How Oil Companies Spark Disputes in Nigeria: The Case of Energia and Ozegbe of Ogume

Abstract

The role that oil companies have come to play in their host families in the process of tapping oil has come up for close scrutiny in this study. So much of the social instability and disequilibrium that have been experienced in the host families is traceable to the methodologies that the oil companies have used in governing their operations within the host communities. This study which adopts the doctrinal method surveys and interrogates the circumstances in which one of the fiercest land disputes in Ogbole Ogume in Ndokwa West Local Government Area, Delta State was sparked by the appearance of Energia Nig. Ltd in the Ogume-Emu space. The dispute brought into collision course, the Ossai Ogboso Onah and Umu-Ozegbe families and in the process, dragged in Ogbole, Okololi, Obodougwa and Emu communities into one of the most pernicious native wars upon the Ukwuani space. This study is circumscribed within the facts that arose in NWACC/46/2012 Moses Asuai Onowu & 2Ors v. Onyekachi Ossai & 3Ors which was filed before the Ndokwa West Area Customary Court holden at Utagba-Ogbe, kwale. It went on appeal before the Delta State Customary Court of Appeal, Cable Point, Asaba as Appeal No: DCCA/28A/2016 Moses Asuai Onowu & 2Ors v. Onyekachi Ossai & 3Ors and eventual ended up presently at the Court of Appeal, Asaba as Appeal No: CA/AS/265/2016 Onyekachi Ossai v. Moses Asuai Onowu & 2Ors before Justices Ignatius Igwe Aguba, Abimbola Osargue Obaseki-Adejumo and Misitura Bolaji-Yusuff (JJCA) delivering the lead judgment. The parties mentioned in this study are not fictitious as such attempt shall be made to focus more on the facts than the personages. The reasons that gave rise to the dispute shall be highlighted more than the natural persons and communities involved. It is noted that even though Energia Nig. Ltd was not made a party in the dispute, its role was palpable and the influence it wielded against the rightful owners of the land in dispute was also touchable. The subterranean influence it had over the decision making process at the various stages of the dispute was dominant even though it was not openly acknowledged by the Judges and the parties. The study finds that oil companies are indictable for sparking off disputes in Nigeria. They seem to regale in it. They seem to set one brother against the other and while the litigation runs through the tortuous layers of courts in Nigeria up to the Supreme Court, they gain firm control over the subject matter (res) of the litigation and tap the resources to their hearts’ content and neutralize the parties in dispute. They use ‘divide and rule’ and sometimes plot the elimination of whole communities in order for mindless exploitation of mineral resources to take place.