Environmental Rights Action (Friends of the Earth, Nigeria) have published a new Field Report about new smoldering oil spills despoiling farmland and causing conflict, published Friday, 04 February 2011.

Field Report #255:Agip’s endless spills in Emago-Kugbo, Edema and Otuabagi

The spill and fire occurred on the 22nd of January, 2011. Agip only succeeded in putting out the fire about 5 days after the incident. But as you can see, the fire is not completely off, you can still see some smoldering spots even now. It has not only destroyed farmlands and farms, our water in the bush and creek has been affected. Besides, as we go along you will notice several snails that have been wasted by the oil spill/fire. Animals in the environment have been chased far away too. Apart from what you have seen here if you go to our community river you will weep for us. The oil spill has spread to the river, our only source of drinking, bathing, washing and all other things we do with water” -Winfred Olaghodien

GPS Coordinates: Elev: 0m, N 04°41.982’,E 006°25.305’ [December, 2010 spill/fire]

Elev: 5m, N04°42.784’, E 006°25.569’ [January, 2011 spill/fire point]
Elev:­3m, N04°41.571’, E006°27.263’ [First place where the Crude oil from Oloibiri oil Fields was shipped out]

INTRODUCTION:

Community people in Emago-Kugbo, Edema and Otuabagi are involved in logging, carving and farming as means of livelihood. The people of Emago-Kugbo are administratively situated in Abua-Odual Local Government Area of Rivers State while Edema and Otuabagi are in Bayelsa State. The tell tale signs that their livelihoods have been negatively impacted were observed when ERA field monitors visited following a spill and fire from Agip’s facility that they host. There were the columns of thick clouds of smoke coming from bush that was observed to be burning. The communities also share one thing in common: An old, ungraded road. This road which also has some dilapidated bridges was the only access when Shell constructed Oloibiri Oil Field, the first oil well where crude oil was discovered in commercial quantity in 1957.

Crude oil delivery pipelines were constructed to link Emago-Kugbo waterside jetty from where it was exported in the 1950s and 1960s. Right now, only by foot, motor bikes or Four-Wheel drive cars like Hilux that visitors can make use of the road.

When ERA’s field monitors observed the latest thick column of smoke rising in the environment effort was made to confirm the cause. It was confirmed that there was a very recent oil spill and related fire in the environment. This prompted the visit by ERA on the above dates to ascertain the situation of the environment and hear from the people. ERA’s field monitors saw some Agip personnel and contractors leaving the site on 29th January,2011 with, fire extinguishers, equipment used for clamping and accessing the spill point[ Swamp buggy]. Youths from the three communities mentioned above were also seen at the site. This was along Agip’s 24 inch pipeline that traverses the communities’ environment. Some The inaccessibility of the spill site necessitated a follow up visit on the 1st of February, 2011 to Emago-Kugbo.

See the full field report here.

Exxon Nigerian Unit Oil Spill Caused by Corrosion (Update1)

From an article posted on Bloomberg Business Week:

(Updates with comment from agency in third paragraph.)

By Dulue Mbachu

June 4 (Bloomberg) — An oil spill that occurred in fields operated by Exxon Mobil Corp.’s Nigerian unit last month was caused by corrosion to pipelines, the country’s National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency said.

The pipeline links Exxon Mobil’s Usan and Idoho offshore production platforms to its Qua Iboe crude export terminal, Idris Musa, head of the oil spill and detection department of the agency, said in an interview in the capital, Abuja, today.

“Mobil agreed that some 232 barrels of crude were spilled” from the pipeline between May 1 and May 4, Musa said. “It’s clear it wasn’t sabotage,” he said, citing the outcome of a joint investigation by his agency, Exxon Mobil officials and representatives of the state oil company and other regulatory agencies.

Read the rest of the article here.

Video: “People & Power — Crude Amnesty”

JINN ally Social Action worked with Al Jazeera English on this informative public affairs piece which starts and ends with a critical look at the implementation of the Nigerian government’s amnesty program with former militants. But we think you will find it especially interesting from minute ten onwards.

Starting around minute ten, the reporter meets with a Shell spokesperson regarding oil spills in a village where Shell is producing. She covers oil spills and listens to the company’s explanation for the cause of the spill and then embarks on her own investigation which is quite revealing. Do take a look!

JINN ally on the ground in the Niger Delta, Environmental Rights Action shared this report about a Chevron spill that polluted a river and destroyed fish farms.

ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS ACTION (ERA) / FRIENDS OF THE EARTH NIGERIA (FoEN)

214 Uselu – Lagos Road, P.O.Box 10577, Benin city, Nigeria.

Tel/Fax +234 52 880619 e-mail: eraction@eraction.org website: www.eraction.org

FIELD REPORT # 241

Subject: Chevron spill pollutes river, destroys fish farms

Location: Ekpan in Uvwie Local Government Area of Delta State

Date of visit: 13th August, 2010

Reported by Murphy Akiri

INTRODUCTION

Following a Save Our Souls (SOS) from members of the United Ufuoma Fish Farmers Association in Ekpan, Uvwie Local Government Area of Delta State, ERA/FoEN monitor visited the community on Friday 13th August 2010 to verify reports of impacts of an oil spill that polluted the Ekpan River and fish farms that depend on the river.

Ekpan is one of the communities that make up Effurun town in Uvwie LGA.

Though ERA/FoEN monitor could not have audience with the chairman of the fish farmers because he was away to Asaba to meet with key government officials on the development, monitor was able to speak with three other members of the exco.

They are Mr. Edefe (Secretary) Mr Fischer (PRO) and Mr Chris Okwechime, the Financial Secretary.

Testimonies of Community Folks

Pastor Chris Okwechime, Financial Secretary, United Ufuoma Fish Farm.

United Ufuoma Fish Farm is a cluster of five groups which are Aghadaga Fish Farm, Ugboroke Fish Farm, new layout fish farm, DDPA fish farm and Ufuoma Fish Farm these five groups make up United Ufuoma fish farm. United Ufuoma fish farm is registered with Cooperate Affair Commissions in Abuja.

United Ufuoma fish farm has 7000 fish ponds with between 2000 and 2500 fishes per fish pond. We are individuals from different occupations; there are Doctors, Lawyers, Engineer, commercial motorcycle riders and Pensioners etc. Some come in the morning to feed the fish and go some in the evening while others stay all day here to look after the fish. The farm is all individual effort although we get some loans and assistance from the Government but it’s all personal effort.

On July 22nd at about 4pm we had low tide so I started to perceiving diesel. Unknowingly I started yelling and asking who had spilled diesel knowing full in the fish farm. I was thinking that one of the generators had caused it only for me to look and saw the flow from the river with the spill. I called out to those around and we had to start blocking the pipes of each pond to avoid more entering.

I had to inform the BOT Chairman Joshua Ughere who called the Delta Broadcasting Service (DBS) to video the area. We scooped over 25-liters of diesel from our ponds. It was not until one of our members who happens a commercial motor cycle rider (okada) came with the information that a tug boat sunk at the Chevron jetty that we knew the source of the spill that destroyed our ponds. This spill happened on the 22 July and today is 13th day of August and Chevron has not visited our ponds to see the damage caused by its spill. The waterways is heavily guarded by the Nigerian military men and going there one could be killed and called a militant. The Commissioner for Environment, Dr. Bibobra Bello Orubebe was refused entrance into Chevron yard and asked to come back in two weeks to be allowed in to see the sunken tug boat. The Deputy Governor, Professor Amos Utuama visited and saw with his eyes the damages done by Chevron. This is over 3weeks after the spill and Chevron is yet to visit our farms to see the damages or send relief materials. We borrowed money from banks, obtained government loans and our fish are dying daily. The government and well-meaning people should come to our aid. The government said we should not sell any of the fish but how do we keep up with the demand? People come all the way from Bayelsa State, Edo State to buy. How do we survive?

Mrs Adigho Elizabeth, Fish farmer

I have two fish ponds here at the farm and since after the spill on the July 22, the next day I had to move the fishes from the pond and transferred then into another fresh pond just to save my fish from the spill. But 2days after the spill my fishes start to die. Since then it had always been 4 to 10 fishes a day. I had to buy antibiotics of over five thousand naira as against 400naira for their treatment and still this lost. I had over 2,500 fish but after the spill was noticed I had 1300 in one and 1200 in another. In the past when a fish dies it’s normally not more than two for the season but now we have between 10 to 20 or more a day. My fishes are 4 months old and its N500 (five hundred naira) a kilo so you can imagine my loss.

Mrs. Comfort Hausa, Fish farmer

I have 10 fish ponds here and have so far lost over 2,500 fishes in the space of two weeks with as much as 100 deaths per day. I am always here at the farm because I earn my living here. At about 4pm on that Thursday I was still at the farm when the shout came that we should all block the pipes. I had to jump in to block pond after pond the other but the spill came so fast and affected our ponds before we could close all. I bailed out almost 4-liters from my fish ponds; I borrowed money from the bank to farm and now with so much lost I am not encouraged to even feed the fish left anymore.

ERA DEMANDS

• Chevron should be made to urgently clean up the spill.

• Chevron should be compelled to take responsibility of the spill.

• Chevron should be made to send relief materials to the farmer

• Compensation should be paid to the affected farmers.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

• Send letters to Chevron offices demanding that they clean up the spill in Ekpan River

• Demand that they pay adequate compensation to fish farmers.

• Send copies of your letters to news media near to you and also share on social networks

Chevron Address

Chevron Nigeria Limited

2 Chevron Drive, Lekki Peninsula

Private Mail Bag 12825

Lagos, Nigeria

Telephone: +23.4.1.277-2222

JINN ally on the ground in the Niger Delta, Environmental Rights Action shared this report about an ExxonMobil spill that dislodged Ibeno fishermen and where protesting women were harassed.

ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS ACTION (ERA) / FRIENDS OF THE EARTH, NIGERIA (FoEN)

214 Uselu – Lagos road, P.O.Box 10577, Benin city, Nigeria.

Tel/Fax +234 52 880619 e-mail: eraction@eraction.org website: www.eraction.org

SPECIAL FIELD REPORT # 234

Subject: ExxonMobil Spill Dislodges Ibeno Fishermen, Protesting Women harassed

Location: Iwuo-Okpom, Ibeno Local Government Area, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria.

Date: 21 JUNE 2010

Reported by: Kentebe Ebiaridor

INTRODUCTION

The operational base of the American oil giant ExxonMobil producing company in Nigeria is located in Iwuo-Okpom community in Ibeno Local Government Area, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. The company has flares both offshore and onshore in this rich fishing community. Community people are mainly fisher folks.

Four spills have been recorded here in the last 6 months: December 4, 2009, March 24, May 1 and June 21, 2010 . The community laments the irresponsible attitude of ExxonMobil in handling the issues of spills. They allege that each time a spill occurred Mobil claims it is “water release” and so they do nothing about the incident and also do no pay compensations for damage to the environment and local livelihoods.

When ERA monitors visited it was learnt that the recent spills occurred as a result of pipeline damage at the offshore Qua Iboe oil fields.

EXXON’S RESPONSE AND THE PEOPLE’S PLIGHT

The oil company sprayed chemical dispersants (by the brand name Teepol) from helicopters over the slick. This is said to have sunk the plods of crude to the bottom of the sea thereby potentially damaging aquatic lives.

The fishermen complain that has a result of the incessant spills they now have to go as far as Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea waters to get a good catch. They spend a lot on gasoline and the catch does not pay for their financial outlays. They are also exposed to dangers from sea pirates and rough seas and hostile military from neighbouring countries. They often have to fly the flags of the three countries (Nigeria, Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea) to avoid harassments from the military of the states. To have an eventful journey the fishermen will have to fly the flags at the same time to avoid harassments on the waterways.

TESTIMONIES FROM THE COMMUNITIES

Dr Okon Akpanowo (Patron, Artisanal Fishermen Association), Ibeno Local Government Area;

Mobil came to this community about 30 years ago. On arrival they did not discuss anything with the people of the community. They started oil exploration. They started to flare gas. We did not confront them on the pollution they pose to our environment. We as an association expected Mobil to come to the fishermen and explain to us that by virtue of the type of work they do, they will share the sea with us and their type of job will also not disrupt our own activities. We really tolerated Mobil right from inception, which I may term as a dark age.

Right from the 70’s we have been having several spills. We are still experiencing spillage in so many fields and the negative impacts have been severe. Before ExxonMobil came here we had a rich diversity of fish. We also had a lot of mangrove trees all around our creeks. We had oysters, periwinkles, crayfish and crabs. This was a very rich zone of fishing.

It is unfortunate that the oil that has spilled in has wiped off all these wealth that nature gave to us here. Normally, when you come in as a guest, what we offer to you here is the fish; you don’t buy fish from an Ibeno person whenever you pay him a visit. That is now history.

Mobil has not done anything to show or appreciate us for all the time they have stayed here. I am proud to say that Mobil has never recorded any attack or trouble from this community since their arrival. Mobil operates on the basis of apartheid here. In the Bible the people we know that are so much hard-hearted were the Pharaohs of Egypt. ExxonMobil must be from the family of the Pharaohs and we don’t want the Pharaohs in our land.

We are embarking on a campaign that the federal government should take away their certificates of operation. We have recorded and are still recording so many sicknesses in the hospitals and in the clinics. Many people are lying there critically ill and some have died from all types of deadly diseases that came with the oil industry to this area.

Now if you look at us here, you see these houses around – our fishermen built them from the sweat of their brows, not with money from Mobil. Now this heritage is threatened.

On the 3rd June 2010, when they had the oil spill they use helicopter to spray chemicals over the whole place. The crude oil sank down directly to the seabed. These sorts of actions kill our fishes and force us to travel to Cameroon and other countries to fish. We risk arrest in those countries. We are defenseless, exposed. In November 2009 I spent over N200, 000 to bail out one person from Cameroonian captivity. They seized all the fishing accessories, arrested 15 fishermen. We had to N200, 000 to secure the release of each of the 15 fishermen. They were given names that that they are pirates.

Sometimes our nets get entangled on ExxonMobil’s pipelines. Mobil has never sat with the fishermen to negotiate about their operations. We were fishing here before oil exploration came here. The fishermen are the rightful owners of the sea. We will fight this injustice. We are dragging this matter to court and the world must hear of what ExxonMobil does here. Enough is enough.

HRH Obong (Dr) Effiong B. Archianga, The Udammung 1 of Ibenoland:

The oil from our territory is what has been sustaining Nigeria. We have lost our sons and daughters and our parents here on a daily bases. You also see that a lot of erosion menace and we have lost so many acres of land as a result of Mobil operation.

I will take you round my house and you will see a lot of cracks on the walls of my house as a result of gas flaring. You can hardly see a man of 70 – 80 years of age living today because the gas flaring. My people suffer from poor eyesight from all these obnoxious practices we see on a daily bases. ExxonMobil is killing us and taking the oil at our expense. Our water is highly contaminated and our water boreholes are highly contaminated. Those who can afford depend on bottled water. Others drink the polluted water and suffer from all kinds of water-borne diseases.

In 1998 Ibeno had a spill both onshore and offshore. After a long battle with Mobil, they compensated us with N10, 000 each, which is a far cry from what we are seeing today in the USA where there is an ongoing spill. President Barrack Obama reacted that the plight of the people must surely be redeemed. Our leaders do not respond like that here. In 2000 there were serious spills and Mobil called it “water release.” In 2002 there was another spill and they again called it “water release.” Same thing happened in 2003.

Deaconess Affiong, Vice President of Ibeno Women Voice.

We the women, after seeing all these suffering occurring year after year and seeing that the reason for all our suffering is right in front of us, we started to protest. It has been happening and nothing is being done to the community, so we agreed to demonstrate peacefully against this unacceptable situation.

We sat at ExxonMobil’s gate for a whole day but no ExxonMobil official came to speak to us. They sent their soldiers and security men to come and harass us. The pushed down our canopies under which we sat. The canopies were pushed down on many women and they sustained injuries. All we want is for ExxonMobil to stop polluting our environment and to compensate us for the damages. One particular woman that was injured was taken to hospital. We have spent a lot of money since the first week of May treating and feeding the woman with her five children. ExxonMobil has not contacted us but rather they even send soldiers to embarrass us on roads.

If I take you to my house you will see empty deep freezers. I normally buy fresh fish to store and sell. Now there is no fish because of the spills. Because of the spills our fishermen have to go far to avoid catching poisoned fish. The community has been experiencing strange fishes which was later discovered to be poisoned fish.

They attempted to clean the spill and they employed some community persons. ExxonMobil said there is no spill, but they called some persons to come and clean the spill. So there is spill. They paid people to mob the spill, but when it’s time for compensation they say it is “water release.”

ERA DEMANDS:

1. ExxonMobil should declare the total amount of oil spewed into the sea and be transparent about it.

2. ExxonMobil should declare what chemicals they used in dispersing the spill and also carry out a thorough clean up.

3. Relevant agencies of government should live up to their responsibility and not only demand, but ensure that oil companies act responsibly and promptly to oil spill disasters.

4. Government should compel oil companies such as ExxonMobil to replace their aged and faulty pipelines and equipment.

5. ExxonMobil should pay adequate compensation to the communities and individuals impacted by their incessant spills in the area.

6. An immediate ban on new offshore oil exploration and drilling in Nigeria.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

1. Send letters to ExxonMobil offices demanding that they clean up their spills, admit to the correct amount spilled

2. Demand that they clean up the polluted environment, including detoxifying the seas.

3. Demand that they pay adequate compensations.

4. Send copies of your letters to news media near to you and also share on social networks

Since April 20, 2010, a new level of awareness of the impacts of oil operations gripped the world when the Deepwater Horizon began spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

Communities in the Niger Delta have endured many of the effects that loom large over the future of the Gulf of Mexico — waters contaminated with crude oil; fish populations in serious decline; people wondering how to support their families and themselves following the loss of their livelihood.

Many media outlets have recognized the common experiences in the Gulf and the Niger Delta. A collection of articles and videos (below) provides much-needed attention to the Niger Delta and reckless, toxic effects of oil operations there.

CBS News article, 7/20/2010, Paying the Price of Coexistence with Big Oil:

“If you live on the Gulf Coast, welcome to the real world of oil — and just know that you’re not alone. In the Niger Delta and the Ecuadorian Amazon, among other places, your emerging hell has been the living hell of local populations for decades.

Even as I was visiting those distant and exotic spill locales via book, article, and YouTube, you were going through your very public nightmare. Three federal appeals court judges with financial and other ties to big oil were rejecting the Obama administration’s proposed drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico. Pollution from the BP spill there was seeping into Lake Pontchartrain, north of New Orleans.

Clean-up crews were discovering that a once-over of beaches isn’t nearly enough: somehow, the oil just keeps reappearing. Endangered sea turtles and other creatures were being burnt alive in swaths of ocean (“burn fields”) ignited by BP to “contain” its catastrophe. The lives and livelihoods of fishermen and oyster-shuckers were being destroyed. Disease warnings were being issued to Gulf residents and alarming toxin levels were beginning to be found in clean-up workers.

None of this would surprise inhabitants of either the Niger Delta or the Amazon rain forest. Despite the Santa Barbara oil spill of 1969 and the Exxon Valdez in 1989, Americans are only now starting to wake up to the fate that, for half a century, has befallen the Delta and the Amazon, both ecosystems at least as rich and varied as the Gulf of Mexico.

The Niger Delta region, which faces the Atlantic in southern Nigeria, is the world’s third largest wetland. As with shrimp and oysters in the Gulf, so its mangrove forests, described as “rain forests by the sea,” shelter all sorts of crustaceans. The Amazon rain forest, the Earth’s greatest nurturer of biodiversity, covers more than two billion square miles and provides this planet with about 20% of its oxygen. We are, in other words, talking about the despolation-by-oil not of bleak backlands, but of some of this planet’s greatest natural treasures.

Flaming Mangroves

Consider Goi, a village in the Niger Delta. It is located on the banks of a river whose tides used to bring in daily offerings of lobsters and fish. Goi’s fishermen would cast their nets into the water and simply let them swell with the harvest. Unfortunately, the village was located close to one of the Delta’s many pipelines. Six years ago, there was a major spill into the river; the oil caught fire and spread.

Nnimo Bassey, Nigerian head of Friends of the Earth, International, visited soon after. “What I saw” he reported in a recent radio interview, “was just a sea of crude, burnt out mangroves, and burnt out fishponds beside the river… All the houses close to the river were burnt… It was like a place that had been set on fire in a situation of battle, of war. The people were completely devastated.”

Nigeria’s biggest oil producer, Royal Dutch Shell, insisted that it cleaned up the village, but Bassey just laughs. “One thing about oil incidents: you cannot hide them. The evidence is there for anybody to see. This was in 2004; I’ve been there two times this year. The devastation is still virtually as fresh as it was then. You can still see the oil sheen on the river. You can see the mangroves that were burnt, they’ve not recovered. You can see the fish ponds that were destroyed.

You can see the fishing nets and boats that were burnt. They’re all there. There’s no signs of any clean-up.”

[Read the rest of the article here.]

Newsweek article, 7/18/2010, Oil’s Shame in Africa:

It was hard to believe BP when it announced oil had stopped gushing into the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday, July 15. It had taken 87 days. There was relief but little jubilation: it will take many years to clean the shores and the birds, and for the sea to begin to repair itself from the onslaught of poisonous oil. Surely we can no longer call it a “spill”—it seems too light and trite a word.

What’s even more troubling is that in Nigeria, the country that has arguably suffered most from oil drilling, oil “accidents”—large and small—occur almost weekly, and we hear little about it. A lethal combination of sloppiness, corruption, weak regulation, and lack of accountability has meant that each year since the 1960s, there has been a spill the size of the Exxon Valdez’s into the Niger Delta. Large purple slicks cover once fertile fields, and rivers are clogged with oil leaked decades ago. It has been called the “black tide”: a stain of thick, gooey oil that has oozed over vast tracts of land and poisoned the air for millions of Africans. In some areas fish and birds have disappeared: the swamps are silent.

Americans consume a quarter of the world’s oil—and 10 percent of the oil we consume comes from Nigeria. Why are we not worried and angry about this? Or at least demanding global accountability from companies we support? Especially now that we can see how destructive it is for those who depend on the sea for their livelihood, how foul the impact is, and how devastating the results of poor decisions and ill-equipped response teams are.

Many Nigerians watched, amazed, as Americans berated BP for the Deepwater Horizon spill, then saw progress: our president visited the site and demanded immediate action and compensation. Not so in Africa. According to a group of independent experts, between 9 million and 13 million barrels of oil have been spilled in the Niger Delta since drilling began in 1958. Cleanups have been halfhearted, and compensation has been paltry. The Nigerian government estimates that 7,000 “spills,” large and small, occurred between 1970 and 2000. Locals complain of sore eyes, breathing problems, and lesions on their skin. It’s sickening stuff: a 2009 Amnesty International report found many have lost basic human rights—health, access to food, clean water, and an ability to work. Today about 2,000 oil-polluted sites still need cleaning up.

[Read the rest of the article here.]

CNN video, 6/30/10, Nigeria’s Oil Spill Crisis:

CNN article, 6/30/10, Nigerians angry at oil pollution double standards

Niger Delta, Nigeria (CNN) — Nigeria’s Niger Delta is one of the most oil-polluted places on the planet with more than 6,800 recorded oil spills, accounting for anywhere from 9 million to 13 million barrels of oil spilled, according to activist groups.

But occurring over the 50 years since oil production began in the Delta, this environmental disaster has never received the attention that is now being paid to the oil-spill catastrophe hitting the U.S. Gulf coast.

“The whole world is trembling and even the president of America had to do a personal visit to the site. The U.S. will have put serious measures in place to stop such situations happening in the future,” said Ken Tebe — a local environmental activist who is visibly shaken by what he regards as a double standard.

“It’s funny because we’ve been dealing with this problem for 50 years. I even heard BP will pay $20 billion in damages (for the U.S. spill). When will such hope come to the Niger Delta?” Tebe asked.

The U.S. imports about eight percent of its oil from Nigeria. That is nearly half of Nigeria’s daily oil production and makes Nigeria the fifth-largest exporter of oil to the United States.

[Read the rest of the article here.]

AP article, 7/4/10, Gulf spill a familiar story in oil-soaked Nigeria

By JON GAMBRELL (AP), IWUO-OKPOM, Nigeria — The brown spots run like a trail of blood down the deserted coastline near this fishing village. Just underneath a handful of sand lies spilled oil.

Oil powers this West African nation’s economy but is killing its southern shores. Villagers here say the spillage regularly washes ashore, ruining their fishing nets and meager livelihoods. Children whose parents can’t afford school fees pass the time flipping bottle caps into tin cans.

While the world is transfixed by the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, oil spills have become a part of everyday life during the 50 years that foreign firms have been pumping out Nigeria’s easily refined fuel. Environmentalists estimate as much as 550 million gallons of oil have poured into the Niger River Delta during that time — at a rate roughly comparable to one Exxon Valdez disaster per year.

Black crude stains the coasts of the Niger Delta, a region of swamps, mangroves and creeks almost the size of South Carolina or Portugal. But who is responsible, and who should clean up? The answers are as murky as the fouled waters.

“They pay when they spill in their own country. All those oil companies come from white-man countries,” said Samuel Ayadi, a pastor and fishermen’s representative. “In our country now, they leave the fishermen in pain.”

[Read the rest of the story here.]

New York Times article, 6/16/10, Far From Gulf, a Spill Scourge 5 Decades Old

BODO, Nigeria — Big oil spills are no longer news in this vast, tropical land. The Niger Delta, where the wealth underground is out of all proportion with the poverty on the surface, has endured the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez spill every year for 50 years by some estimates. The oil pours out nearly every week, and some swamps are long since lifeless. A boy playing by Bodo Creek in Bodo, Nigeria. As many as 546 million gallons of oil spilled into the Niger Delta over the last five decades, experts said. The Niger Delta region contains fragile wetlands.

Perhaps no place on earth has been as battered by oil, experts say, leaving residents here astonished at the nonstop attention paid to the gusher half a world away in the Gulf of Mexico. It was only a few weeks ago, they say, that a burst pipe belonging to Royal Dutch Shell in the mangroves was finally shut after flowing for two months: now nothing living moves in a black-and-brown world once teeming with shrimp and crab.

Not far away, there is still black crude on Gio Creek from an April spill, and just across the state line in Akwa Ibom the fishermen curse their oil-blackened nets, doubly useless in a barren sea buffeted by a spill from an offshore Exxon Mobil pipe in May that lasted for weeks.

The oil spews from rusted and aging pipes, unchecked by what analysts say is ineffectual or collusive regulation, and abetted by deficient maintenance and sabotage. In the face of this black tide is an infrequent protest — soldiers guarding an Exxon Mobil site beat women who were demonstrating last month, according to witnesses — but mostly resentful resignation.

Small children swim in the polluted estuary here, fishermen take their skiffs out ever farther — “There’s nothing we can catch here,” said Pius Doron, perched anxiously over his boat — and market women trudge through oily streams. “There is Shell oil on my body,” said Hannah Baage, emerging from Gio Creek with a machete to cut the cassava stalks balanced on her head.

That the Gulf of Mexico disaster has transfixed a country and president they so admire is a matter of wonder for people here, living among the palm-fringed estuaries in conditions as abject as any in Nigeria, according to the United Nations. Though their region contributes nearly 80 percent of the government’s revenue, they have hardly benefited from it; life expectancy is the lowest in Nigeria.

[Read the rest of the article here.]

Voice of America, 6/10/10, BP Oil Spill Brings New Attention to Nigeria’s Many Spills

by Nico Colombant

The massive BP oil spill and cleanup in the Gulf of Mexico are bringing renewed attention to the many spills taking place in Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta region. Activists in the United States say environmentalists in Nigeria should seize current attention on the problem to get Nigeria’s government and oil companies to clean up in the Niger Delta as well.

The editor of the Washington-based Africa Focus Bulletin website, William Minter, recently posted research that has been done on Niger Delta oil spills under the heading, ‘US/Nigeria, By Way of Comparison’.

“There are estimated to be several thousand spills, smaller spills a year, but they add up in the Niger Delta. I think the difference is just that attention gets paid when it happens close to the United States, when it is a big dramatic incident and there is immediate political pressure on the company and on the government at all levels to do something about it,” he said.

Research by the World Conservation Union and Nigerian government agencies indicate that on average every year over the past 50 years the oil spilled in Nigeria has been equivalent to the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska.

That spill was estimated at about 250,000 barrels.

The BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico is estimated to have reached three times the amount of the Exxon Valdez spill.

The coordinator of the San Francisco-based Justice in Nigeria Now advocacy group Abby Rubinson hopes current attention on spills will eventually bring a similar response in Nigeria. “The conversations that people have here in the United States about how it is going to affect tourism and fishermen in the Gulf are going to have to find a new livelihood, pictures of the birds and fish covered in oil, all those things, it has been happening in Nigeria for the past 50 years. I mean if there are measures that work here, if there are things that the government is doing, that the oil companies are doing, that results in proper clean up here, they should be doing the same thing in Nigeria,” Rubinson said.

What also worries activists like Rubinson is that in Nigeria as well as other parts of West Africa, deepwater drilling at below 15-hundred meters is significant. “The oil is further away, deeper and it is new technology or new situations. The likelihood that something will go wrong is higher. It is harder to respond when the situation is so far offshore and so deep. So if this is any indication of what happened here, I cannot imagine it would be any better in Nigeria,” Rubinson said.

The BP explosion took place at deep levels where lots of drilling is expected in the years ahead in the Gulf of Guinea.

Minter says Nigerian environmentalists should use the Internet to make their case. He says the Ushahidi website which was established in Kenya to track post-election violence would be a good model.

[Read the rest of the article here.]

International Herald Tribune Op-Ed, 6/4/10, The Oil Spills We Don’t Hear About

The disastrous BP oil spill is now believed to be the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.

Even worse than Exxon Valdez. Exxon Valdez stirs up strong memories. Who can forget the images of birds covered in black oil slick? Imagine an Exxon Valdez happening every year for 50 years. Pretty unimaginable.

Yet, this is what residents of Nigeria’s oil-producing Niger Delta have been living with for the last 50 years.

Experts estimate that some 13 million barrels of oil have been spilt in the Niger Delta since oil exploration began in 1958. This is the equivalent of one Exxon Valdez every year for 50 years.

Although the Obama administration has come under much criticism for not responding quickly enough, nor adequately, to the BP oil spill, there is no denying that top government officials, including the president himself, have felt compelled to speak about the spill and to insist that BP will be held accountable.

How differently things play out in Nigeria. Not only does the Nigerian government usually not bother to issue statements, it never feels compelled to decry such spills.

Even more striking, perhaps, is the very different ways in which the international media deals with oil spills. Of course, it is entirely appropriate that the U.S. media have been giving constant coverage to the BP Gulf spill.

But it is not just the U.S. media that have been covering the Gulf disaster with great dedication. Media around the world are covering the Gulf oil spill in a way that not even the Nigerian media covers oil spills in Nigeria.

I would be willing to bet that even residents of the smallest Nigerian villages have heard about the Gulf oil spill. By contrast, I know few people in the United States who have heard about the oil spills in the Niger Delta. Yet Nigeria is among the top five suppliers of oil to the U.S.

The Niger Delta, which is home to more than 30 million people and is considered one of the world’s most important ecosystems, produces almost all of Nigeria’s foreign exchange earnings.

Dead fish and oily water are part of daily life for Niger Delta residents, as are gas flares. Some middle-aged Niger Delta residents have never had a night of total darkness. There is a law against gas flaring in Nigeria, but it continues to be widely breached.

Oil companies operate in Nigeria with little or no oversight from the government. It must be noted that the government has part ownership in the subsidiaries of all the oil multinationals which operate in Nigeria.

A year ago, Amnesty International published a report, “Petroleum, Pollution and Poverty in the Niger Delta.” The report focused on Royal Dutch Shell because Shell is by far the largest operator in the Delta. According to the Oil Spill Intelligence Report, a 10-year study commissioned by Greenpeace, although Shell operates in more than 100 countries, 40 percent of all its oil spills happen in Nigeria. That’s simply staggering.

[Read the rest of the article here.]

The Observer [UK], 5/30/10, Nigeria’s agony dwarfs the Gulf oil spill. The US and Europe ignore it

The Deepwater Horizon disaster caused headlines around the world, yet the people who live in the Niger delta have had to live with environmental catastrophes for decades

by John Vidal

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.

This point was backed by Williams Mkpa, a community leader in Ibeno: “Oil companies do not value our life; they want us to all die. In the past two years, we have experienced 10 oil spills and fishermen can no longer sustain their families. It is not tolerable.”

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.”

[Read the rest of the article here.]

AOL News, 5/23/10, Nigerian Spills Make Valdez Look Like Drop in Bucket

Now a month old, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill still dominates the headlines, with politicians, pundits and ordinary people debating who’s to blame and wondering if it will eclipse the Exxon Valdez as the worst spill in U.S. history.

Meanwhile, Nigeria reportedly leaks as much oil as the Valdez — which spewed nearly 11 million gallons of crude into Alaskan waters in 1989 — every year, with little attention paid.

A top 10 oil exporter with proven reserves of 36 billion barrels, Nigeria today also ranks among the world’s worst in petroleum safety. According to reports, last year alone the West African nation had more than 2,000 active spills.

Indeed, a half century of oil exploration — and, experts say, exploitation — has earned the Niger Delta a dubious distinction: Environmentalists call it the most polluted ecosystem on Earth.

Concerns about offshore drilling have intensified in light of the Gulf Coast spill, with President Barack Obama ordering a slow-down in new drilling while the accident’s causes are investigated. Sensing an opening, a group of environmental and human rights activists this week released a hoax announcement claiming that Shell Oil had ordered a halt to its offshore operations in Nigeria.

Members of the Nigerian Justice League said their prank, timed to coincide with Shell’s annual general meeting in the Hague, was meant to shine a light on Big Oil’s role in damaging the Niger Delta region — and triggering an increasingly violent atmosphere on the ground.

“Shell’s operations in the delta have helped transform that area into the world’s most polluted ecosystem, which has in turn resulted in a human rights catastrophe,” said Christopher Francis, one of the Nigerian Justice League organizers.

No Hands Are Clean

Experts say that while Big Oil is not blameless, Nigeria’s abysmal petroleum record in fact stems from an explosive mix of politics, weak regulation and corruption.

Oil production in Nigeria began in earnest during the 1950s, when the British discovered reserves in the delta, near Port Harcourt. Initially profits were split 50-50 between the colonial government and Shell, which the government had awarded a monopoly on mineral recovery. By the 1960s, though, a number of other oil companies had arrived on the scene, including Gulf, Mobil and Texaco.

Decades of messy oil exploration have since despoiled the delta environment, depriving the local population of its traditional livelihood: fishing. Experts say this has prompted the migration of many locals into surrounding communities populated by other ethnic groups, where they inevitably compete for land and resources, destabilizing the political landscape.

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