Transcription
[Music] A temperature of more than 400° C in the middle of the jungle. And then a man pours oil on a fire. The thick clouds of smoke make it almost impossible to breathe.
With the simplest technology, a few young men are refining crude oil illegally. They tell us that sometimes they produce several thousand liters of petrol a day. A simple hose pipe is meant to keep the facility from exploding.
"If we have better jobs, we will leave this one. You know, this is too dangerous for us. It's risky." About two or three times this place, uh, fire breakouts. And uh, one of the guys walking there, you can see his skin. He was caught in the fire.
They tapped the crude oil secretly from the extensive pipeline system in the Niger Delta. Life expectancy in the region is 40, 10 years below the country's average. Hundreds of these mini refineries have sprung up in the past few months alone. The police and military turn a blind eye.
"Well, this is Nigeria. With little money, you can get yourself out from that place. They know that we are suffering. We are doing this as a result of poverty caused by unemployment. They know this fact, and that is why when they, when we cry to them, they release whoever they arrested from the community."
With little money to build them in Port Harcourt, the center of the Niger Delta, managers and corrupt politicians divide the oil billions among themselves. Very little of the money ever reaches the population.
Even the region's commissioner for energy talks about the corruption. "Some of them are lazy, that's all I can say about those officials. Some of them are very lazy. They try to avoid work. When they say I'll come in by 8:00, they come at 10:00. When they're supposed to close by 4:00, they're closing by 2:00. That's the only thing I know about them. But I don't believe they're stealing money. It was their politicians, it's a different thing."
Oil seeps out of leaky pipes day and night. Nobody here is interested in international standards. Corruption and ignorance have led to unparalleled destruction to the environment in the Niger Delta. For decades, Shell pumped oil here. The company is accused of not doing enough to stop the leaks.
The situation in the fishing village of Bodo is especially dramatic. Several oil disasters have poisoned the water and destroyed the livelihood of fishermen like Abar Linus. "I'm very angry at the people responsible for all this here. There used to be enough fish for everyone. Then, because of the oil, all my nets were damaged. Besides, I can't use my boat anymore because of the oil pollution. But what infuriates me is that there's hardly anything to catch here anymore. Almost all the fish are dead."
Activist Ken Saro-Wiwa supports the villages in their fight for compensation. He says the greatest scandal is that the people are still being left to deal with the oil pollution on their own.
"Politicians have promised a better life for this people. Politicians have promised that they're going to improve the standard of living for the people. They have also promised that they're going to improve their education. But if you look at the community, you can see that the people virtually feed from hand to mouth. They have poor, and their family, their livelihoods have been destroyed, their farmlands are gone, the water is gone, and tell me, how could they possibly survive?"
In the state of Bayelsa, two hours' drive from Bodo, the oil industry burns off toxic gases. Although that's been forbidden for almost 30 years, the 250 different toxins can cause cancer, asthma, chronic bronchitis, and blood disorders. The gas could be recycled in an environmentally friendly way, but the companies would have to invest in new technologies. Open gas flaring is cheaper, but it's more damaging to the world's climate and the local residents.
They complain of coughing fits and pain. Scarcely anyone dares to speak out. "Look at me now. I have a lot of sickness, headache, and other things, receiving from the, the, the, the smoke of the oil. They treat you like animals. When they see you on the way, they use their cars and splash water upon you because you don't have like them. They are living in the complete houses, and we will toilet in the forest. Why their toilet is very neat, their toilet is even more better than your room."
Back in Port Harcourt, time and again, Shell has promised to stop open flaring, but so far, very little has happened. A manager tries to explain.
"Flaring is a specific issue that we have aggressively been addressing, and we have various, uh, flares out programs, you know, to reduce the flaring and ultimately to stop flaring altogether. The, the, uh, dates have often been shifted because we have had challenges with regards to funding some of these projects."
Last year, Shell posted profits of $31 billion worldwide. For years, these people have been demonstrating against the company, demanding that the damage finally be repaired. But according to the estimates of environmental organizations, that would cost several billion dollars.