THE CURSE OF OIL; THE UNSPOKEN ECOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL DEVASTATION IN THE NIGER DELTA REGION OF SOUTHERN NIGERIA
Ferdinand Daminabo and Owajionyi Frank
Department of Architecture, Rivers State
University of Science and Technology Npkolu, Port Harcourt, Nigeria
E-mail: ferdydaminabo@yahoo.com
Abstract: In his 2006 State of Union address, the former US President, Gorge W. Bush described America’s severe case of oil addiction. 50 miles off the coast of Louisiana, and four years later, a massive explosion occurs on the 20th of April 2010 on Transocean Deepwater Horizon rig spilling 210,000 gallons of crude every 24 hours into the sea sparking off a massive clean up with an estimated $20 billion escrow fund by shell to tackle the menace; the worst environmental disaster in US history. However, in the Niger Delta region an ecological and environmental nightmare is occurring with little or no intervention by Shell or government with total devastation to ecology and the environment with communities sacked and economic means destroyed. The Department of Petroleum Resources estimated 1.89 million barrels of petroleum were spilled into the Niger Delta between 1976 and 1996 out of a total of 2.4 million barrels spilled in 4,835 incidents (approximately 220 thousand cubic metres). A UNDP report states that there have been a total of 6,817 oil spills between 1976 and 2001, which account for a loss of three million barrels of oil, of which more than 70% was not recovered 69% of these spills occurred off-shore, a quarter was in swamps and 6% spilled on land. Some spills are caused by sabotage, however most are due to poor maintenance by oil companies such as Shell in a vast wetland of about 20,000 Km2 comprising of 40 ethnic groups. This paper seeks to bring to a sharp focus the plight of devastated centres far from the Gulf of Mexico to global attention and the need to promote the use of alternative and renewable sources of energy instead of concentration in the use of fossils. While the developed countries with their relatively small population have produced most of the carbon dioxide which produces global climate change, they also have the benefits from the production of carbon dioxide and the resources to protect themselves from the consequences of the resulting climate change. The developing countries, on the other hand, with their large and rapidly growing populations, have less responsibility for causing global climate change, have received fewer benefits from the production of carbon dioxide, and have fewer resources to protect themselves from the consequences of the resulting climate change, a scenario that plays out in oil exploration and exploitation as in the Niger Delta and like Mexico requires global attention.
Keyword: Oil, Environment, Niger Delta, Nigeria