CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1     BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

There have been several attempts to define the characteristics of the Niger Delta over the years. Asakitikpi & Oyelaran (1999) observe that it is a densely populated area in Nigeria. Its boundaries, as defined by the Nigerian government, extend over 70,000 km.

The area makes up 7.5% of Nigeria’s land mass. It stretches in an East-West direction and extends from South-West Cameroun to the Okitipupa ridge, forming an apex at the South-East of the Rivers Niger and Benue confluence.

According to the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), the Niger Delta includes all the nine oil producing States of Nigeria: Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo, Imo, Ondo, and Rivers States (NDDC, 2000). The UNDP (2006) agrees with this definition of the area. The reasons for this grouping were largely political and they include administrative convenience, political expedience, and development objectives (UNDP, 2006). Ibaba (2005), however, observes that the inclusion of Abia, Imo, and Ondo States in the definition is wrong because the scope of the region should be defined not by politics, but by geography.

Ibaba (2005) goes on to say that the definition given by the defunct Oil Minerals Producing Areas Development Commission (OMPADEC) and the Willink Commission Report, which states that there are only 6 Niger Delta States, better captures the make-up of the area. He, nevertheless, notes that with states creation, it is probable that some Niger Delta communities may have now been placed in States other than the six widely accepted Niger Delta States. This current study adopts Ibaba’s description of the Niger Delta because the focus is on communities with resident oil activities and shared geographical characteristics.

Effective community relations can only be achieved when an organization recognises its interdependence with other institutions. When the management recognises the many ways its organization can impact on the local community and the extent of reciprocal dependence, it will help to establish social balance. The practice of good community relations assists the organization in securing its needs from the community while it also provides what the community expects. Also, it helps to secure the company’s investments, increase sales of products, the value of stocks, and improve the general operating climate of business.

It has been erroneously believed by several scholars that the crises in the Niger Delta are beyond what community relations can handle. The view is also held in some quarters that community relations do not address the core problem in the Niger Delta. This view, however, fails to appreciate the essence of community relations. If the oil companies carry out their activities in the interest of the host communities and adhere to quality ethical practices, the conflicts would focus on the government, thereby excluding the companies.

Community relations are not about window dressing; rather, it is about protecting the host community. As Baskin et.al (1997) point out, even the staff of the organization would be productive when proper community relations is carried out. Considering the fact that most of the staff of any organization live in that community, any improper or inconsiderate attitude displayed by the management can endanger their lives, as can be seen in the kidnap cases in the Niger Delta.

Before considering the meaning of conflict resolution, it is useful to consider the broader term `conflict management’ which has been described as a kind of proactive-reactive6 continuum: `The proactive end of the spectrum involves fostering productive communication and collaboration among diverse interests, addressing the underlying causes of conflicts in order to prevent conflicts from recurring, developing trust and understanding and using participatory and collaborative planning in order to prevent conflicts which result from policies. The reactive end of the spectrum includes approaches to managing conflicts that involve negotiation, mediation, conciliation and consensus building. The reactive approach is used after the conflict has erupted.’ (Chandraskhan, 1997).

There are a number of ways of dealing with a conflict, ranging from violence at one extreme to ignoring the conflict at the other, with a variety of approaches in between. Towards the more hostile end of the spectrum is litigation, in which parties take their grievances to a court or tribunal which applies predetermined legal rules to the conflict and issues a decision that is binding upon the parties, producing a winner and a loser. However, parties are turning increasingly to ADR techniques to settle their disputes. These include negotiation, mediation and conciliation, which are more flexible and produce results that are more acceptable to the parties as well as more sustainable in the longer term. ADR is being used increasingly in conflicts over the environment and natural resources and has considerable advantages over traditional contentious methods. ADR techniques and their suitability to ICAM are examined in some detail in Section

1.2     STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The degree of violence in the Niger Delta has become endemic, characterized by 33 cases of kidnapping recorded between January 2006 and February 2007, with over 200 victims being mostly expatriate oil workers (Africa Masterweb, 2007). There were also about 12, 770 cases of vandalism, particularly of oil pipelines and installations, recorded in Nigeria between 2000 and 2007 with most of them occurring in the Niger Delta (Nwankwo & Ezeobi, 2008). The implications of the Niger Delta crises are too far-reaching to be ignored: for the inhabitants of this area, there are constant environmental hazards and security threat, while for the Nigerian government, over N150.5bn in revenue was lost in eight years (Nwankwo & Ezeobi, 2008); there was also a drop of more than 20% in oil exports between April 2006 and October 2007 (BBC News, 2007). The global community is not excluded from the effect of the crises; the crude oil price on the world market was raised to $100 per barrel in January 2008 (Arowolo, 2008 as cited in Alabi, 2008) and later to about $120 a barrel in April 2008.

The worst hit of all the victims of vandalism and kidnapping, however, are the oil companies. More than 95% of the kidnap cases mentioned above involved oil workers, and the installations of oil companies were the target of most of the vandalism. It is noteworthy, however, that the degree of these occurrences varies across different oil companies (Aaron & Patrick, 2008). Onua (2007) describes it as a sort of revenge on the multinational oil companies.

Although several studies have been carried out on Niger Delta conflicts and the roles of the oil companies, there is inadequate information on the specific community relations strategies employed by oil companies and the preference of host communities.

Community relations is germane to the peaceful coexistence of the companies and the communities. Failure to give it its due attention engenders consequences such as the following:

1.       Distrust: one of the major causes of conflicts in the Niger Delta is host communities’ distrust for oil companies. Consequent on the poor relationship between the two parties, host communities believe that oil companies exploit them by extracting oil from their environment thereby destroying their natural habitat; but the companies fail to adequately compensate them. Hence, any advance from the companies is seen as placating the communities instead of dealing with the developmental challenges of the people.

2.       Restiveness: among the causes of the restiveness being witnessed in the Niger Delta is the ineffective community relations of oil companies. The youths who attack the installations of oil companies and abduct their staff are members of the communities. A favourable relationship with host communities would have forestalled this undesirable situation. This further underscores the importance of community relations.

From the foregoing, it becomes pertinent to conduct a study that provides a clear analysis of the community relations strategies engaged by oil companies and how they can be effectively employed for conflict resolution. Hence, it is hoped that this study will expand the frontiers of knowledge in respect to community relations strategies and also serve as a launching pad for other researchers in public relations.

1.3     OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The purpose of this study is to examine the community relations strategies used by oil companies in managing the crises in the Niger Delta. Considering that most attacks are carried out by community members, it is plausible that a proper community relations scheme should be able to nip any conflict in the bud. This study, therefore, investigates the efforts by oil companies to use community relations in crises management in the Niger Delta. It also considers the perception of the communities concerning such efforts.

The specific objectives of this study are therefore to:

1)      To ascertain whether resources in the Niger Delta affect conflict resolution

2)      To determine whether structure in the Niger Delta Areas affects conflict resolution

1.4     SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The significance of the study includes the following:

1.       Promoting better and more sustainable utilization of natural resources: If a conflict arises from the competitive or antagonistic use of a resource by more than one party, the process of conflict resolution may lead to the discovery of solutions that can lead to the resource involved being utilized more sustainably and optimally. Sustainable development is not a simple, or even universally accepted, concept, and the issues are often complex, but the main principle behind it is that the present generation is responsible for managing the resource base in such a way as to ensure its availability to future generations to satisfy their needs while, at the same time, ensuring its own needs are met. The process of resolving conflicts presents the opportunity to address the problems at their root and to plan for the sustainable use of resources into the future.

2.       Promoting equity: Equity or `fairness’ is a relative concept and hard to define in general terms, but it can be an important reason for resolving conflicts and is also considered to constitute an important element of sustainable development. It implies fairness to present and future generations in the way the earth’s environmental resources are managed and passed on. Where conflict arises out of unfair distribution of resources, conflict resolution has the potential to correct the `wrong’ and result in a fairer state of affairs. However, a number of factors may complicate the implementation of equity in practice, and many considerations need to be taken into account (such as indigenous rights and previous usage).

3.       Avoiding unwanted consequences: Unwanted consequences may include violence and loss of life, damage to physical property or financial loss. For example, when local fishers blockaded the Valdez Narrows in 1993 in protest at the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the consequences could have included substantial financial loss and property damage, because oil tankers would have been unable to reach the oil storage tanks which would have filled, forcing the oil company to shut down the pipeline, an action that had never been attempted. Fortunately, mediation was used to persuade the fishers to lift the blockade.

4.       Promoting social stability: The promotion of social stability can result from the resolution of a conflict, through the avoidance of undesirable consequences (such as those referred to above) and by promoting a sense of fairness among the parties to the conflict. Where conflicts are resolved using collaborative techniques, involving the interested parties in the search for solutions, the outcome is usually more satisfactory to the parties and therefore more easily enforced and workable in practice. If conflicts are left to end in violence or litigation, however, feelings of resentment and revenge may remain and give rise to a recurrence of conflict in the future.

1.5     RESEARCH QUESTIONS

In the light of the above, the following research questions were raised:

1)      Does the resources of the Niger Delta affect conflict resolution?

2)      Does structure of the region affect conflict resolution?

3)      Does the community relations structure affect conflict resolution?

1.6     RESEARCH HYPOTHESES

With the research questions in the study, seeks to find answers to the following research questions:

HO1: There is no significance relationship between resources in the Niger Delta and conflict resolution

HO2: There is no significance relationship between community relation strategies and conflict resolution

HO3: There is no significance relationship between structure in the in the region and conflict resolution

1.7     SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This study is on community relations strategies used by oil companies to resolve crises in the Niger Delta. It focuses on the specific techniques involved in building a good relationship with host communities. The oil companies under consideration in this study are Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), Chevron and Agip. The study population is restricted to Omoku and Obrikom communities in Rivers State and Eruemukohwarien, Tisun and Kolokolo communities in Delta State.

1.8     LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

1.       Time Constraint: For the entire time that the employee works at the enterprise, exactly one valid infotype record must exist. The validity periods of the individual records must not overlap. If a new record is created, the system automatically uses the start date of the new record as the delimitation date of the old record. Gaps are only allowed between the employee’s entry date and the start date of the first record.

Time constraint 1 must be used for all of the infotypes containing information that must be available at all times. This is particularly true of personal and organizational assignment data.

If a record is delimited because of time constraint, the system displays an appropriate message.

Also difficulty of fund and materials.

1.9     OPERATIONAL DEFINITION OF TERMS

Community Relations: it is a specialized arm of public relations that focuses on building mutual and profitable relationships between an organization and its host communities.

Strategies: in this study, they refer to elaborate and systematic plans that are put in place by the oil companies to resolve conflicts with their host communities. Strategy is important because the resources available to achieve these goals are usually limited. Strategy generally involves setting goals, determining actions to achieve the goals, and mobilizing resources to execute the actions. A strategy describes how the ends (goals) will be achieved by the means (resources). The senior leadership of an organization is generally tasked with determining strategy. Strategy can be intended or can emerge as a pattern of activity as the organization adapts to its environment or competes. It involves activities such as strategic planning and strategic thinking.

Conflict: it is a situation that occurs when the goals, objectives or values of competing groups- in this case oil companies and host communities in the Niger Delta- clash and result in aggression, which may not necessarily be violent (Cunningham, 1998).

Conflict resolution: Conflict resolution has been a part of human experience for centuries. Although this is factual, Burton (1993) argues that it is relatively recent in scholarly discourse. He points out that some scholars interchange “dispute” with “conflict.” According to him, settlement refers to the negotiated or arbitrated results of disputes while resolution refers to the result of a conflict situation. Hence, there is “dispute settlement” and “conflict resolution”. He, however, goes on to say that though dispute and conflict may refer to different conditions and scope of human relationships, they operate on the same principles and can be used interchangeably.

According to Wilmot & Hocker (1998), there are several modes of intervention and they include facilitation, mediation, counseling and therapy, conciliation, quasi-political procedures, informal tribunals, arbitration of different types and criminal and civil justice systems. In practice, these modes are usually combined for conflict resolution. Otite

(2001) states that conflict resolution carries out a healing function in societies. This occurs by providing the opportunity for parties involved to examine alternative pay-offs in the situation.

Niger Delta: in this study, Niger Delta refers to the part of Nigeria’s land mass that stretches in an East-West direction and extends from South West Cameroon to the Okitipupa ridge, forming an apex at the South East of the Rivers Niger and Benue confluence (Asakitikpi and Oyelaran, 2000). It includes states such as Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo and Rivers.

It is a very densely populated region sometimes called the Oil Rivers because it was once a major producer of palm oil. The area was the British Oil Rivers Protectorate from 1885 until 1893, when it was expanded and became the Niger Coast Protectorate. The delta is an oil-rich region, and has been the centre of international controversy over devastating pollution and ecocide, kleptocracy (notably by the Abacha regime), and human rights violations in which Royal Dutch Shell has been implicated.