it's like life never changes in the niger delta

dating back to the biafra crisis, the southern region of nigeria known as the niger delta has been in turmoil. funny how that word contains the reason for the continued chaos - oil.

the area is home to the country's ethnic minority groups.

the area was once the breadbasket of the entire african continent, lush and fertile jungle and marshland.

the area is now shell oil fields, blazing fire day and night, awash in slick crude, consumed by fumes. no schools, no hospitals, no roads (only those that service shell operations.)

the really ghastly part is that this situation - complicit governments and corporations stripping the people living in the delta of any/all rights to their resources and the wealth that it generates and violently oppressing those who protest this severe injustice - has been the same for years and years and years.

I believe in my academic life I wrote three essays on the Niger Delta and this new documentary shows nothing has changed, rather the situation has merely worsened.

if you're interested, here's some background -
a national geographic special
pirates or militants???
living in oil pictures
human rights watch summary January 2008 (5p)
human rights watch report March 2008 - politics (60+p)
human rights watch report February 2008 - economics (50+p)