According to Amnesty International, people living in the Niger Delta have experienced oil spills on par with the Exxon Valdez disaster every year for the last half century.
Ken Tebe, a local environmental activist (Environmental Rights Action) said “It’s very, very bad because Nigeria is the fifth largest exporter of oil to the U.S., and the fact that Nigeria has been going through such issues for the past 50 years with little or no concern even from the U.S. government goes a long way to show you that they look at the Niger Delta as an oil field that people don’t need to live in.”
In its June 2009 report, Petroleum, Pollution and Poverty, Amnesty said independent environmental and oil experts estimated between nine million and 13 million of barrels had leaked in the five decades of oil operations. It also quoted U.N. figures of more than 6,800 recorded spills between 1976 and 2001.
Oil companies operating in the Niger Delta believe the figures are exaggerated. Mutiu Sunmonu, the managing director of Shell Nigeria, told CNN the industry is committed, after any spill, to “restore the environment to its previous status.”
Source: CNN
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