Geographically speaking, many authorities have described the Niger Delta, an oil rich and volatile region of Nigeria as a vast system of wetlands and forests, and low lying alluvial islands and barrier reefs that sprawl across Nigeria's southernmost reaches. It serves as the discharge basin for the River Niger into the Atlantic Ocean.
The region is in the South-South geo-political zone of Nigeria, comprising nine States- Bayelsa, Rivers, Delta, Edo, Imo, Abia, Cross River, Akwa Ibom and Ondo. It produces about 95% of Nigeria’s wealth, yet it remains largely underdeveloped. Years of oil exploration have turned it into a barren wasteland with attendant consequences of environmental degradation, frequent oil spills which have polluted their waters with the people eating contaminated fish, farming on spoiled land and breathing in highly polluted water resulting in abject poverty, under development, lack of potable water, etc, all of which have provoked agitations since the days of Isaac Borro in the 60’s through Ken Saro Wiwa in the 90’s till the current raging militancy which the Nigerian Government has again and again tried to crush without success.
As well as using iron hands, the Nigerian Government has also held out an olive branch to the “warring” militants and given “carrots” which has accompanied the recent amnesty granted them. And also in the past, the Government had initiated economic and social development programmes such as Oil Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission (OMPADEC), the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) and most recently, the establishment of the Niger Delta Ministry to address the problems and redress the injustice. But none of these has met the people’s expectations and yielded Government’s desired objectives due to official corruption and poor funding.
Despite the recent gesture of government in granting the militants amnesty, culminating in the ill-advised monthly salary of N65, 000.00 to the affected militants and the planned cash incentive scheme – one per cent impact value of oil exploration fund to be disbursed directly to persons aged 18(+) in the oil producing areas of the Niger Delta, the current semblance of calm in the very flammable region is merely temporary. As long as cosmetics solutions are preferred to long lasting and probably, permanent solutions, future eruptions can yet not be ruled out.
Because of its strategic importance in the global scheme of things, we have created the NIGER DELTA WATCH to serve as a market place of ideas for all its stakeholders – the people of the Niger Delta themselves, the militants inclusive, their States and Local Governments, the Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the oil companies prospecting oil in that region of Nigeria, NGOs and the international community, so they can dialogue and debate via this medium with a view to finding lasting solutions to the seemingly insolvable problems and the trade mark eruptive tendencies of the region and keep the militants and kidnappers out of business permanently.
Vigilance therefore, pledges unbiased reports about the development efforts of the Government, both at national, States and local levels and the oil companies doing business in that region of the world to the international community. Our reports shall come in form of interviews with the key actors , special features on activities and events in which each of the stakeholders including the militants is involved .
As this is essentially a partnership venture, the principal stakeholders such as the Federal Government of Nigeria (the Presidency), States and Local Government Councils in the Niger Delta, the Ministry of the Niger Delta, oil companies such as Shell Petroleum Development Company, Chevron, Total, Agip, Nexen, Statoil, etc, the militants and concerned Niger Deltans, domiciled in Nigeria and abroad including local and international NGOs are invited to partner with us by taking up paid adverts/advertorials and tell the international community their own stories from their own viewpoints and actually showcase here their development projects for the people of the Niger Delta for the international community to see and make up their minds about the goings-on in that region.