The Negative Effects of Oil Spills Have on Nigeria, A letter

For example, Shell Oil, an MNC (Multi National Corporation), extracted 50% of Nigeria’s yearly crude output, and 14% of its own output from the Niger delta region (The Changing Nature of Third World Exploitation, 1995). Though a large number of the local populace was recruited by Shell to serve as the basic labor force, there has been no change in the deplorable conditions the locals were living in. Over a period of 15 years, due to massive and widespread oil spills, heavy land degradation of the alluvial soil has taken place. The locals, who come from an agriculture based society, have in effect, been deprived of their ancestral way of life, their heritage, all due to the greed driven actions of the partly

An oil spill is not just a splatter of grease, it’s an accident in which oil has come out of a ship and caused pollution, according to Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary and Thesaurus. In the film, How to Let Go of the World and Love All Things Climate Can’t Change it focus’ on this issue where the oil company came in and spilling tons of oil throughout the Amazonian Rainforest, spreading two km. The indigenous people who lived there go out there every day to help cleanup all this oil that has been spilled. Knowing the crude oil is highly dangerous when it comes in contact with the skin, the helpers are lacking proper safety equipment which can cause poisoning and burns. The community members should not be the ones cleaning up the mess this oil company has caused.

The environmental impact of an oil spill can last for decades. In 1969, an oil tanker ran aground in Buzzard's Bay Massachusetts, spilling 175,000 gallons of diesel fuel into the marine ecosystem. According to Dr. Judy McDowell and Christopher Reddy, two scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, it took about a decade for the normal inhabitants of the bay to return. What's more troubling, is that even 40 years later, soil samples still reek of diesel fuel (Guarino & Spotts, 2010, p. 2). This kind of damage can have an irreparable effect on the gulf states' economies. If it takes 10

The Niger Delta is a region of Nigeria that is very rich in crude oil and gas. Crude oil and gas make up 70% of the country 's revenue and 95% of it 's export earnings (Ezekoli, 5608). Those percentages are incredibly high and represents large amounts of money that can be found in the region. However, the people of the Niger Delta never see the wealth that comes from their natural resources. The wealth instead goes to the oil companies set up in the area as well as the pockets of a few elite government officials. The disconnect between the people of Nigeria and the oil companies and governments is incredible (Ezekoli, 5609). The effects are slum turned neighborhoods, increased poverty, and job loss. In order to improve the conflict in the Niger Delta, the government and oil companies need to allow more involvement of women and people as voters and elected officials, and create or adhere a sustainable environmental regulations plan.

     Nigeria has been a country in political turmoil for a long time. The country was created in 1914 under British colonial rule and at that time it was considered a protectorate. It was not until 1960 that Nigeria received independence from the United Kingdom. One of Nigeria's problems politically is that it has over three hundred different ethnic groups. The three largest of these are the Hausa-Fulani, Igbo, and Yoruba. At the time of the independence of Nigeria it was split up into three states with each state being under the control of one of the major ethnic groups. The natural resources of the other 297 ethnic groups were exploited for the major three groups,

With global warming and climate change, our mother earth’s deteriorating health has become a serious problem and is affecting the lives of all species, including human beings, that depend on its plentiful resources to survive. Oil, or petroleum, a nonrenewable energy source, is now running out, being also one of the major obstacles we face nowadays—the extraction and burning of oil done by human beings have been contaminating the environment, water sources, and the atmosphere. Rising prices of oil will also become a problem in the future if we continue to neglect the danger (Reese, Richard. “Oil and The Future.” Eco-Action, Dead Trees EF, 1997, www.eco-action.org/dt/oilfut.html. Accessed 2017). Thus, it is very

Oil production in Nigeria’s Niger Delta began in 1956. Ever since then, the Delta communities have recognized unrest as oil was being distributed in profitable quantities. Oil has been Nigeria’s leading export product for more than six decades. Even though, oil has given Nigeria a tremendous economic boost, nearly sixty percent of that oil production has been carried out under Shell’s regulation, and during these past six decades, there has been enormous environmental degradation because of frequent oil spills and gas flaring. This has led to a polluted fish ponds and declining growth of crops in Niger communities. Shell has personally financed Nigerian militants to insure the production of oil, and this has led to brutal murders and illegal executions of community members who tried to protest the damages that shell was creating to their environment. So why and how is Shell still operating and still committing human right crimes in Nigeria? This paper will explain why Shell has dominated Nigeria since the 1950s, how the company has damaged the lives of numerous communities, insured the production of oil to this day through militant use, and still managed to separate themselves from the many years of violence that they founded.

Over the years cases have been heard of destruction of the fertile area of Niger delta due to oil spills. The most affected area is in Nigeria where reports state that there have been more than 400 tons spills. The major reason given behind the spills is due to human mistakes. In a report provided by the national oil spills detection in Nigeria indicated that there were more than 1200 oil spill sites that had been left out by the oil companies by the year 2008 along the Niger delta. Even though the Niger delta from a front view shows the pace to good looking due to the green pastures found in the area, but in detailed review there have been severe damage inside the area since the fish that could be surviving have already died,

What has occurred in the Niger Delta is linked to its past struggles with military rule transitioning to democratic rule, which often ends in a military regime taking control nonetheless. From the start of its independence, Nigeria has slowly grown in its dependence on oil as it’s main economic revenue stream. Before the discovery of oil, the state had yam and cassava crops, palm oil, rubber, and lumbers that provided economic revenue, though modest (Jike, V.T. 2004). However once oil was found in 1956 and Independence in 1960, Nigeria has not only relinquished vast tracts of land to International Oil Companies (IOC) such as Royal Dutch Shell (later named Shell Petroleum Development Company), ExxonMobil, Chevron-Texaco, and ENI, but it has left the companies to conduct their extraction methods as they see fit (Imobighe, T. A. (n.d.); Kadafa, A.A. 2012). In 2006, the Oil Spill Intelligence Report stated, “Shell Nigeria is accused of using double standards”, referring to the outdated equipment and unethical methods Shell practices. The Niger Delta has experienced 50 years of oil spills since the beginning of oil production due to oil pipelines that are no longer in use leaking up to $10 million worth of oil a day as reported by Shell. Shell has thus been accused of using outdated and old equipment in the Delta they know they wouldn’t dare use in the other countries they operate in.

Oil Spills, their impact on the environment, and the great loss of human and marine life are a severe problem for the oil industry, one which needs to be prevented in the future. Oil production and transportation at sea has grown to inconceivable levels. Increasingly, as a society, we are having larger and more numerous oil spills which in turn cause an increase in danger for marine life and human life, even though laws and regulations regarding the extraction and transfer of oil are becoming increasingly complex and thorough.

The paper’s intent is to demonstrate that oil producing communities in Nigeria are adversely affected by oil exploration. The first part

Oil is considered to be a vital resource in the world today. Such material is used for a variety of reasons, ranging from the gas used in automobiles to the generation of electricity in one’s household. According to Congressional Digest, forty percent of the Nation’s energy comes from oil (Effects of Oil Spills on Wildlife 168). One problem that arises with the world being so dependent on this substance is oil moving through pipelines from one country to another. This problem has made the spilling of oil rather unavoidable. These spills are dangerous, for they jeopardize the well-being of innocent wildlife, our

While it is only the 11th largest global oil producer, Nigeria is one the most important countries in the oil production community. Due to high quality crude oil, potential for future oil production endeavors, accessible location to the vast Western oil market, and continuing trend of non-nationalization, Nigeria has become the largest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa. These advantages have developed Nigeria into a country entirely dependent on the production and exportation of oil. In 2007, oil encompassed 99 percent of Nigerian oil exportation earnings, making up 85 percent of the governments total revenue1. Despite 400 billion dollars in total oil revenue collected by the Nigerian government since 1970, the country faces a standard of

Evidence suggests that Nigeria’s poor oil management is due to institutional and governance reasons rather than economic mismanagement alone, and corruption and the rentier nature of the state are important part of the issue; Watts (2008) categorizes Nigeria as a “rentier petrostate”. Sala-i-Martin and Subraiman (2016) main argument in their study is that the country’s mediocre long run economic performance are due to oil waste and corruption, rather than the Dutch disease effect. Natural resources lead to rent-seeking or what they call “the voracity effect”, and more than oil itself it is poor institutional quality in the country which contributed to poor economic performance with an estimation of 0.5 percent lower

Oil spills have devastating detrimental effects, both towards humans and other animals, as well as the environment. For example, drinking water may be polluted and marine life killed, consequently lowering the quality of life in affected areas. As the quality of the environment is inextricably linked to the quality of life on Earth, it is essential to properly clean up incidents such as oil spills to protect the quality of the environment and therefore the quality of life.