Decade Blogs - Tolu Oloruntoba - Royalties at the end of a river

Decade Blogs

In Royalties, for my decade of blogging, Tolu Oloruntoba looks at a source of constant conflict in Nigeria from the history linked to an explorer who perished far from home to those who for exploitation perish in their own lands.

Blog - To Celebrate My Decade of Blogging

We are left with questions about rights; the rights of ownership in conflict with the rights to exploit without which the resource is a meaningless deposit with much potential yet undiscovered or wasted, so is the capacity we have to express our thoughts, some written and others left unknown how do you determine the royalties between expression and silence?.

Tolu Oloruntoba uses the Twitter handle @ToluOloruntoba, I guess his royalty check is in the post. Thank you.

Who owns the oil river
and the carbonaceous secrets of the Delta?
Why, the guys upriver, of course,
in silenced Sahara marshes,
saving in these banks for others to take;
Adamawas eaten by the river rising, oily;
And poor old Mungo,
at the end of his Niger at last,
in disillusioned increments we cremate, in pistons,
with forgotten insurrections and dynasties,
hunters, hunted, fishers and fish
writing themselves into strata of future,
beneath our feet.
You didn’t know?
It ends in fire.

Postscript

1. Geography teaches us about the millennia of deposits it really takes to create crude oil, thousands of feet down. Who, then, in our case, should really get Nigerian oil royalties? The Niger Delta, Federal Government, or all the highlands and places bypassed and collected from? At any rate, crude oil, like most other fossil fuels, is a legacy of bygone eras. Those who left it to us are long gone. It’s a pity we have to be so human in our squabbles to share it. One also wonders what we are laying down now, and what will be left of us, millennia hence.

2. Mungo Park, the Scottish explorer who died seeking the source of the Niger, is buried at Jebba. One can imagine how the circle of life would have brought him, eventually, to the end of his tragically shortened journey.

3. I have followed Uncle Akin’s blog for at least five of his last ten years of blogging. Here’s to many more, if only (we’re selfish, I know) to enjoy his sensitivity, cracking wit and depth of conviction. It has been an honour to glean from his uniquely fertile mind, and be moved by his thoughts, sense of justice, and bravery in the face of truth, triumph or tragedy. We cannot pay him enough, in glowing words or royalties J, for the bolstering of our conscience, and deposits into our soul.

Between London and Ipswich without passing out

In London incognito

I can imagine that friends, cousins and relations would be cross with me visiting London and not informing them – I have reasons, which might not sound valid to them, but are essential for me.

The last time I was in the UK, I informed so many people and got so swamped that it was impossible for me to get anything done talk less of spending quality time with all these lovely people.

This time, the ones who know are so far out of town that the obligatory visit would not be exacted on the little time one has.

Ma’am and I this morning

So, I spent the morning reviewing the passing out parade of Prince William with the Queen by my side, sometimes one has to step out to grace royal meetings, even Ms. Kate Middleton’s hat was well-worn as it crossed my mind that if she tried to appear more glamorous than her prospective step-mother in-law she might accidentally prick her finger on a spinning-wheel as one does and a hundred years would pass in the bliss of being the 21^st Century Sleeping Beauty.

Though, that is an apt reference considering the Prince could not exceed the 2 guest quota to the dinner celebrating his passing-out, my having rescinded a place did not mean Ms. Middleton could step up to that plate – such is life with the Firm.

Ipswich Town going down

One piece of news pervading the headlines in the UK concerns Ipswich, at one time in my life, I died in Ipswich for 2 years – it is my opinion you cannot live there – times when I tried to make friends the prospects ended up being hostile.

In fact, I slept over at one such “friend’s” place having worked most of the evening helping to recover data, just before 3:00AM the next morning, an armed response team broke down the door and entered the building with assault weapons, I could have been on the set of Lethal Weapon VI; the day before he had threatened his business partner with whom he has disagreements with a possible gun attack.

That put paid of trying to make friends in Ipswich, you make one and you are in a mysterious world of fear and terror, ever to loath all moments – that is just my experience.

Cardinal Wolsey, the catholic cardinal who could not arrange a divorce for Henry VIII bequeath some things to Ipswich, Ipswich is definitely an old town, Chaucer, martyrs and witch-burning in nearby Manningtree a charter that dates back to 1200.

The Suffolk Strangler

So, 5 women who probably were prostitutes and had drug dependency problems have been found murdered and dumped in rivers and fields around Ipswich and there is the possibility of another missing woman, who has been found safe and well.

Somehow, if anyone is missing for more than 5 minutes, panic first and think after, that is the pall of fear that fill the townspeople with irrational anxiety.

Not to talk of just one new opportunity to play up xenophobia as some now suspect a Polish builder who drives a Be My Wife (the irony of seeing prostitutes) – BMW – might have been sowing his wild oats and turned Jack the Ripper – err – the Suffolk Strangler, a good distraction till the facts are better gathered.

In all, if I have nothing to contribute to improving the reputation of Ipswich, I might as well end here – what a place, what a tragedy.