Community Issue
Uploaded by genyind2@yahoo.com on Sep 26, 2007
ENG-1140
September 10, 2007
Blessed Oppression
The Niger Delta is a region located in the southern part of Nigeria. This community is a lush of mangrove, rainforest and swamp land that has been blessed with abundant amounts of natural resources. It’s the backbone to the whole country’s financial stability. One of the most important natural resources that come out of this region is oil. It accounts for more than 80 percent of the government export and 90 percent of its revenue, which is estimated in the billions of dollars a year and a lot more when converted to the country currency. Anybody would expect this region which is abundant in natural gas and oil and generates so much income to be modernized and well taken care of but that’s far from reality. What seemed liked a blessing fifty years ago due to the discovery of oil in the Niger delta has turned into oppression.
The northern area of Nigeria is mostly rugged and mountainous which doesn’t contribute much to the country’s income, however this area is a lot more modernized, beautiful and well taken care off than the delta region in the south. This is because there are oil pipelines that run underground from the delta region to northern states to be refined and sold abroad. The northerners are people of a different ethnic group; they hold power in the federal government and don’t care about people from a different region or ethnic group. The income that comes from the natural resource is used to update and modernize the northern states while the delta region is left to deteriorate with unsafe drilling practicing and exploitation of the environment both by the oil companies and the federal government. Despite the enormous wealth that the Nigerian government makes every year from the Niger delta land, the citizens continue to live in post-modern conditions with unreliable electricity, a lot of unpaved roads and unfurnished school buildings without up to date technology.
I have also witnessed the exploitation of my community land first hand. As I was being driven to school everyday I see the unsafe practice of gas flaring and the oil pipelines that run through the farmland, people’s gardens and the oil spillages into...