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"CRY, MY BELOVED UGBORODO" A Diary of a Painful Visit to Itsekiri Homeland Made Desolate By Oil Pollution and Inter-Ethnic Conflict By Oritsegbemi O. Omatete, PhD with INTRODUCTORY EDITORIAL NOTES from Peter P. Ekeh, PhD
Biographical Introduction of Dr. Oritsegbemi O. Omatete By any significant measure, Dr. Oritsegbemi Omatete is an accomplished man. Born in a pristine Itsekiri community of Ugborodo, deep in Nigeria's Niger Delta, during the middle of British colonialism in Nigeria, he had the best education available to Nigerian youngsters in the nineteen forties and fifties. He attended the prestigious Government College, Ughelli, which was available to the most competitive boys in the colonial educational system. That enabled him to win a slot in 1961 in a new scholarship program, called African Scholarship Program of American Universities (ASPAU), that was designed by the US-Kennedy administration for young African men and women to study in the United States. Omatete studied at Princeton University for his undergraduate and Masters degrees in Chemical Engineering and, then, obtained a Master of Public Affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton. He did his graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where he had his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering.
Dr. Omatete returned to Nigeria in the early nineteen seventies, teaching at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, and University of Lagos, whose programs of Chemical Engineering he helped to develop. While teaching in these celebrated Nigerian universities, Omatete was involved in the affairs of his native Ugborodo, serving at one time as the Chairman of the Ugborodo Community Land Trust. Dr. Omatete returned to the United States in the late 1980s and currently works at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Popularly known as Omats, he is regarded by many in the Itsekiri and Nigerian communities in the United States as an elder statesman, offering wise counsel and help to various organizations. He has served as the Chairman of the Old Boys' Association of Ughelli Government College in the United States.
It is against the background of such achievements that the painful events narrated by Dr. Omatete in his diary of a visit to his birthplace of Ugborodo should be weighed. It has been devastated from the pollution of oil exploration and the inter-ethnic conflict that it instigated. But Omatete's agony is much more than the sordid affair of oil pollution. The name of his native Ugborodo is being erased from existence, now supplanted by a nick name given by the Portuguese during the Slave Trade to a neighbouring river which they called ESCRAVOS, meaning slaves.
The absence of any Nigeria's governmental authority, Federal or State, in the oil-producing territories in the Niger Delta has allowed the oil companies free hand to do whatever they like. They are literally above the law. On their own, they now call a whole district in Nigeria's Delta State by an insulting name of slaves. Dr. Omatete's diary is heart-breaking for those who hail from the Niger Delta, because its story of oil pollution and devastation of the environment is repeated in many more places. But this one is unique because of the audacity of the oil companies that now have virtually changed the name of a whole district of the Niger Delta from its native and ancient name of UGBORODO to ESCRAVOS, slaves.
Escravos and "The Republic of Chevron" The Sunday New York Times Magazine of July 4, 1999, carried an explosive feature on the Niger Delta. Bearing the provocative title of "Deep in The Republic Of Chevron," Norimitsu Onishi's article had the markings and tone of early European imperial encounters with African communities at the turn of the nineteenth century. It talked down on the "natives" of the Niger Delta, a pristine world that Norimitsu Onishi describes as "the most inhospitable territory on earth." Unfortunately, it also has oil, plenty of petroleum oil, that Chevron thinks it must mine.
Norrimitsu Onishi accompanied Leonard Hutto, "the superintendent of Chevron's operations in the eastern Niger Delta" on the tour of his domain from above in his helicopter, coming down from time to time to meet his natives, most probably aware that his actions and utterances would be read by New York Times audience. Our writer and Chevron's chieftain left their readers with two glaring impressions. First, there was an absence of government in the territories in which Chevron operated in the Niger Delta.
Chevron was therefore compelled to undertake the burden of satisfying the natives of the Niger Delta, a view that is akin to Rudyard Kipling's infamous concept of the " White Man's burden ." This was the implicit justification for naming the region "The Republic of Chevron" in Norrimitsu Onishi's featured article. Chevron's Leonard Hutto also left us with another irritating impression. This agent of corporate greed told the world what he thought of Niger Deltans: "they're all greedy."
It is this last accusation of greedy Deltans that has irritated Environmental Rights Action [ERA], Nigeria's premier environment devotees, and quite a few non-Nigerian supporters of the Niger Delta's endangered environment. In their angry rebuttal " DIARY: Deep in the Diabolical Lies of the Republic of Chevron ," they marshalled evidence to show that Chevron has contributed to the impoverishment and misery of the Niger Delta. But even they would not deny that the "Diabolical ... Republic of Chevron" exists only because there is an absence of an effective government that cares about the welfare and even the integrity and traditions of Niger Deltans. Dr. Oritsegbemi O. Omatete's campaign for the restoration of the name of his native homeland testifies to the appalling absence of Nigeria's governmental authority in the Niger Delta. That failure of government now threatens the elementary right of Nigerians to name theirlands according to the traditions and wishes of the people who own them.
There is impressive evidence that the name ESCRAVOS has been imposed on Ugborodo, probably because it is easier and more romantic for the oil chieftains to pronounce the Portuguese name. A web site exists in the internet whose URL address is http://www.escravos.com/ . Click at it and it takes you to "Escravos Oil Terminal." That page carries the following fascinating map of ports in West Africa, with Escravos in red. Behind this web site, which you will get to when you click at "Edit Frame," is the following information: "escravos.com is a dedicated service to provide all the links and information on Escravos, located in Nigeria, West Africa. Escravos is an oil terminal lying on a shore of Gulf of Guinea."
This web site is apparently owned by OIL.com . It is OIL.com that has provided the aggravating information about the lands of the Itsekiri, which they know as UGBORODO. It is painful that the insulting name of ESCRAVOS (Slaves) River, now marketed by OIL.com, has appropriated the lands of a major Nigerian ethnic group in the Niger Delta.
That Dr. Omatete's fears are well grounded may be seen in the contents of a flamboyant announcement of November 5, 2001, of a contract given by Chevron to Foster Wheeler Ltd. Its banner says: "Foster Wheeler Awarded Contract for Escravos Gas-to-Liquids Project." Forgotten is the name of Ugborodo by which, for centuries, the Itsekiri have known the land on which Chevron's facilities lie. Indeed, Chevron has aggressively canvassed the name ESCRAVOS for its facilities. In a promotional web page , Chevron now subordinates Ugborodo to ESCRAVOS. It says that Chevron's "operational headquarters is at the Escravos Terminal which has all the facilities of a small but comfortable community. One of such facilities is a well equipped and staffed industrial clinic which provides round-the-clock medical services for the workers. The Escravos operation is hosted by about 7 villages which make up the Ugborodo and Ugboegungun Communities with a population of about 50,000 people, the majority of whom are fishermen maintaining a largely rural lifestyle." This promotion celebrates the fact that Chevron "operates a joint venture with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC)." Now, this corporation is "owned" by the Federal Government of Nigeria!
Does the Nigerian Government care whether the all-powerful multinational oil companies change the name of UGBORODO to ESCRAVOS? A leading Nigerian newspaper, the Lagos Vanguard , narrates the story of a visit by Nigerian legislators to Ugborodo. With a revealing title of " Ugborodo: Hell in a paradise, " Vanguard (Sunday 26th August, 2001) says it well: "Ugborodo community is like the proverbial goose laying the golden eggs but governments and the oil companies appear only interested in the black gold the area is endowed with, even if the people perish." Indeed, the Nigerian government does not seem to bother whether Ugborodo's name perishes. The Vanguard report says, now, that Ugborodo "is located at Escravos, a Portuguese word for slaves."
Dr. Oritsegbemi Omatete's Campaign Dr. Omatete's campaign is two-fold. First, the name of Escravos should be expunged from Nigerian geographical expressions. Nigerians and their Governments should be ashamed that three centuries after the end of the Slave Trade, an insulting nick-name of ESCRAVOS, that is slaves, which was foisted by the Portuguese on an impacted river, should still exist in respectable Nigerian documents.
Dr. Omatete's second ground for his campaign is more alarming. A new group of powerful foreign traders is now spreading the name of ESCRAVOS, slaves, to cover the lands of a free people who know their ancestral lands by its ancient name of UGBORODO. The point of Dr. Omatete's campaign is simple. He puts it powerfully: This much all sons and daughters of the greater Ugborodo must request immediately. Give us back our name and our identity. Why is an oil terminal or a gas plant or an airstrip or any other installation on our land being called Escravos, the Slaves? Please stop this humiliation and degradation. Whatever it takes, change the names to Ugborodo now. All freedom-loving people must back up Dr. Omatete and other sons and daughters of the greater Ugborodo in their struggle to reclaim their ancestral name of UGBORODO against the arrogance of multinational oil companies and against the indifference of the Nigerian Government.
Please read Dr. Omatete's diary below and then think of what you can do to help. At a minimum, write to Chief James Ibori , the Governor, and other officials, of Nigeria's Delta State in which Ugborodo (defiled by Chevron as ESCRAVOS, slaves) is a community. You may also want to write to President Olusegun Obasanjo , Head of Nigeria's Federal Government. Ms. Temi Harriman is the member of Nigeria's Federal House of Representatives from the "Warri district" in which Ugborodo is situated. Ugborodo is her legislative constituency. Add to this list Senator David Dafinone , President of Union of Niger Delta, an organization whose mandate is to fight for justice for the Niger Delta vis-a-vis the Nigerian Federation. Tell them your views on this matter.
January 2002.
SAMPLE LETTER Dear Rep. Harriman: We believe that you have an obligation to do something about Dr. Omatete's campaign that is outlined below. It is a Nigerian tragedy about which those who call themselves patriots should worry. But Ugborodo is in in your constituency. We trust that Dr. Omatete's campaign has a meaning that is immediate to you. Please do all you can to mount a campaign at the National Assembly to (a) change the insulting Portuguese name of River Escravos (Slaves) and (b) to stop extending the name of River Escravos (Slaves) to Ugborodo. We hope you will see important value in this campaign. Sincerely, Professor Peter P. Ekeh State University of New York at Buffalo
PLEASE READ DR. ORITSEGBEMI OMATETE'S DIARY THAT FOLLOWS. http://waado.org/Environment/PetrolPolution/Ugborodo_Omatete.htm
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