Oil spills and environmental impacts in Nigeria

¶ … Niger Delta Oil Disaster: A Case of Government Greed and Ignorance

The Niger Delta is one of the most polluted regions in the world, with more oil spilled in the area each year than the total amount of oil spilled in the recent BP Gulf of Mexico disaster. However, despite the growing issue and incalculable damage being made to the Nigerian environment on an annual basis, companies continue to allow these spills to fly under the radar -- receiving little public attention throughout the world and no cleanup. While the Niger Delta oil spills remain one of the world's most relevant environmental atrocities to date, the Nigerian government has done little to alleviate the issue at hand. Nigeria's negligence can largely be attributed to its floundering economy and economic standing on the world stage. As Nigeria has made an international pledge to achieve a position as one of the world's top 20 economies, Nigerian corporations receive little regulation as long as these respective companies continue to turn a profit. However, Nigeria's blindness on the path to economic success is being significantly hindered by their ignorance to a problem that can ultimately destroy future prospects for the country in areas far greater than the world economy.

As petroleum has largely been considered one of Nigeria's top products for economic stimulus in the country, the goal of economic domination that can be gained with such a resource has jaded many of Nigeria's tactics for handling this area of its economy, particularly environmentally. Over the past five decades, devastating oil spills in the Niger Delta by companies as world-renowned as Shell have significantly impacted the environment and continues to pose disastrous consequences. A recent UN Environment Program (UNEP) report has announced that Shell and other oil firms have systematically contaminated a 1,000 sq. km./386 sq. mile area of the Niger Delta that has had tremendously negative consequences for human health and wildlife (Vidal 1).

A three-year study by the UN has found that the clean-up itself will likely take over 30 years, and this type of figure is based on a scenario in which the Nigerian government would take a significant and proactive role in the clean-up rather than its current passivity. The study found that heavy contamination of the land and underground water sourced in the delta continues to: contaminate community drinking water with dangerous concentrations of benzene and other pollutants, contaminated soil more than five meters deep, aided to the increase in hydrocarbons present in water to a level more than 1,000 times the standard, and adversely affected the wildlife population and other natural resources found in the area (Akpomuvie 201).

Such disastrous consequences for the environment do not even begin to describe the comparative devastation that has been seen in the economy in terms of rural farming, which has long been a staple of Nigeria's own internal economy. While greedily working toward economic progress on an international stage, Nigerian higher-ups have largely forgotten the people whose livelihoods in farming have been destroyed in the areas of the oil spill. Anyanwu and Obire (2009) note that oil spills like those seen in the Niger Delta leave soil barren for years, devastating not only the resources that were present at the time of the spill, but eliminating any resources that could be reaped from the area in future years (Anyanwu and Obire 211). This notion was mirrored by a 2009 agricultural study conducted in the area of the Niger Delta, which found that the negative impact of the oil spills on agricultural production was found to, reduce crop yield, pollute the rivers for fishing, and reduce land productivity and farm income, along with the standard of living of the Nigerian people (Aviomoh, Okoh and Ojogwu 62).

The future state of the affected area continues to look bleak, especially from the outside world who is largely incapable of understanding Nigerian motivations to continue serving the oil industry in a manner that sacrifices its land and further, its people. A recent assessment from a Stockholm-based environmental journal noted the following: "International oil companies have enjoyed a cozy relationship with their partner, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and with the Nigerian government, whose coffers they fill" (Jernelov 363).