No food, no voice - Women speak from Otuasega

Instead of a bustling marketplace, locals have to sell what produce they can grow by the roadside.

>> View our slideshow of life in Otuasega

Otuasega in Kolo Creek is a small, poverty stricken community in Ogbia Local Government Area of Bayelsa State.

The community is host to a number of oil servicing companies including the Shell Petroleum Development Company. Despite its status as an oil producing community, Otuasega is seriously impoverished and things are getting worse.

Regular oil spills pour crude into farmland and into the surrounding rivers causing serious damage to the environment to the livelihood of local people.

As the crop yields decline due to continual environmental pollution, the incidence of poverty has risen as many local farmers can no longer grow enough food.

Many are lucky if they have any crops to sell at all. The women of Otuasega claim that Coco yam, a major staple in the area, does not produce as well as before the spills. They say that the plantain will still grow but shortly before maturity it will wither and die.

"The soil is not fertile due to the activities of oil companies, and the things that we plant are dying away. We cannot feed our family, it is a big problem for us, we need help."

Mrs. Mercy Benson

This is a disturbing development as it will take away the one thing the community has always had, food security. In the words of Mrs. Mercy Benson; "The soil is not fertile due to the activities of oil companies, and the things that we plant are dying away. We cannot feed our family, it is a big problem for us, we need help.''

Most of the women of the community are illiterate. They can neither read nor write and cannot express themselves easily. This situation has affected their social standing and lifestyle as they feel unable to air their views on critical community issues.

Many women in Otuasega are embarrassed by their lack of education and feel inferior because of this; "If the women of Otuasega had gone to school, they should be able to rise and talk without feeling shy, but because of lack of basic education, we cannot speak for ourselves.'' Says local woman Mrs. Thereza Godfrey.

Womens and mothers groups have been a driving force of change in the Niger Delta but in Otuasega they are being denied access to the community hall to hold their meetings. When the women want to use the hall they are often told it is not available or made to pass through various hurdles to get the keys. This mixture of gender and political bias towards the effective self-organisation of women is not helpful in terms of community empowerment and is something that SDN is helping the women to try and change.

"Last week we wanted to use the hall for a meeting, we were asked to wait for more than three hours and when we finally held the meeting, some people had gone. Since we are not meeting, the women are not united,'' explains Mrs Glory, part of the local womens group.

Of paramount importance to the women of Otuasega is the fact they have no market. This means that what food their families can grow in the polluted landscape is often left to rot away. Instead of a bustling marketplace, farmers have to place their produce by the roadside and wait hopefully for customers. Mrs Chritiana Isiki grows food that she would like to be able to sell; "For me, [the] market is our main problem because we have no place to buy and sell collectively.''

Chief Friday Aneke blames the leaders of the Niger Delta for the problems affecting oil producing communities like theirs; "If our leaders had been honest about developing oil-bearing communities, we would not have been at this lowest level of development''. He says. It is widely accepted that the lack of solutions in the Delta region are caused by the deceit and insincerity of the leaders who manage the oil revenues earmarked for development projects.

But as we see from Otuasega the root of the problems lie below the multiple layers of corruption and mismanagement of funds.

After all, the extreme environmental, social and food security issues faced by people in Otuasega stem from the oil that is poisoning their lands from leaking pipes, pumping fuel to the coastal depots and then on to Europe and the UK.

---

SDN and its partners have been working in Otuasega on community emplowerment initiatives and is helping the women of the community to organise themselves so as to get their voices heard.