Oil, guns and pollution
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 5 June 2019
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Niger Delta is Africa's biggest oil producing region. It has also become a security and environmental nightmare thanks to dozens of spills and theft by armed rebels.
Oil and gas giant Shell has long been criticised for its operations in the region. Igo Weli, one of the company's directors in Nigeria, tells Manuela Saragosa how the threat of violence makes it hard for them to clean up their act.
But while Shell claims it is trying its best in challenging circumstances, Mark Dummett of Amnesty International says the company could be doing a lot more and is still under-reporting the extent of the problem. Manuela also speaks to Jumoke Ajayi of Nigerian oil conglomerate Sahara Group, and Erabanabari Kobah, who acts as a spokesperson for one of the Niger Delta communities.
Producer: Laurence Knight
(Picture: A member of the Nigerian navy forces patrols on an abandoned site of an illegal oil refinery in the Niger Delta region; Credit: Stefan Heunis/AFP/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, this is Business Daily from the BBC with me, Manuela Saragossa. |
| 0:05.9 | In this edition, it's one of the most polluted places on Earth. |
| 0:09.8 | The thing that struck me the most is the smell of hydrocarbons in the air. |
| 0:15.0 | You know, not only do you see the oil sort of lapping up in the creeks and on the fields, |
| 0:18.4 | but you can also smell it. |
| 0:19.6 | The Niger Delta is Nigeria's and Africa's most important oil-producing region. |
| 0:25.3 | But is anything being done to sort out the environmental and security crisis there? |
| 0:31.1 | We hear from the oil giant shell. |
| 0:33.1 | There was actually a gunshot attack on our crew. |
| 0:35.9 | This is the challenge we face. |
| 0:39.0 | And these are people I know. |
| 0:45.6 | I know their family, some sit in the same office with me. That's all here in Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:56.3 | The Niger Delta should be a tropical paradise, a coastline fringed by a deep belt of mangrove forest, which in turn protects vast inner areas of freshwater swamp land. It should be rich in wildlife. It should be rich |
| 1:02.9 | in plant life. Instead, a helicopter ride over the region reveals this. |
| 1:11.8 | It's a really ugly scene down there. |
| 1:14.2 | It's completely polluted, black, burnt. |
| 1:18.1 | You can see the shimmering colours of the oil |
| 1:20.2 | polluting the water below. |
| 1:23.0 | We're going up now, 500, 600 metres perhaps. |
| 1:26.8 | As far as the eye can see, there are these illegal refineries, giant cooking pots really, |
| 1:34.5 | hundreds and hundreds of them, the size of several lorry containers |
| 1:39.4 | which are being used to boil up the stolen oil and refine it into a product which can be sold for use in diesel, electricity generators and so on. |
... |
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