Nigeria's agony dwarfs the Gulf oil spill
John Vidal, The Observer
We reached the edge of the oil spill near the Nigerian
village of Otuegwe after a long hike through cassava plantations. Ahead of us
lay swamp. We waded into the warm tropical water and began swimming, cameras
and notebooks held above our heads. We could smell the oil long before we saw
it--the stench of garage forecourts and rotting vegetation hanging thickly in
the air.
The farther we travelled, the more nauseous it became.
Soon we were swimming in pools of light Nigerian crude, the best-quality oil in
the world. One of the many hundreds of 40-year-old pipelines that crisscross
the Niger delta had corroded and spewed oil for several months.
Forest and farmland were now covered in a sheen of
greasy oil. Drinking wells were polluted and people were distraught. No one
knew how much oil had leaked. "We lost our nets, huts and fishing
pots," said Chief Promise, village leader of Otuegwe and our guide.
"This is where we fished and farmed. We have lost our forest. We told
Shell of the spill within days, but they did nothing for six months."
That was the Niger delta a few years ago, where,
according to Nigerian academics, writers and environment groups, oil companies
have acted with such impunity and recklessness that much of the region has been
devastated by leaks.
In fact, more oil is spilled from the delta's network
of terminals, pipes, pumping stations and oil platforms every year than has
been lost in the Gulf of Mexico, the site of a major ecological catastrophe
caused by oil that has poured from a leak triggered by the explosion that
wrecked BP's Deepwater Horizon rig last month.
That disaster, which claimed the lives of 11 rig
workers, has made headlines round the world. By contrast, little information
has emerged about the damage inflicted on the Niger delta. Yet the destruction
there provides us with a far more accurate picture of the price we have to pay
for drilling oil today.
On 1 May this year a ruptured ExxonMobil pipeline in
the state of Akwa Ibom spilled more than a million gallons into the delta over
seven days before the leak was stopped. Local people demonstrated against the
company but say they were attacked by security guards. Community leaders are
now demanding $1bn in compensation for the illness and loss of livelihood they
suffered. Few expect they will succeed. In the meantime, thick balls of tar are
being washed up along the coast.
Within days of the Ibeno spill, thousands of barrels
of oil were spilled when the nearby Shell Trans Niger pipeline was attacked by
rebels. A few days after that, a large oil slick was found floating on Lake
Adibawa in Bayelsa state and another in Ogoniland. "We are faced with
incessant oil spills from rusty pipes, some of which are 40 years old,"
said Bonny Otavie, a Bayelsa MP.
With 606 oilfields, the Niger delta supplies 40% of
all the crude the United States imports and is the world capital of oil
pollution. Life expectancy in its rural communities, half of which have no
access to clean water, has fallen to little more than 40 years over the past
two generations. Locals blame the oil that pollutes their land and can scarcely
believe the contrast with the steps taken by BP and the US government to try to
stop the Gulf oil leak and to protect the Louisiana shoreline from pollution.
"If this Gulf accident had happened in Nigeria,
neither the government nor the company would have paid much attention,"
said the writer Ben Ikari, a member of the Ogoni people. "This kind of
spill happens all the time in the delta."
"The oil companies just ignore it. The lawmakers do
not care and people must live with pollution daily. The situation is now worse
than it was 30 years ago. Nothing is changing. When I see the efforts that are
being made in the US I feel a great sense of sadness at the double standards.
What they do in the US or in Europe is very different."
"We see frantic efforts being made to stop the
spill in the US," said Nnimo Bassey, Nigerian head of Friends of the Earth
International. "But in Nigeria, oil companies largely ignore their spills,
cover them up and destroy people's livelihood and environments. The Gulf spill
can be seen as a metaphor for what is happening daily in the oilfields of
Nigeria and other parts of Africa.
"This has gone on for 50 years in Nigeria. People
depend completely on the environment for their drinking water and farming and
fishing. They are amazed that the president of the US can be making speeches
daily, because in Nigeria people there would not hear a whimper," he said.
It is impossible to know how much oil is spilled in
the Niger delta each year because the companies and the government keep that
secret. However, two major independent investigations over the past four years
suggest that as much is spilled at sea, in the swamps and on land every year as
has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico so far.
According to Nigerian federal government figures,
there were more than 7,000 spills between 1970 and 2000, and there are 2,000
official major spillages sites, many going back decades, with thousands of
smaller ones still waiting to be cleared up. More than 1,000 spill cases have
been filed against Shell alone.
Worse may be to come. One industry insider, who asked
not to be named, said: "Major spills are likely to increase in the coming
years as the industry strives to extract oil from increasingly remote and
difficult terrains. Future supplies will be offshore, deeper and harder to
work. When things go wrong, it will be harder to respond."
Judith Kimerling, a professor of law and policy at the
City University of New York and author of Amazon Crude, a book about oil
development in Ecuador, said: "Spills, leaks and deliberate discharges are
happening in oilfields all over the world and very few people seem to
care."
There is an overwhelming sense that the big oil
companies act as if they are beyond the law. Bassey said: "What we
conclude from the Gulf of Mexico pollution incident is that the oil companies
are out of control."
