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Environmental Issues in the Niger Delta

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MSc OIL AND GAS MANAGEMENT
International Environmental Law
M28 CLS
Ivenia M. Holt

Impacts of oil pollution on the environment and wellbeing of a local indigenous community: A case study of the Ogoni people of Nigeria.
1.0 Introduction Ogoni is an ethnic group in the Niger (fig. 1) Delta area of Nigeria. It is a high oil-rich area, populated by approximately 500,000 people (Global nonviolent action database 1995). Ogoni’s who are hardworking people are farmers and fisher men, producing food not only for themselves but for most of the Niger Deltan’s (Ebeh n.d). The region has been plagued with serious environmental degradation resulting from activities of oil and gas exploration and exploitation since Shell petroleum development company discovered oil in Ogoni land in 1958 (Global nonviolent action database 1995). However, contaminated lands in this region were not only through wells and pipelines, but by gas flares which produced intense heat and chemical gas fogs that polluted nearby homes and rendered farmlands barren ( Johansen 2010). Oil exploration and production have been carried out by Shell international at Ogoniland since 1950s, but its operations were stopped in the 1990s due to disputes between Shell and the Ogoni’s (Kadafa 2012). As a result, Ogoniland has been characterized by oilfields and installations that have remained dormant, past spills, lack of maintenance, oil trapping and damages to oil infrastructure for over fifteen years without remediation (Kadafa 2012).

Figure 1: Niger Delta of Nigeria showing Ogoniland

Source: United Nations environment programme (2011).

Pollution is the contamination of air, soil or water by the release of the harmful substances (National Pollution prevention roundtable 2007). The oil and gas activities of Shell petroleum Development Company was

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