A coalition of civil society organisations under the aegis of the Nigerian Human Rights Community (NHRC) has appealed to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to end the marginalisation of the Itsekiri people in the oil and gas industry.
The coalition of 130 groups said the Itsekiri produce the largest volume of oil, compared to other ethnic nationalities but are the most marginalised in the industry.
A statement by its principal officers, Taiwo Adeleye and Dr Akande Abiola, after a week-long environmental tour of the Niger Delta, said there is a brewing discontent among the Itsekiri people over their marginalisation by successive governments.
The rights group said the Itsekiri supported Tinubu during the last general election because of his contributions to liberty and democracy in the country. The statement reads: “The marginalisation of the Itsekiri has continued and is taking an ugly dimension.
“The problem has been compounded by the annexation of Itsekiri territories and the award of the protection of oil pipelines in the Itsekiri ancestral land to elements that had in the recent past fought Itsekiri people with sophisticated weapons describing the development as ‘heartless and dangerous provocation’.”
The group described the situation as a national security threat that should be addressed to avoid a major regional crisis. It said the Itsekiris, about 1.5 million people in Delta and Edo States are beginning to see themselves as outcasts in Nigeria’s management and distribution of power, economy and political power.
The group said the exploitation of oil-producing communities is partly responsible for the unstable oil production in the country. At present, the group said, Itsekiri working in oil companies, including the Nigerian National Petroleum Development Company (NNPC), are being targeted for exclusion and marginalization from strategic positions that seem to have been reserved for particular ethnic groups from non-oil-producing states.
The statement added: “We discovered during our visit to the Niger Delta that the Itsekiris are unhappy with the Nigerian State. They are a non-violent ethnic group that is increasingly being pushed to the extreme. This development is a time bomb that should not be allowed to explode.
“There is no ethnic group that can accept what is going on in Itsekiri land. It is the worst form of exploitation and oppression. Oil companies working in the Niger Delta have also failed to live up to the expectations of the Itsekiri people. Similarly, the NNPC continues to sidetrack people of Itsekiri extraction from key positions.”
The group said since 1960, no Itsekiri person has been appointed as the minister of petroleum and that the NNPC seems to have designed a policy that ensures no Itsekiri person becomes the group managing director even though Itsekiri land represents the most potent force in Nigerian oil production quota.
The group added: “While the Itsekiri are the earliest to obtain Western education dating back to the 16th Century in the Niger Delta, offering a long tradition of producing highly educated people in various fields, the people nevertheless remain at the end of the stick in terms of strategic appointments in oil and gas industry. The Itsekiri, through the late Pa Alfred Rewane, led the campaign against military rule for the democracy being enjoyed by Nigerians today. The Itsekiri ethnic group has historically been one of the largest oil-producing communities in Nigeria and Africa.”
