixty-five to seventy million barrels of crude oil annually.
The 1960s and 1970s saw Shell consolidating its hold on Urhoboland, where it became the most prominent of the “seven sisters” that ravaged the nation’s flora and fauna in the name of crude oil. Overnight, Shell installations sprang up across the length and breadth of Urhoboland. Monstrous oil rigs became common sights. Shell lit fires everywhere in the guise of gas flare. Crude bearing pipelines like giant arteries ran riot. Shell literally drilled wells in the heart of Urhoboland. The land came under pressure and rupture supplanted the romanticism of yore. Shell held Urhoboland in economic thralldom and ecological trepidation for fifty years. And now, having almost sucked the land dry of its God’s given bounty of crude oil, having decimated the flora and fauna, having killed the rivers, having made the inhabitants, victims of pollution and ruptured the rhythm of their lives, having raked in billions of dollars from crude oil derived from Urhoboland, Shell suddenly discovered that the environment was no longer friendly and good for business and it decided to take a French leave while the land remain comatose and drained of life.
Yes, it is no longer news that Shell, after over fifty years of unmitigated eco-technocratic fascism has left Urhoboland. The question to ask is, can things remain the same again for good or for ill with the exit of Shell? The answer is in the negative. In spite of its many acts of economic brigandage and corporate perfidy, Shell occupies a looming space in Urhobo popular consciousness. Shell’s disavowal of that which is human in Urhoboland has not been met with an equal sense of resentment among the people. It is for this reason that the memory of whatever Shell stood for while it subjected Urhoboland to ecocatastrophe, would remain for as long as life endures. The ills bequeathed to the Urhobo by Shell as well as its dubious legacies, shall remain indelible.
Ughelli, where Afiesere Shell’s first point of call in Urhoboland is located, best signifies the parasitic and exploitative character of Shell. Ughelli Quality Control Centre was one of the most significant assets of Shell and it once served as the headquarters of its western operations, before it was moved to Ogunu in Warri. A great percentage of crude oil processed by Shell, passed through the centre. Yet, Ughelli just like Afiesere and other Urhobo communities that played host to Shell, remain grossly underdeveloped. Next to Ughelli is Erhuemukohwarien a town whose name ironically played out in Shell’s ingratitude. Erhuemukohwarien means one should be appreciative of a good turn, an admonition that was lost on Shell. The town is reeling from neglect and impoverishment, despite the millions of barrels of crude Shell had siphoned from it. Erhoike in Kokori is endowed with the best variety of crude oil in the world. The sulfur free sweet crude which Shell pumped from the bowels of Erhoike since the early 1960s, made Netherland a paradise while turning Urhoboland into paradise lost. There used to be a big flare site at Erhoike. The flare which was a big fire, whose hissing sound was heard some fifty kilometers away did so much harm to Urhoboland. While it lasted, the people of Kokori, Orogun, Agbarha-Otor simply murdered sleep, as the phenomenon not only left the air dense, but made the setting hot. Other flare sites, Shell’s fires, abound in Urhoboland and they scorched the earth and people unending.
Rivers and farmlands were victims of Shell’s armageddonic presence in Urhoboland. Since most of the people were farmers and fishermen, they lost their means of livelihood and became victims of Shell-induced poverty. The assault on the rivers through oil spills was unprecedented. An uncountable species of fishes became extinct. Other aquatic creatures and organisms were also wiped out. The famous mermaid popularly called mammy water which Victor Uwaifo and Goslow Di canonized in their music was not left out in the onslaught against Urhobo waterways. Many farmlands were also devastated. The eco-friendly mangrove forest which embellished the Urhobo landscape was almost burnt out. Urhobo lost so much of what was green. Vegetable species, herbs of inestimable values, fruit trees especially berries, wild, but alluring shrubs all became victims of Shell’s capitalist insensitivity. Many species of birds took leave of Urhobo stratosphere when the air became unbearably unfriendly because of Shell’s fires. Many animals which once constituted the fauna are either wiped out or drastically decimated; uzo, orua, afioto, ahwa, aghwaghwa, udi, origben, urianko, eran, okpohrokpo, edjanakpo and many more have become rare in Urhoboland.
In spite of the foregoing, Shell left its imprint on Urhobo flora. There is today a very ubiquitous shrub known as shokopini everywhere in Urhoboland. Lore has it that shokopini was not part of Urhobo landscape before Shell’s advent. The shrub which has become notorious in farmlands and in other locations was believed to have come with Shell to Urhoboland, hence the name shokopini which is a corruption of Shell Company. Shell Company has left Urhoboland, but will shokopini go with it? It should be said that shokopini is not a nuisance entirely. When its green leaf is squeezed, it gives out a brown liquid which is dropped into fresh wounds. It was always handy for injuries sustained in the farm. The leaves and stem also form part of the recipe boiled and drank for malaria. Whether these were efficacious or not, one cannot tell.
Shell also impacted on Urhoboland socio-economically for good and for ill. It created employment opportunities for Urhobo sons and daughters. Although many of those employed were not direct employees of Shell. They were mostly engaged by subsidiary firms or Shell contractors. Nevertheless, they had bread on their tables. Most of those that were directly employed by Shell to work in Urhoboland were from other parts of Nigeria. They were well paid and many of them built houses in Urhobo territories since the Urhobo were very friendly and genial hosts. When Shell moved its western operations headquarters from Ughelli to Ogunu, it built an expansive estate which significantly altered the landscape and the social taste of the community. Shell became a metaphor for affluence in Urhoboland in the late 1980s and 1990s. Those were the two decades when Babangida’s Structural Adjustment Programme malevolently restructured the economy and foisted malignant poverty on the masses. Since Shell workers were well remunerated, the hunger that was ravaging the land was alien to them. They bought cars, built houses and lived in relative affluence. They also ate good food. It was then that poor parents often told their demanding children “I no be shell worker, I no get that kind money.” The young girls in town also preferred dating Shell workers.
The presence of Shell created a new set of local contractors in Urhoboland. These contractors took charge of ancillary demands ranging from catering and hotel services, supply of equipment, provision of security and other sundry engagements. Some of them built estates which Shell rented to cater for the accommodation needs of its staff. Money flowed in for these nouveau riche contractors and many of them went on to marry as many wives as possible. Some of them built hotels and it was boom period for them in Ughelli, Effurun, and other conurbations in Urhoboland.
Shell made a pretence to giving back to Urhobo people, what it took from their soil. Beginning from the 1980s, the oil company built schools, cottage hospitals, very narrow roads and small market stalls which dot Urhoboland as if it were a territory of pigmies. This effort is inconsequential when considered against the background of the billions of dollars which Shell made from Urhoboland. The company also awarded scholarships to students in Secondary and Tertiary institutions, but it was just like a drop of water in an ocean. In order to deceive the world into believing that it was alive to its corporate social responsibility, Shell commissioned a television drama Friends at the Gate to depict what it has done to assuage the plight of the indigenes. But Shell was in reality a foe at the gate.
Shell also threw many an apple of discord among Urhobo people. It fostered divide and rule among a people that once lived harmoniously. In its bid to exploit the people and go unchallenged, Shell set them against one another and had its way in the ensuing melee meant to distract the indigenes. There was an instance when a Monarch was killed as a result of such hanky-panky. The ongoing fratricidal crisis in Uzere, in Isokoland has been ascribed to Shell. There were so many intra and inter-communal crises in Urhoboland which Shell instigated as part of its exploitative strategy.
Shell left Urhoboland and people frazzled. Fifty years of Shell’s dominance turned the Eden of yore into a wasteland. Urhoboland has been scorched and the inhabitants scalded physically and psychologically. The many pipeline fires which ravaged Urhoboland for the period Shell held sway, attests to this claim. From 1998 till date, Urhobo lost over ten thousand people to Shell pipeline inferno. The monetary value of properties, religious sites, economic trees, rivers, farmlands and fishponds destroyed would make many an African country debt free. Jesse, Ekakpamre, Iwhrekan, Ughevwughe, Otor-Edo, Edjophe, Egborode, Adeje, Elume, Ewu all in Urhoboland still bear the scars of Shell’s conflagration. One only needs to delete “S” from {S}hell to appreciate the plight of the Urhobo nation. The Nigerian state also aided Shell’s monstrosity. Successive governments have had to deploy the armed forces to quell protests against Shell’s dehumanization of Urhobo people.
The Urhobo are not alone in Shell induced environmental terrorism. They are in good company with the Ogoni people of Rivers State for whom Ken Saro-Wiwa died over eighteen years ago. As Shell ravaged Ogoni, the Federal government rolled out armoured tanks and subjugated the people. Saro-Wiwa through the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People internationalized the struggle against environmental injustice and oil holocaust. The Nigerian state went on to kill Saro-Wiwa and his fellow compatriots. Saro-Wiwa was vindicated seventeen years after Nigeria and Shell hanged him. The UNEP report of 2012 not only indicted Shell and the Nigerian state, but submitted that it would cost ten billion dollars to clean up Ogoniland in thirty years! Shell left Ogoni in 1992. It would therefore cost Shell more and a longer time to clean up and restore Urhoboland since it exploited the latter for a much longer period. Shell has been bought over by new companies without any input from the Urhobo people whose soil hold the oil. Is Urhoboland going to remain in trepidation for Shell’s successors to continue its ogoninization? The Urhobo people must insist on a deal that will make the new companies be alive to their corporate social responsibility. Urhoboland must be like oil producing enclaves in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar. Over fifty years ago, our grandparents in ignorance and little education, allowed Shell to drive steel into Urhoboland. The present generation has the benefit of hindsight, education and more to stop the continuing ogoninization of our homeland.
Awhefeada, an eco-activist teaches literature at the Delta State University, Abraka.
Source: OgoniNews