Lagos — Reports that multi-national oil companies operating in the Niger Delta region have accumulated a whopping $50m (N7.55billion) in unpaid royalties to the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) are unpalatable to peace-loving and well-meaning Nigerians who believe in the imperative of transforming that much-abused region that generates about 80 per cent of the nation's total export earnings.

According to the NDDC's Managing Director, Chibuzor Ugwoha, who spoke in Abuja recently, this is besides other statutory returns payable in naira that the firms have also defaulted in remitting to Commission. Ugwoha's claim is corroborated by the Nigeria Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI) 2005 audit report, which indicated that the oil firms failed to remit the firms failed to remit their statutory contributions to the NDDC, representing three per cent yearly royalties.

By the NDDC Act, the Commission receives 15 per cent of its funds from the oil-producing states, three per cent from the oil companies and 50 per cent from the Niger Delta Ecological Fund. But it is unfortunate that not only have the oil multinationals failed to pay their royalties since 2005, the government, on its part has reneged on its responsibility to fund the Commission. The immediate past Olusegun Obasanjo administration had consistently refused to release about N300 billion that accrued to the Commission from the Federal Government's statutory contributions to its funding, until Obasanjo's exit from power. Yet, surprisingly, President Umaru Yar'Adua, who attempted to right some of the wrongs of his predecessor by releasing the about N14 billion Lagos State Local Councils fund withheld by Obasanjo, declared that the FG's N300 billion debt to the NDDC had 'expired'.

Given the positive commitment of the Niger Delta militants, and the region's people and even governors to the FG's ongoing amnesty programme, we strongly urge the government and the major oil firms to urgently do the right thing and save the nation another avoidable bout of crisis in the region. The facts to date regarding the activities and commitment of the international oil companies (with regard to environmental best practices, local content, relationship with host communities and now, royalties) are far from heartening. The oil firms, evidently following the footsteps of the Federal Government, has consistently shown callousness to the plight of the oil-bearing communities. This has helped to fuel the escalation of violent resistance in the region.

The oil firms have an obligation, if only to further their own long-term business interests, to pay up their debts to the NDDC; and the same applies with even greater force to the Federal and state governments. The FG, in addition, should seize the momentum of the last-minute embrace of its amnesty initiative by most of the militant kingpins, to immediately roll out its roadmap for the holistic transformation of the Niger Delta, infrastructurally and socio-economically. A "Marshall Plan" type of development blueprint for the troubled region is overdue for release and urgent implementation. Sustainable peace in the region will enhance Nigeria's export earnings from oil and gas, and create the required climate for attracting investments to the now neglected petro-chemical sector, which will produce beneficial effects in power generation and associated industries. Fisheries, marine engineering and other marine-based industries will all thrive in an environment of sustainable peace - that is, peace founded on justice. High employment statistics will result from such a vigorous boost in the region's economic activities, which will reduce the present dangerous idleness of the youth in the oil-producing areas.

The Niger Delta urgently requires massive investments in compulsory education, including adult and vocational education, re-training and upgrading of obsolete skills, and a robust confrontation of the infrastructural challenges posed by the region's peculiar terrain. This is no time, therefore, for a crucial intervention agency like the NDDC to be owed by stakeholders to the tune of billions of naira. It smacks of duplicity and sadism on the part of the government and the oil majors.

Since 1956 when oil was first discovered in commercial quantity in the region, a terrible tribute has been extracted from the Niger Delta in terms of physical, environmental and social degradation and dislocation. For about five decades thereafter, a staggering revenue of over $400 billion accrued to the nation from petroleum exports. With a deadened conscience, the Nigerian state has refused to plough back anything significant into the region, thus nurturing the militancy monster now confronting the polity. The NDDC's outstanding statutory funds must be released without further delay.