21 September, 2009
Meeting in Lagos, Nigeria, on 15 September, ICEM’s Sub-Sahara African Regional Organisation (SSARO) called for greater security measures to be taken to protect energy workers in the Niger Delta. With representatives from ICEM’s two Nigerian affiliates, NUPENG and PENGASSAN present and hosting the meeting, the committee noted that the region has not known peace since oil reserves were first extracted 50 years ago.
The committee differentiated between community and labour groups genuinely seeking career opportunities for the indigenous people of the region and a stop to environmental degradation, and gangs of thugs using kidnappings and ransoms to enrich themselves. SSARO acknowledged that Nigeria President Umaru Yar’Adua is correct in calling on global energy companies to halt purchases of bunkered oil from unsavory types, whose only interest is trading cash for weaponry.
The regional committee, chaired by Rayford Mbulu, President of the Mineworkers’ Union of Zambia, also gave approval to the Nigerian government’s offer of amnesty to militants who come forward and lay down their arms. It urged the main militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), to extend its unilateral ceasefire indefinitely.
Rayford Mbulu
The committee concluded the Niger Delta debate by identifying the main causes of civil unrest, which has caused cutbacks in production of both oil and gas. They include: a shortage of skill-building, training, and job opportunities by multinational energy companies for people of the region; rampant use of casualisation regarding labour by both local suppliers and multinationals; uneven revenue distribution; environmental degradation; and political marginalization, both at the federal level and within some states of the Niger Delta region.
In other business taken up by SSARO, trade union leaders of Africa called attention to the climate change issue, saying current widespread flooding in many parts of West Africa, including Ghana, Benin, Niger, Senegal, and Burkina Faso, is a direct result of climate change. The committee said such flooding will cause serious famine in parts of West Africa, and called on the governments of Africa to be prepared to deal with the resulting human devastation.
The ICEM’s African regional grouping resolved to bring pressure against global mining and energy giant BHP for its use of replacement workers in a legal South African dispute between the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and BHP at the company’s Hozatel manganese mine in Northern Cape State. SSARO also took up the strike by members of the United Steelworkers (USW) in Canada against the Brazilian mining company Vale, and passed a resolution to intervene on mining investment by the Brazilian company in Africa. More on that is here.