**4. CSR's backlash and the creative response from Obufia community**

The pay-as-you-go approach to CSR was adopted by Shell sometime in 1984 in Egbema. At that time, Shell offered the local youths some money to keep them off their business activities in the oilfields located within the community. This money destroyed more than it constructed. Chief Clarus Mgbe, who doubled as a traditional chief of Mgbara and a long serving employee of SPDC recounted the ripples caused by this money in these words:

*Shell gave 800,000 naira [about \$3,500.00] to the youths through Nzobi…This money caused so much trouble. The youths almost forced him out of the palace. This was because the money was not judiciously utilized. He capitalized on the [factionalized] leadership of the community. At that time, the clamour for autonomous communities factionalized the youths… The Egbma leader divided the youths into two; one group he proclaimed as belonging to oil producing communities. The other he dismissed as having no business with oil. He collected his own share of the money and gave the rest to the youth faction that he identified as belonging to oil producing communities. This caused serious trouble. There was no kind of management at all…He wanted to be the sole representative of the community. He did not want anyone there.*

Some background information will certainly do comprehension of the pertinent issues here a world of good. In response to the nationwide local government reforms in 1976, 13 different communities that identified with Egbema opted to federate under a single traditional ruler. The man, who became the traditional ruler, was Chief SNA Uzo taking the title of Nzobi 1 of Egbema. Chief Uzo remained in this position until his death in 2008.

Federating under a central authority was not purely a deliberate choice of Egbema people. Certain requirements were to be met, for any group to qualify as an autonomous community. One of such requirements was the size of the group. Most of the federating groups could not meet this requirement as separate groups. So, the motivation for the federation was one of expediency, implying that the federating groups retained most of their traditional practices. It was only the practices they held in common that were left in the custodianship and oversight of the traditional ruler. Thus, the federating groups could form separate associations, such as community students' union or community development association, independent of the traditional ruler without seriously hurting the homogeneity of the federation.

Questions regarding the need for a community development association when there is a traditional ruler can also be responded to from this point of view. This association was formed in response to the trend across local communities in the former Eastern Region at the time. Each autonomous community had its own development association commonly regarded as hometown association or union. These were generally understood as mobilizing for self-help and community development [20]. The development association may defer to the traditional ruler, but the traditional ruler can just as well ignore the association.

Their recognition by the state accords traditional rulers such privileges as 'courtesy calls', usually paid by visiting State Governors and other state officials [21]. The strong political weight—opportunity to voice their support for, or criticism of, any government policy—which such privileges place on the traditional rulers imply that those of them who are very ambitious could capitalize on these privileges to advance personal interests. This was exactly what Chief Nzobi did.

During my interview with Orams, a one-time secretary of the Obufia Town Union, I was told that the locals nicknamed Chief Nzobi 'Osama bin Laden'. They accused him of showing strong aversion for any form of confrontation even as he always insisted on having every deliberation of issues relating to the community, including those assigned to a committee within his palace. He would go to any length to push his decision on any subject irrespective of the strength of the opposition's view. Another informant called Chidi, saw him as a ruler who 'was sitting on everything meant for the community'. Chidi was once a secretary of Obufia Youth Organization.

Nevertheless, Nzobi's actions regarding the money from Shell to the youths led to the collapse of the Egbema and its experiment of federating under a single head. Invariably those actions depicted him as someone who was oblivious of the fact that his jurisdiction was a federation of 'communities'. Within such a diverse political arrangement, strong opposition to offensive moves such as the diversion of designated funds cannot be ruled out. Once people are fed up, they react. This happened to be the case as evident from the account of the emergence of Obufia from Egbema.

The foundation of what emerged as Obufia autonomous community was laid by a set of university undergraduates who claimed to have worked with some 'elders of good will'—older relatives of these students, who were willing to cooperate with them. Below is a detailed account of how the emergence evolved. According to JCA Hakot, a member of the Obufia Town Union;

*Obufia Town Union formed…April 1984, was a brainchild of Obufia students…at Port Harcourt…It was named Peoples Voice Movement (PVM). It was made up of 22 members, out of which 14 were Obufia students' union members and eight elders of good will. The PVM continued meeting regularly mainly during holidays to address the perceived anomalies [inhibiting the relationship between] SPDC [and] the people of Obufia [fed into by the] obnoxious leadership in Egbema then. [In] December 1984…it changed to Obufia Town Union and got registered with the…LGA and ministry of Local Government, Chieftaincy and Town Unions…With the registration [duly] completed…the Union went into action to address SPDC and Egbema leadership on the non-provision of basic life amenities and infrastructures to Obufia in particular, and Egbema in general. This agitation and failure of SPDC to…address the aforementioned issues raised by the Union…led to…Obufia people's revolt against SPDC…on August 6 1986. The failure of the demonstrations and negotiations…with… SPDC to agree to any particular project…orchestrated by HRH Eze SNA Uzo, Nzobi of Egbema, [coupled with] the subsequent suspension of…the secretary of the Egbema Community Development Association from the [aforementioned] negotiations, made the good people of Obufia to start in full swing the quest for independence status for the community…It was agreed unanimously in a general meeting of the Obufia Town Union that the 31st day of December, every year be set aside as Obufia Independence Anniversary day…*

From this account, it is obvious that disagreements over the manner of CSR delivery were behind the emergence of the Obufia Town Union. The weakness of this manner of reaching out to the local community as part of the company's fulfillment of their social and environmental obligations to the society manifested clearly in Egbema, where the traditional ruler politicized the oil rents accruing to his community. Getting a share of the rents in this instance was not anything being a member of the community alone could guarantee. One was expected to be loyal to the traditional ruler as well. But loyalty is supposed to be earned and not bought, and this is what

#### *Responding Creatively to Faulty Corporate Social Responsibility Practices: The Case of Nigeria's… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106249*

the Obufia agitators tried to put across to Nzobi. It is also clear that it was a group of university students that took the initiative to commence the agitation that eventually evolved into the town union. Several of them were also members of the community development association under Nzobi. What remains to be explained is how the students constructed the identity of Obufia.

Oral traditions which are now preserved in written forms, show that what is now regarded as the autonomous community of Obufia, was a construct from different histories of migration and settlement. The written version of the oral traditions, testifies to the fact that Obufia is a community that is constituted by people who migrated from different places, both from within and outside Egbema, together with the remnant of the people whose ancestors migrated from Ogee in Benin [22]. The founding settlers, Uwadi [22] further recounts, welcomed migrants from other places to settle and establish their own compounds. These sets of settlers in the area have so mixed up that it has become difficult to trace the lineage of the original settlers in the community. Thus, those who assume that they are descendants of the first settlers can as well be people who have no blood ties with the latter [22].

Nonetheless, to establish a separate autonomous community the university undergraduates along with their older relatives took advantage of the absence of the descendants of Obufia, as the founding settler was called. By establishing the connection between the deities worshiped by the founding settlers to those worshipped across the riverine Igbo, they were able to connect kindred to two main lineage lines— Meyi and Deyi. This kind of lineage formation is not an isolated case. It is also to be found among some other riverine Igbo groups such as Onitsha [23]. With this lineage formation, a constitutional arrangement by which local political offices are alternated between Ụmụmeyi (descendants of Meyi) and Ụmụdeyi (descendants of Deyi) was introduced. The community has kept faith with this arrangement which helps them to stem conflicts ever since.

What we see here is the effect of pay-as-you-go approach of CSR. Money paid to keep off youths from oil business activities snowballed into the disintegration of a federation of communities. Thanks to the ingenuity of those Obufia students and their elders, who were quick to negotiate a peaceful exit with a well crafted initiative. In the absence of such creativity, the story could have been different. When analysts insist that CSR approaches feed into the conflict in the resource extraction zone, as mentioned above [8, 9], it begins to make more sense. One might argue that the deficiencies of pay-as-you-go approach adopted in this case have been duly addressed in the improved versions of CSR approach, especially the Corporate-Community involvement approach. However serious questions have equally been raised against the latter approach.

According to Adunbi [19], the approach as obtained during the period of his study is fraught with deficiencies. First, by reshaping communities into clusters, which do not necessarily follow official state boundaries, or the notions of clan affinity, the conceptualization of identity and citizenship within these communities are arbitrarily altered. Secondly, the amount of money, which is to be made available for the implementation of the projects is hardly any subject of negotiations involving the communities. There is still serious imbalance in power relations. Thirdly, given that allocations for project implementation are usually blanket and non-negotiable, there could be an uneven development. Upland communities will receive better quality roads than communities formed around creeks. Fourthly, there is nothing in the arrangement obliging the multinationals to disclose the number of barrels of oil they produce from each community, which has to be part of the criteria for establishing

clusters [19]. Fifth, and most importantly, the local communities have no say in deciding the goal and objectives of the resource economy, either do they contribute to legal framing of the operation and production of petroleum resources.

In the end, none of the CSR approaches is reliable; neither the pay-as-you-go nor the corporate-community involvement as seen above works so well. If the community assistance/community development worked well, there would have been no need to introduce the corporate-community involvement at all. What is so common about these approaches is their democratic deficiency. Local participation in the CSR approaches is inadequate, due mainly to the dust participation as a concept raises.
