“Sweet Crude” the poverty of oil
on May 14, 2008
Category: Corporate Watch, Conflict Mining/Resources, Human Rights, Niger Delta
Sandy Cioffi, director of the documentary “Sweet Crude” interviewed on Democracy Now!
In this small region of Nigeria known as the “south-south,” something huge is happening. The adverse effects of oil exploration have been unfolding in the Niger Delta for the past 50 years. Now, the people have had enough. From environmental activism to peaceful protest to stakeholder dialogs, nothing has worked. A new brand of militancy has emerged in a different kind of attempt to call attention to the desperate poverty and injustice.
Here, citizens of an oil-rich nation struggle to eat in a land that can no longer support them. The Delta’s water and soil have been fouled by the same oil production that accounts for more than 80 percent of the country’s revenue. Traditional fishing and farming livelihoods are all but gone. Potable drinking water is rare. So is electricity. With pitifully few clinics and schools, curable conditions go untreated and illiteracy is high. Families are broken up, as men die young or take off for the cities to find jobs.
The advent of militancy has brought both hope and fear to the region. People live with the constant threat of war, yet many feel that armed resistance is the only avenue left to make their voices heard……...Continued.
Links: Interactive map of Nigeria / Niger Delta
Tags:
Nigeria
Niger Delta
Oil
Shell + Chevron
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7 Comments so far
1. MJN
May 14th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
I think it’s always important to note when discussing these militant groups that while they started out in protest of oil, and continue in it, they have also become avenues for financial success whose only equal is political corruption.
They’re not just extorting money from the oil companies, they’re now also using violence or the threat of violence on Nigerian entrepreneurs and others who are making money and creating labor outside of the oil economy.
It’s become both a forceful and successful form of protest and a business that detracts from the legitimate economy.
2. Sokari
May 14th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
MJN @ what really irks me is the constant refrain about militants groups (of which I consider myself - one can be militant without engaging in violence). You use the term “they” which is such a sweeping generalisation that it has no meaning in reality. “they” are extorting money - who are “they”. This is not about “they” it is about ordinary people, poor people mostly in rural areas whose livlihood has been ruined - their farms and fishing rivers and ponds.
Those armed robbers operating in Port Harcourt and Warri are no different and should not be confused with legitimate protest or singled out as being different to armed robbers and kidnappers operating in Lagos to Abuja, to Kaduna, to Enugu to Maiduguri.
What was Nigeria’s excuse for failing to listen to the people of the Niger Delta 5, 10, 15, 20 years ago?
3. Mwangi - the Displaced African
May 15th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
I often wonder to myself, with all the wealth and abundance and access to knowledge and wisdom that a lot of these oil conglomerates have, are they really so selfish, callous and stupid as to treat the jeopardy of the environment and the lives of people on oil rich lands with such contempt and/or abandon? Or is there something I am missing?
It appears as though the same rhetoric that was used to “blanket label” all anti-colonialists and freedom fighters as savages/terrorists/thugs/hooligans/barbarians etc etc still continues to this day
Mwangi - the Displaced Africans last blog post..Stuff African People Like: Sleeping
4. Beauty
May 17th, 2008 at 10:40 am
I have a Chinua Achebe answer to “What was Nigeria’s excuse for failing to listen to the people of the Niger Delta 5, 10, 15, 20 years ago?”
Beautys last blog post..Dimeji Bankole - HARDtalk interview
5. Sokari
May 18th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
Beauty @ Chinua Achebe is a very wise man but this I dont get?
6. Beauty
May 19th, 2008 at 8:26 am
“When suffering knocks at your door and
you say there is no seat for him,
he tells you not to worry because
he has brought his own stool.”
The advent of militancy was due to failing to listen to the people of the Niger Delta 5, 10, 15, 20 years ago. The trouble began and people like OBJ wrote off the issues as “hooligans causing trouble”. The bloggers were written off as under achievers that had incomplete education. Trouble now has a comfortable leather adjustable recliner in our parlour.
Beautys last blog post..Violence against immigrants - South Africa
7. Sokari
May 19th, 2008 at 8:27 am
Beauty @ excellent!