"“It is a paradox that the current oil spill in the Mexican Gulf is attracting so much outcry from the American public and leadership but an American oil company is doing worse damage and poisoning the lives of hundreds of millions of Nigerians who depend on fish as the cheapest source of protein and nobody is talking about it...” - Rev. Samuel Ayadi
Dear friends,
For all of the hype about British Petroleum's oil spill in the Gulf, why is it that we have not heard a peep about US compabies like Shell, in the recent past, as well as Exxon/Mobil - a company that is currently responsible for a great oil spill in Nigeria that's going on at this very moment. Moreover, why are North Americans so perturbed about what's happening in the Gulf, while US companues ravage Africa soil and cause vast amounts of deaths from oil polution?
As one man said jusr last month, "The oil companies just ignore it. The lawmakers do not care and people must live with pollution daily. The situation is now worse than it was 30 years ago. Nothing is changing. When I see the efforts that are being made in the US I feel a great sense of sadness at the double standards. What they do in the US or in Europe is very different...We see frantic efforts being made to stop the spill in the US," said Nnimo Bassey, Nigerian head of Friends of the Earth International.
Another Nigerian man, Beb Ikari, a member of the Ogoni people said, "But in Nigeria, oil companies largely ignore their spills, cover them up and destroy people's livelihood and environments. The Gulf spill can be seen as a metaphor for what is happening daily in the oilfields of Nigeria and other parts of Africa." (see "Nigeria's agony dwarfs the Gulf oil spill. The US and Europe ignore it." ( see http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/30/oil-spills-nigeria-niger-delta-shell ) As I wrote earlier this month on a blog post called "Yes, Marvin sang "Mercy, Mercy, Me", but it's not just about BP (originally posted 6/10/10)"
Still, what is even worse, regarding all of this mess is: there's never any consideration, much less talk, about cleaning up spills around Africa, whenever or wherever they occur. What's that all about?
In any case, please peruse an article from the very reputable Nigerian Website called SaharaReporters.com on the link that is directly below my name..
Long live African peoples - here and abroad!!!
G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.saharareporters.com/real-news/frontpage-slideshow/6244-exxonmobil-oil-spill-in-niger-delta-exposes-nigerians-to-poisoned-fish.html
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
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2 comments:
Big Oil and their government accomplices (including the U.S.) are complicit in another form of genocide. With the recent gulf oil spill the profile of the abuses has been raised, but we are almost as powerless as the Nigerians, et al. We are powerless because the government is in the pocket of Big Oil, and only feign regulation and control. We are powerless because, even with the Gulf of Mexico spill, there are Americans upset about any talk of moratorium on or stronger regulation of oil drilling. With all this against the sensible among us, it seems like an relatively impossible task to reign in the oil exploiters, here or abroad. Someone in one of the articles mentioned the need to take Big Oil before International Court of Justice. I wonder if this particular issue and circumstances (activities of private companies within countries as opposed to disputes between nations) would have standing. Besides, the UN is seen as impotent.
I agree that it's a battle. However, hiding behind this "Black" oresident nonsenne, the exploiters now have an easier way to keep people quiet. After all, to remain legitimate, governments and their sponsors ocasionally, have to give up either power or wealth. In this xase, they circumvented both types of payout and gave us a "Black" preseident. What a laugh! He's a total pippet and fraud!
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