This paper analyzes the disparity in global attention given to oil spills in Nigeria's Niger Delta versus the 2010 Gulf of Mexico disaster through the lens of human geography. Drawing on spatial theory and examining Nigeria's complex ethnic landscape, the author argues that geographical distance, ethnic fragmentation, linguistic diversity, and geopolitical realities create barriers to public awareness and corporate accountability. The paper demonstrates how spatial dimensions structure economic and social processes, limiting the ability of Niger Delta communities to mobilize attention despite experiencing ecological devastation equivalent to the Exxon Valdez spill annually for fifty years. It concludes that addressing the crisis requires overcoming both the spatial limitations imposed by geography and the internal ethnic conflicts that fragment Nigerian society.
The southern state of Ondo in Nigeria is part of the Niger Delta, which yields 40 percent of all the oil imported by the U.S. What is astonishing, however, is that according to Adam Nossiter of The New York Times, "The Niger Delta has endured the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez spill every year for 50 years. The oil pours out nearly every week, and some swamps are long since lifeless." As Nossiter phrases it, the fact that the Gulf Oil spill of 2010 received so much attention has some Nigerians in absolute disbelief.
While the Earth Island Journal asserts that "one of the few positives to come out of the BP gusher is a sudden awareness of the impact of offshore drilling throughout the rest of the world," such awareness does not necessarily translate into the kind of ethnic and geographical understanding needed to make oil companies like Shell more culpable in the public eye for what they have done to places like the Niger Delta. There, constant oil spills have virtually destroyed the livelihood of many.
From the standpoint of human geography, scholars debate the reason the Niger Delta receives so little notice compared to the notice given the Gulf Coast oil disaster. This paper will examine the geographic and spatial dimensions of the issue and explain why oil spills that directly affect the U.S. are cleaned up quickly while spills in Nigeria receive little if any attention at all.
To get to the root of the problem, Andrew Herod states that "space must be conceptualized as playing an important role in the structuring and outcome of social processes, for society does not function in a geographical vacuum." What this means is that spatial dimensions can seriously alter the way business is conducted as well as perceived. Shoddy business practices may be happening all over the world, but the geographical locations of those shoddy business practices can determine how—if at all—they are remedied.
Elsewhere, Herod, Ben Salt, and Ronald Cervero make the claim that education is "vital to improving the conditions of workers in the globalized economy," citing one theory that maintains that the "aim of workers' education should be to free the learner from being simply a cog in a system." Such education may be available and profitable in spatial dimensions where learning can be obtained uninterrupted and at no great cost—like in the United States. Unfortunately, such notions have difficulty taking root in the African setting.
As Chris Milton notes in his review of Peter Maas' Crude World, the problem extends beyond mere governance failures. He observes that in Equatorial Guinea—and by extension the Niger Delta—oil revenues are diverted away from environmental preservation and community development. Instead, wealth flows into luxury purchases and corrupt bank transfers, while the military is "fed, clothed, and housed by the oil companies to wage a campaign against the rebels, who are fighting against pollution and corruption in the Delta."
The pumping, refining, and stealing of oil in Nigeria has created a vicious circle of combatants from local mob forces to internationally-backed governmental troops. The losers are the locals themselves. Milton notes that Maas' proposed solution—making minerals less valuable through alternative energy—may be wishful thinking. The issue goes much deeper than finding a new source of energy. It is one of dehumanization, crass corporate greed, third-world takeovers, tribal differences, and public ignorance.
The fact that Nigeria is an entire ocean away and populated by communities that Western discourse has historically stereotyped as less powerful contributes significantly to why the Delta can be flooded with crude and destroyed daily with little to no concern from the same people who had their eyes glued to the Gulf Oil spill of 2010. Americans were directly affected then. As for what happens in the Niger Delta—what does not touch them does not hurt them.
To emphasize the fact that geography plays a massive role in the inattention granted to the plight of individuals such as those in Nigeria, Herod notes that "economic geographers have traditionally paid much greater attention to the activities of corporations and firms than they have to those of workers, whether organized or unorganized, with the result that the ways in which workers shape the production of economic landscapes have been marginalized."
Nothing seems truer when examining reports of fighting in the Niger Delta region as far back as 1999, which confirm how little attention the United States has given to the issue of oil baron exploitation in Africa. News reports describe "clashes between soldiers and local protesters" in Nigeria where "hundreds of Ijaw people were killed when soldiers opened fire in Yenagoa, capital of Nigeria's main oil-producing Bayelsa State." Some reports even allege "that the military used Shell helicopters to bomb Ijaw towns." Such events hardly suggest a situation in which education of the workers can have a stabilizing effect.
Kay Weller addresses geography as "concerned with spatial differentiation," meaning that anyone seeking to understand the problem from a geographical perspective must examine Nigeria's human geography—in other words, Nigeria's regions. Weller explains that "ethnic geography is important to an overall understanding of Nigerian human geography. One definition of an ethnic group is that of a group of people with a common language, common values and beliefs, and a common material culture."
In Nigeria, "tremendous cultural and ethnic diversity" exists, meaning that multiple languages, values, and beliefs can be found within small, relatively localized areas. Hausaland, Yorubaland, and Igboland are home to Nigeria's three largest ethnic groups. Most smaller groups have similar core territories, which they claim as their home regions. Importantly, these ethnic regions are neither static nor fixed. Prior to British colonial rule, Yorubaland and Igboland did not exist in local perception. Both regions were composed of small-scale city-states that did not have a history of political unity. During and after colonial rule, however, both Yorubas and Igbos developed a sense of regional identity. These identities change over time, but they maintain people's conceptions of a Yoruba region and an Igbo region.
The human geography of the United States is much more pronounced and formulated than in Nigeria. One common language makes communication swift and easy in the United States, while various dialects hinder the various tribes in Nigeria from organizing to draw attention to oil industry devastation in their lands. Only when journalists focus their writings on third-world devastation exemplified in the Niger Delta do Americans take notice. Yet the human geography of the oil industry is much better situated than that of Nigerian tribes—who have no public relations apparatus. Westerners might be persuaded by Shell PR campaigns, but not Nigerians, who live in the oil-swamped Delta and know the reality firsthand.
The situation in Nigeria shows no signs of improvement. In 2007, the New Internationalist reported that despite glossy public relations campaigns, Nigerians remain unimpressed. Ifieniya Festavera Lott from the Ijaw people in the Niger Delta spoke at the World Social Forum to tell the world about Shell's activities: "An oil spill flows through my river so I can't get fresh water. Gas flares give us acid rain. Shell may say that now it is socially responsible, but it has not cleaned up its act."
Even official assessments cannot be trusted. The U.N. Nigerian Report on Oil Spills is questionable at best. As Nnimmo Bassey, chair of Friends of the Earth, wrote in a press release, "The report relies more on figures produced by oil companies and Nigerian state statistics than on community testimony and organizations on the ground who work with communities."
Religious activity has much to do with the level of gender-specific involvement in Nigeria. According to Robert Dowd and Michael Hoffman, women—Christian and Muslim—are more disposed to be politically active in Nigeria if they participate in communal religion. In fact, many outspoken women have voiced their opinions of oil contamination in the Delta on record. Despite such activity, as Herod states, "space" restricts their voices from being broadcast to many ears.
Life in the Niger Delta continues to deteriorate. A 2008 study by Elijah I. Ohimain and colleagues reveals that oil companies in Nigeria "are at loss on how to manage the impacts arising from dredging activities and the concomitant heavy metal pollution arising from the poor management of contaminated sediments." Yet such information receives no byline in mainstream American media.
John Vidal offers a stark comparison: With 606 oilfields, the Niger Delta "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 U.S. government to stop the Gulf oil leak and protect the Louisiana shoreline. As Ben Ikari, a member of the Ogoni people, observes: "If this Gulf accident had happened in Nigeria, neither the government nor the company would have paid much attention. This kind of spill happens all the time in the delta."
Vidal places the blame squarely on oil companies and indifferent governments. "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 U.S., I feel a great sense of sadness at the double standards."
Not everyone has given up hope. Some groups are attempting to overcome the spatial dimensions that limit the Nigerian people from receiving attention. Hoping to capitalize on the world's current interest in the environmental impacts of the oil industry, activists in the Niger Delta have launched clever campaigns.
The most notable example was a fake Shell press release and press conference announcing an end to drilling in the Delta. The prank was orchestrated by a local Nigerian activist group—the Nigerian Justice League—that had been trained by the Yes Men, an international activist collective known for corporate satire. The ruse drew attention from hundreds of media outlets, and suddenly the question, "Did you know there's an Exxon Valdez spill in Nigeria every year?" appeared on listeners' radios and news feeds.
If such is the case, perhaps, as Herod suggests, educating the workers within the spatial dimensions of Nigeria can have an impact after all. Yet Herod also describes how transnational spatial strategies and the geography of capitalism might address the issue of international oil companies' immoderate and irresponsible drilling. Globalization has restructured the contexts within which unions operate, and "some unions have increasingly begun to think about ways of addressing the new geographic realities that it brings with it." The key may rest in the organization of labor itself.
"Decades of tribal violence and civil unrest overwhelm and fragment potential organized labor resistance movements."
Both the human geography and spatial dimensions of Nigeria help contribute to an overall lack of due attention to oil contamination in the Niger Delta. As Weller notes, the geographical regions of Nigeria consist of several tribal ethnicities, each with its own language and identity, which hinders localized organizations from developing into mainstream movements such as was witnessed in America in response to the 2010 Gulf Coast oil spill.
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