I am outraged whenever I see young Benin boys being killed in what are described as cult clashes. As a man who attended Arinze Primary School in Benin, and someone to whom Benin has been kind, I choose to tread where others fear to go by speaking the truth as it is. Stop killing yourselves over cultism. Go to the Ikpoba River and wash your eyes so that you can see clearly.
The soil of Benin is paved with dollars and black gold. People from outside are taking what belongs to you while you kill yourselves over nothing. The Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) provides that five per cent of the operating costs of oil companies should go to the Host Community Development Trust. These contracts are denominated in dollars. Channel your strength towards securing a share of the blessings God has given you.
Go to Delta State and see communities that have been given billions of naira. Demand more. You have no idea of the enormous wealth that belongs to you. In Nigeria, you do not get what you deserve; you get what you demand. You can start now. It is never too late.
Egheyowanre’ Er’o’ Owie.
Benin is a land flowing with milk and honey, yet some young men are busy fighting over nothing in the name of cultism or over inconsequential land disputes in obscure communities, while hundreds of millions of dollars that could benefit them are ferried out of the city every month, and indeed every day. One of the largest oil and gas operations in Nigeria is located at NNPC E&P Limited (formerly NPDC) on Oko-Ogba Road, Benin City.
It is only in Benin that the Community Relations Manager of the Nigerian National Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) can come from outside Edo State. Such an anomaly would hardly happen in Port Harcourt, Warri, Yenagoa or Uyo.
The indigenes of Benin do not have a quota for employment or contracts in the oil companies and Chinese companies operating in their domain. The Ologbo Modular Refinery, located near Benin City, is the only oil project of its kind that does not have a pre-construction Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), a construction MoU, and a post-construction MoU with the host communities detailing the financial and human resource benefits due to them.
The gas that would otherwise be flared is to be converted into LPG, and supply allocations have been assigned to prospective vendors. None of those allocations has been assigned to a Benin man or an Edo indigene. A recent recruitment exercise in an oil company reportedly appointed about 34 people, but only one was a Benin man.
This issue requires technical knowledge, careful planning and substantial resources to tackle. Those benefiting from the current arrangement are organised and intentional. You must be a step ahead of them.
The Chinese companies operating here behave as though they are engaged in a form of modern-day exploitation, treating the indigenes shabbily and with impunity. There are no visible corporate social responsibility projects benefiting the host communities.
Our youths are killing themselves when they could organise into pressure groups and secure a share of the hundreds of millions, and sometimes billions, of naira leaving Benin every month and every day through those who understand and exploit the indifference of the indigenes to the opportunities that exist within their communities.
The surveillance contracts for oil facilities in the area, where personnel are well remunerated, are being handled by young men from other states, while young men in Benin continue to die daily in needless cult wars that contribute nothing to the development of the city.
My heart bleeds because I know what these young men are losing. To make matters worse, many of them are not even aware of what is happening. They should channel the same energy they expend fighting one another into demanding their rightful place within the economic space of Benin and its environs. If they do, Benin will become a better place for everyone to live, with greater economic prosperity.
About the Author
Douglas Ogbankwa, Esq., is a Co-Founder of the New Edo Movement and the President of the Benin Writers Society.
Email: douglasogbankwa@gmail.com