IKARAMA-OKORDIA (Nigeria) (AFP)
Martha Alfred harvested up to 20 bags of cassava a year until the day oil spilled on her small farm in southeastern Nigeria, polluting formerly green and fertile land.
The disaster, which occurred in August, was caused by an oil spill from the Anglo-Dutch company Shell in Ikarama-Okordia, in the state of Bayelsa.
"The soil has become depleted due to spills from the Shell pipeline in the area," said the 33-year-old mother of two, who told AFP that she had lost her life.
As if these misfortunes were not enough, torrential rains drowned his exploitation under water. With no choice but to abandon her activity, she now sells fish at the local market.
"Whenever I think of spills and now of floods, my heart bleeds," she said sadly and angrily. "The people from Shell came and promised to do something for me. I haven't heard from them since."
Ikarama-Okordia, which brings together several fishing and farming villages, is one of the most polluted sites in the Niger Delta, the region of Nigeria richest in oil and gas.
The pipeline that crosses the area where some 50,000 people live has suffered multiple sabotage and rebel attacks over the past 20 years. According to Shell, 21 leaks were identified there, between 2009 and 2018.
Oil companies have accused local residents or armed groups in the delta of being behind most of the incidents.
"This is not entirely true, not all incidents are due to sabotage. Sometimes they occur due to equipment failures," Morris Lamiengha, an Ikarama community leader, told AFP. .
He accuses the company of working with local entrepreneurs and youth to deliberately damage pipelines in order to gain lucrative contracts to clean up and monitor the sites.
For its part, Shell assures that it has respected its commitments in terms of cleaning and assistance to the affected communities - whatever the cause of the leaks, it is the company that must repair the damage according to Nigerian law.
- No road, no perspective -
"Shell has always assumed and will always assume its responsibilities," Bamidele Odugbesan, the group's spokesperson in Nigeria, told AFP.
"The problem we are facing is re-pollution. When we have cleaned up a site, the vandals come back to damage the facilities to steal the oil without taking into account the negative impact on the environment."
The story is the same in the entire delta region: environmental pollution, neglect, underdevelopment, poverty and frustration.
In Ogoniland, it took a report from the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP, 2011) for the government to finally start a cleanup in the region, which is expected to last around 30 years.
In Oloibiri, where crude oil was first discovered in Nigeria in 1956, the local population lives in extreme destitution. Little infrastructure, no roads, no hospitals or schools.
The Oloibiri site no longer produces and is overgrown with weeds, while locals drink and bathe in the contaminated water of the rivers.
Nigeria, Africa's leading oil producer, exports an average of two million barrels of crude per day, which accounts for 90% of the country's export earnings.
"Oil companies have destroyed the region's ecosystem through their operations," said Michael Karikpo, of the NGO Environmental Rights Action.
According to him, the main means of subsistence, agriculture and fishing, have been destroyed in an area already heavily affected by unemployment, where the majority of young people live on less than two dollars a day.
"This is why the problems related to bunkering (illegal and artisanal exploitation of oil), vandalism on oil pipelines and illegal refineries will continue in the Niger Delta," said Karikpo.
For Anyakwee Nsirimovu, a representative of the Niger Delta Civil Society Coalition, Nigeria is "sitting on a barrel of gunpowder if nothing is done to address the grievances of the inhabitants" in the oil-producing regions.
"Oil is a curse for the people," he adds. "Our situation is similar to that of someone who lives by the river but washes his hands with sputum."
© 2020 AFP