The problem of current pipeline
vandalism may be a mixture of ethno-political angst, but I will contend
it is mainly driven by a sense of economic alienation. Most Niger Delta communities from where oil is
produced have nothing positive to show for decades of oil production from their
lands. If some elements want to blow up the installations why would they care?
Pollution? The lands are already polluted.
Most folks are rational
economic beings. When they have a vested interest in an economic activity they
are highly unlikely to sabotage it.
This has been tested in
communities in the Niger Delta. In an operation that was prone to sabotage, the
gas was used to provide 24-hour electricity to the impact communities. Once the
community got used to regular power supply (unlike the rest of the country),
and understood that it was only possible as long as the field was in
production, they became custodians of the field's uptime. In fact, whenever
there was downtime for maintenance reasons they wanted to know the schedule for
how quickly production was going to be brought back up.
The moral of this story is
that Nigeria needs leaders at all levels who can think creatively in solving
our problems. There is no problem which if you apply the necessary brain power
to that a solution would not be found.
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