Nigeria is one of the most abundant oil producing countries in Africa and the world, but the profits are not being seen by the poor residents of Port Harcourt.
This year's February edition of National Geographic contains a report about the dire political and environmental conditions which are now plaguing Port Harcourt, Nigeria. The cause is oil.
There's plenty of it. Nigeria's oil reserves are among the largest in the world. But government corruption, the deterioration of the water and land because of oil spills that go unchecked, and frequent militant activity have turned coastal Nigeria into a warzone.
When oil was first discovered here in 1956 things looked very promising. Nigeria joined OPEC in the 1970s and government coffers were stuffed with money. Now, this African nation has been put at the bottom of the list in the quality of life index of major oil countries by the United Nations.
A militant faction called MEND (Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta) have stepped up their attacks on oil facilities, kidnapped foreign oil employees, and have gone so far as to take control an oil rig forty miles away from land in the Gulf of Guinea.
Local fishermen in the village of Finima have had their livelihoods threatened because of construction of a natural gas plant and multiple storage tanks. This has depleted the fish population considerably near the shore and most of the fishermen would need to get out much farther into the water to catch anything. But nobody has the money to buy a boat engine powerful enough to get them there. Frequent oil spills in the Cawthorne Channel are destroying the mangrove forests (fifty thousand acres of which have disappeared in the past twenty years due to this pollution and land clearing).
Nigeria gained independence in 1960 and in the years that followed five multinational oil firms, Total,(France) Agip, (Italy) Royal Dutch Shell, ExxonMobil and Chevron (U.S.) have moved in and today there is almost five thousand miles of pipelines. The unethical tactics used by oil companies are numerous. They build roads and dredge canals without considering the impact on the environment, they pay off village leaders for the rights to drill in a specific area, and delay compensation cases in court for land purchases, often for years.
The profits collected by the oil companies are mind boggling. Most of the billions of dollars in revenue go into the pockets of government officials, who then hide it in foreign bank accounts. Very little, or no money at all is being seen by the residents of Port Harcourt. There are no paved streets, medical facilities or schools. Electricity is also very scarce.
Protests against the oil companies go back a long way. Ken Saro-Wiwa demanded more control of oil in Ogoni territory and he had more than two hundred and fifty thousand supporters. In response, the Nigerian government accused him and some of his followers of killing four members of a rival Ogoni faction. Saro-Wiwa was hanged in 1995, and his son launched a lawsuit against Shell for human rights violations because it is thought that the company was involved in his father's death.
Many think that the situation has gotten progressively worse since then. Rising tensions are hindering Nigeria's ability to supply oil to the U.S. and Europe. In a village called Oweikorogba, a recent visit by some Chinese oil prospectors raised the hopes of the the locals. They think that if oil is discovered on their land it will give them jobs, an income and a decent place to live. Only time will tell if their lives improve.
