Oil! Quite simple it sounds.Just a three letter word,but it wields such telling powers that the rich and the poor,the mighty and the mightless, the big and the tiny,and even the good and the evil,put their trust in it.Of a truth,oil is a proud and arrogant commodity.See the power and prestige oil has conferred on Akwa Ibom State,a state which without oil,could have remained a poverty stricken civil service state.The only difference between Akwa Ibom and Zamfara is oil. That’s the power of oil.
But where did oil get this power from?….automobile,of course.It is the connection between automobile and oil that has given petroleum its potency.Without the use of petrol to drive an automobile,so much will not be consumed and it will not,for sure,have a hold on the politics and economy of the world.
Come on,what offence has the black gold committed? God knows.Before oil was first discovered in this country in 1958,Nigeria lived in peace and order.The farmers were serious with their oil palm,cocoa,cassava,yam,cotton and groundnut businesses.Cattle rearing and fish farming yielded pretty good.Agriculture was sufficient.Everybody was happy:and those who where wealthy could trace their wealth to hard work,not short cuts.Eventually,oil came and things fell apart.
Behold,farmers,like the biblical Abraham,left their farms Fishermen like the professional Peter abandoned their nets.The youths basking in the euphoria of the oil came to tome to town,Nobody waned to touch dirt.Why? Life became easy yet costly.Life was easy so much so that nobody paused to ponder where oil was leading the nation to.Oil made everything possible,including the Ojukwu/Gowon led Nigerian Civil war and the Niger-Delta militant war.
Explorers,or better put exploiters,came to the south-south region of Nigeria,a Canaan hitherto full of milk and honey,to extract the oil as speedily as possible.Truly,they got the oil.But the oil,out of sheer stubbornness,would always leave its pipes just to destroy the left-over nets,kill our fishes,erode the plants and impoverish our soul. Adding pepper to injury,the oil producing companies flare toxic gases to destroy our roofs and shorten our life span.This is tyranny of the highest order!Here laid the grief and grievances of the Niger Deltans.
Now,see what oil has done.Oil has trapped Nigeria in a dance of uncertainties.it as lured Nigeria into a quagmire from which the country can’t get out without bleeding hard.Nigeria is suffocating from the tyranny of oil.
Solution? The only way out of the palaver of oil is to return to the soil.Soil is more durable and dependable than oil.Over-dependency on oil brings no joy.Nigeria for Gods sake,must make peace with the soil to avert the tyranny oil.
