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Nigeria: an untold ecological disaster

By on June 18, 2010
Last May, an oil pipeline broke and four million liters have spread, over one week , soiling square kilometers of swamps. But this ecologic catastrophe had no slightest echo at all. In Nigeria, a such matter is too common. The delta of Niger, one of the largest wet zones of the world, is also the capital of oil spills.       “Down here, nothing is accurate, just a slow and permanent carelessness of crude oil exploitation…”

For its misfortune, the delta is indeed gorged with an oil of excellent quality, which allowed Nigeria to be ranked the first African oil producer, but also plunged the region into hell.
According to the U.N, more than 6800 leaks, between 1976 and 2001, poured approximately 3 million tons of oil, ruining the ecosystem and the 31 million inhabitants of the region. Amnesty International has asserted that this drama ” is the equivalent of an Exxon Valdez a year for fifty years “.
“The Nigerians of the delta almost got nothing from the 600 billion dollars income from the traded crude oil of the last half century”. They saw only the pollution which eats away their health over the years, added to the frustration and the poverty of the local communities which fuel the violence and create several armed groups, like the Movement of Emancipation of the Delta of Niger (MEND), the most organised and the most powerful of the militias, which threats regularly Shell and the government.

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