Oil spills on land, flaring gas, benzene contamination of aquifers and social destruction.

The beauty of the places where the mangroves flourished, forming a chained forest in which natural oases were enclosed where the local population lived in full harmony with nature and, from it, drew the sustenance for a simple life. Then, the oil came and everything changed.

In 1956, the first oil fields were discovered which, to the unsuspecting inhabitants of the areas interested in extraction, suggested a future of social prosperity with the possibility of finding work and relying on regular family economic income. 

Since 1956 in the Niger Delta, oil companies such as Shell, Total, Chevron and Eni have arrived in the Niger Delta, which have, in fact, colonized the territory without distributing work to the inhabitants who lived near the fields, as they could not offer specialized labour.

In the Niger Delta, about 2.4 million barrels per day of oil are produced,in an area of about 70,000 sq km.

If in the past people led a life supported by nature in which they lived, with the passage of time, their means of sustenance was destroyed year after year, throwing the population into misery.

Oil often escapes from pipelines, polluting soils and water, forcing the population to eat fish caught in polluted basins and to draw water for drinking and domestic use from benzene-contaminated aquifers.

Desertification and pollution of agricultural areas,caused by the dispersion of oil in land and waterways, is not the only problem facing the population. In fact, they also suffer from the phenomenon of flaring gas,despite being banned by Nigerian law.

Gas Flaring is the emission into the atmosphere of flammable gaseous residues that come to the surface along with oil, which for convenience is burned in the atmosphere, emitting substances dangerous to human health such as carbon dioxide, sulfur and nitrogen oxides, benzene toluene and xylene.

Health damage to the population can be summed up in cardiorespiratory diseases, silicosis, cancer, blood diseases, gastrointestinal disorders and leukaemias that undermine, not only the population living close to the deposits, but also that tens of kilometers away.

Although flaring gas could be recovered and reused or re-entered into the well before being released into the environment, due to processing speed and reduced production costs, the gas is disposed of in the environment with all the consequences of the case.

There are about 100 wells in the area that burn the output gas, day and night, since about 1960.

In the face of the popular exasperation that is forced to live between hunger, disease and no social advantage to have oil extraction close to home, it also suffers the disinterest of the government that does not intervene against the companies to repair the environmental damage caused by them and not even in the redistribution at the local level of a small part of the proceeds, allowing to lead a less disastrate life. On the contrary, every mention of popular riots is suppressed by the police who do not want problems with oilmen.

It also suffers from the disinterest of oil companies in the problems they themselves have caused, triggering forms of repression against episodes of desperation created by groups that attempt, by demonstration actions, to sabotage the pipelines.

Although there are about 606 active oil wells in Nigeria,which make up 80 percent of the country’s GDP, the country has remained among Africa’s poorest in 60 years, with a life expectancy of around 40 years and an unemployment rate around 75-80.