6/9/2023 0 Comments The portrait thief![]() ![]() ![]() Worse, despite revenues, the Delta’s peoples have yet to benefit from the oil extracted from beneath their feet.Īs with many of Nigeria’s current problems, this issue sees its roots in the days of British colonialism, in an era when the Delta was still fertile farmland with petroleum beneath. One such spill in Shell’s Bonda oil fields released 40,000 barrels into the Atlantic Ocean, forcing 30,000 fishermen to abandon their livelihoods, and affecting 350 farming communities just like Aibakuro Warder’s.įor the people living in the region, the discovery of oil has ruined livelihoods and devastated the land and the health of residents, resulting in high rates of poverty and unrest. In the years since oil was discovered in the region, the Delta has become one of the most polluted places on Earth, with roughly 300 oil spills occurring every year. One reason for this dramatic change is the land, which beyond growing local crops, is home to a deep bed of oil and gas reserves that, since the 1970s, has made up more than 70 percent of Nigeria’s foreign revenue. Today, Warder struggles to even pay the cost of her children’s schooling with the revenue of her meager yield. Some residents, such as Aibakuro Warder, a 51-year-old mother of five, noted that before oil spills spoiled the earth, the yam harvest was bountiful, with some tubers growing up to three feet long. There is change in Nigeria’s Niger Delta: this year, farmers in the region reaped little to no harvest, a sharp contrast to the image of thirty years ago. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |