Nigeria plans to offer inhabitants of its oil-producing Niger Delta region 10% of oil and gas ventures in a bid to end a rebellion that has hampered output for years, a report said on Monday.
The Financial Times said the initiative, if approved by Parliament, would signal a new phase in the government’s efforts to forge a lasting peace in the delta, the key production area in the world’s eighth largest oil exporter.
But the newspaper said the plan also had to clear expected opposition from representatives of other Nigerian regions.
Emmanuel Egbogah, President Umaru Yar’Adua’s special adviser on oil, told the Financial Times that the president backed the idea of transferring to delta communities 10% stakes from the holdings of the national oil company in the joint ventures that exploit Nigeria’s vast reserves.
Egbogah said he intended to add the proposal to reforms that the government hopes to enact by the end of the year, which would also impose tougher terms on oil companies.
The reforms are currently embroiled in parliamentary debate.
The plan for the delta was ”a serious one, a major one, something quite revolutionary”, Egbogah told the daily business paper.
The initiative is designed to satisfy long-held demands from the delta’s rebels and activists, and community leaders, for a share in the ownership of the oil that generates 80% of government revenue.
The offer would apply to all citizens of communities in oil-producing areas of the delta who would receive cash benefits, delivered through a trust-style mechanism which they could then pool for social projects.
”These benefits will flow directly to them,” Egbogah said. ”Every community, whether blind or deaf or dumb, every citizen will say: ‘I own a part of his business’.”
A rebel group that has wreaked havoc in the delta said on Friday it was ending a 90-day ceasefire and warned the oil industry to expect new and widened attacks.
Attacks by the group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, have cut daily production by up to a third of pre-2006 levels. — AFP
