NIGERIA - Oil Turmoil
20 mins - March 1999
10.00.0 River at sunset
The Nigerian Delta in West Africa, where the great River Niger fans out into the Atlantic.
Natsof
00.06 Ogoni church
It’s Sunday in Kegbara Dere and church is in full swing.
00.12 Flare
Nigeria’s vast oil industry is based here. Now it’s under siege from the ordinary people of the Delta…
00.19 Dancing
….who say they produce Nigeria’s wealth but get nothing in return.
00.26 Shell Oil Rig
Shell Oil, known here, as SPDC, pumps the bulk of Nigerian oil in a joint venture with the government, through over a thousand well heads and flow stations.
00.39 Cleaning drains
But in Port Harcourt there is little evidence of a booming oil town. Electricity and local amenities are a luxury few can afford.
00.49 Refineries/Tankers
Thanks to massive government corruption petrol refineries stand empty. Tankers wait weeks for imported fuel.
00.59 Petrol Queues
The queues outside petrol stations can be kilometres long.
1.07 Police
Even worse, each day the military descend on petrol stations.
Pause
1.12 Police bribe
Cars can enter only once a bribe has changed hands.
1.18 Police whip
Those who can’t or won’t pay are forcefully sent on their way.
1.24 Ogoni land driving with Ledum Mitee
Ledum Mitee led a campaign with Ken Saro Wiwa against Shell Oil in Ogoniland. Saro Wiwa and nine others were executed after a flawed trial. Mitee still holds Shell partly responsible for the military crackdown which lead to the executions.
01.43 Ledum Mitee MOSOP Ogoni Organisation
They clearly were bringing some sort of blackmail against the government. Look we control over 50% of the oil and if we don’t have a free environment to exploit that resource it has a certain effect on the economy. If you have such a situation and a government that is dependent on only that sole commodity then you can understand, control of political power is almost control of oil resources.
2.08 Petrol station
Oil brings in 80% of earnings but Shell says that doesn't allow it to meddle in government.
2.15 Bobo Brown,Shell Public Affairs
The reality is that we’re just a company. We’re not a parallel government. And the government of Nigeria is the government of a sovereign country. Shell has only limited access, or leverage, with government. And that leverage comes from her being a good corporate citizen.
2.34 Ogoni pipes
Today Shell’s oil pipes still cris-cross Ogoni land, through front yards and across their fields. Shell says they won’t go back to Ogoni unless they’re invited but for now that's unlikely.
02.50 Ebubu Spill
Behind this wall in Ebubu hides a 30 year old oil spill. Saro Wiwa used it as a symbol of Shell’s lack of care for the environment. Today they’re still waiting for the company to come and clean it.
03.05 Ledum Mitee MOSOP Ogoni Organisation
The only reaction of Shell was to put a wall around the place to prevent access to this place. In fact soldiers were guarding here until recently. It shows clearly that nothing has changed in spite of the international outrage that followed the execution of Ken and the others and the activities of Shell that were brought to the attention of the world.
3.27 L/S Ledum walks
Shell bought the land for $850 and it blames the Ogoni for delays in mounting a clean up.
3.36 Bobo BrownInterview
You are dealing with several communities each of whom have a different set of questions and concerns. We have come through the process almost to the point where we could have awarded the job for remediation only for the unfortunate break in our relationship with the Ogonis in 1993/94.
3.55 First oil well at Oloibiri.
Factionalism divides the Delta’s people but spurred on by the Ogoni campaign other tribes have begun to challenge Shell. These are the Ijaw.
4.10 Monday EreboIjaw Activist
We need infrastructure development, sustainable manpower development and sustainable infrastructure development. Since the laws cannot enable us to control our resources ourselves.
4.26 Purane EbelegiIjaw Activist
The issue here in Nigeria is tribal. We feel that we are a minority. If you’re a minority you cannot change the decisions of a majority. So it’s only the oil companies that we believe can change this thing.
4.38 Youth walks through Oloibiri
In the Delta it is young men, they call them the ‘youths’, who are encouraging the communities to ask for a greater share of the oil.
4.47 Oloibiri oil well
Oloibiri is the sight of Shell’s first Nigerian oil well, sunk in the 1950’s. For now Shell’s not drilling here but they still keep the land.
5.0 Village pan
The village Chiefs complain they’re not paid properly. Their current contract with Shell pays about $4.00 a hectare per year.
5.10 Chief Ombu AlekeChief Oloibiri Village
This is the document that proves this is my well, this is well 12. The agreement for that particular oil field is 99 years - that is the first agreement. You know our people, are so blind, they were not learned. And any time they want to pay if I say I will not sign, the next day I see someone else has signed and collected the money.
5.29 On boats
The villages that flank the shores of the Niger Delta are cut off without roads or electricity. Shell operates here with few outside witnesses.
5.39 Flares
With hundreds of wells most villages have Shell’s gas flares somewhere nearby. Environmentalists say they cause acid rain and dry out crops. This is the town of Otuagwe.
05.56 Otuagwe 1
Surrounded by malnourished children they tell stories of oil spills and declining yields.
6.01 Bare feet natsof
6.03 Walking
Ijaw villagers rely on fishing and agriculture for their food. A crop destroying oil spill can travel far in the rainy season. This spill has been here for nearly six months.
6.23 Chief Promise OsumaOtuagwe Town
I went to Shell and reported it. Since then this oil just spread all over. That time it was during the flood period so the water covered the whole area. From this area the water carried the oil to very close to our community.
6.43 Stirring oily water
Many crops were destroyed. We had nothing to feed on.
6.50 Shell flow station
Nigeria is one of the poorest countries in the world but it’s the sixth largest oil producer. The Delta people demand Shell pays fair recompense for the damage caused by spills.
7.05 Oil and canoe
In August 1998, near Nun River flow station, a massive spill occurred.
7.10 Oil spill
Q: The place is polluted there is no way you’ll catch fish again. Remove it.A: This is the only place we can kill fish and they have spoiled the place. There is no way for us to kill fish again.
7.23 Women show ruined nets natsof
7.32 Woman with net
Until this oil came we survived on fishing. Oil has damaged everywhere, all around. We used to catch plenty, now all you see is oil. There’s no fish in this basket. Our clothes are stained with oil.
7.51 Community on boats
For this community the spill at Nun River is a calamity. It means their lives will be uprooted and they’ll have to settle a new fishing ground.
8.14 Ledum Mitee
To us land is not just some property, some factor of production to be exploited and wasted. To us land is more than that. It has some spiritual significance. It’s where our Gods are supposed to reside.
Spill – 6 months later Six months later at the Nun River spill the water has gone but the oil still covers the ground.
8.36 Charles Willabo, Community Development Council, Oporoma
Shell has done nothing. For some time we have made a series of outcries to the company but nothing has been done. You see there are no operations so they are not coming to investigate the spill.
8.53 Bobo Brown’s office
In Shell’s Port Harcourt headquarters the head of PR is an Ijaw. Bobbo Brown accuses the villagers of engineering spills in order to claim compensation.
9.04 Bobo Brown Shell Public Affairs
We’ve had cases where we’ve gone into communities. We’ve inspected the village site, identified that the cause was sabotage, fully signed the documents. Members of the investigation team, which includes members of the community, endorsed that this was a sabotage spill.
9.28 Shell sabotage video
To find the source of this leak Shell had to excavate ten feet down. They say most spills are caused by sabotage from local communties. When they unearthed this damaged pipe the investigators claimed it was sabotage - in order to claim compensation
9.47 Bobbo BrownShell Public Affairs
We are beginning to see the compensation culture syndrome where people want to earn money without working for it. Where people want easy cash. Where people are anxious to deny authority because it is their best way of getting their own.
10.06 Mangroves
In the mangrove swamps of the Delta it’s claim and counter claim.
10.09 Shell installations
Shell must be asking itself where the friction came from. The Ijaw point to the tactics Shell has used to keep communities at loggerheads with each other.
10.19 Saturday setup
Saturday used to work for Shell. He was paid to organise dissenting mobs to suppress protest.
10.25 Saturday Namonex Shell employee
I was close to the head of public & government affairs by the name of Steven Lawson Jack. He called me and informed that I should assist Shell company to protect the oil facilities in my community, which is Kegbara Dere. He gave me assistance of ten thousand Naira to mobilise some youths, which I did.
10.45
The level of poverty here, the level of unemployment, it makes everybody vulnerable to temptation
10.52 Boats and Chiefs
Communities accuse Shell of securing their land contracts by any means.
10.58 Chief Evanus AwoalaIjaw National Congress
What Shell and other oil companies do is to approach 1 or 2 rulers, recognised chiefs, to cause a division among the chiefs, to whittle down, or make incoherent , the demands that ought to be made by the community.
11.21 Dirty sign
The Ijaw say, set against their own grinding poverty, the vast oil profits can't be right.
11.28 Bank and boats
The town of Oporoma is only accessible by water
11.33 Distant flare
It is surrounded by oil installations.
11.37 Oporoma
Shell has built a walk way through the village but the people of Oporoma aren’t satisfied.
11.42 Boy eats
The King of Oporoma is determined that his village should be getting more.
11.48 ouths in kings office
Oporoma's youths are putting pressure on him to get tough with Shell.
11.52 King BE Abolu Paramount Ruler of Oporoma
Alright. If we are producing 45 000 barrels of oil daily from Oporoma now give us one third. Since you are not ready to develop the place give us one third of what you are producing so we can sell it in the open market ourselves.
12.12 Photos
On December the 30th the Delta exploded. The patience of the Ijaw youths snapped. Thousands came onto the streets demanding Shell close down. Five were shot dead in Yenagoa town. Many others were beaten and locked up without any hope of a trial.
12.31 Purane EbelegiIjaw Activist
We marched through those places. They shot the people they were supposed to shoot. Some, they couldn’t shoot down. Eventually people scattered. We had the intention of frustrating the government intention to continuously degrade our environment.
12.49 On car
Since December everything has changed in the Delta. Ijaw youths now drive four by fours looted from Shell.
13.04 Bomadi
The Nigerian authorities only come to the town of Bomadi in force. Otherwise it’s ruled by the angry young men. It’s become something of a political headquarters for the Ijaw youth movement.
13.12 Kuku Kingsley Valentine, Kaiama Committee
Help us beg the Nigerian military because there is no democracy in this country. What we have now is military people suppressing the people every day. We are appealing to them, appealing to everybody who is well meaning to speak to the federal government which is now militarily controlled, to leave our people alone.
13.26 Occupied flow station
The Nun River flow station has closed. It’s one of many which has been forced out of operation, their staff chased away by furious communities. There are no guns but the atmosphere is tense. As a result of these closures Shell has lost a third of production. The youths have also seized boats and helicopters.
13.51 Charles WillaboCommunity Development Council, Oporoma
The reason for the close down is because the villagers nearby were annoyed. They seized a lot of vehicles belonging to SPDC, so Shell withdrew her staff.
14.05 King BE Abolu Paramount Ruler of Oporoma
Youthful exuberance is also a factor we’ve observed from the actions of the youths. They have no patience. So they feel since we wrote them one letter, they’ve not replied. The second the third and so on. Ah these people what are they doing. Since they don’t want to respect even our chief, let’s now kick them!
14.29 Shellfish and woman natsof
14.33 Rainy village
Now the villages are demanding that Shell renegotiate the whole deal. The Kaiama declaration demanded every Shell site close down and stop working.
14.41 Felix Tuodolu and Kaiama declaration
Felix Tuodolo is on the run. He signed the Kaiama declaration and lead assaults on flow stations.
14.50 Felix TuodoluKaiama Committee
We loaded four flying boats, speed boats to go down there. On reaching there, unfortunately as is being done everywhere now the oil company invited in the military to guide and protect all flow stations and their facilities.
15.11 Wounded
In the hospitals and back rooms of the Delta languish scores of gunfire wounded youths. Around the country the army and the people have squared off from each other.
15.22 Felix walks
Felix warns the oil companies the youths' ultimatum still stands. In the rain forests nearby there are rumours of a thousand armed Ijaw in military training.
15.35 Felix TuodoloIjaw Youth Congress
The oil money is blood money, and if they continue to kill us so that oil will flow, let them keep killing us. We will keep going down to those flow stations en masse, and let them keep killing us. We know we will succeed to close down those flow stations. They can’t kill all of us.
15.54 Felix and heavy youths
But Felix is struggling to control his fledgling movement. The young men are impatient and often lash out. In this town a day later, two journalists were taken hostage by an angry mob of Ijaw youths.
16.08 Fire & Sky
Hostage taking is now endemic. The oil companies have paid large ransoms and now every foreigner has a price.
16.15 Perry KretzStern Photjournalist
They were in front of the car. Then they jumped on our car. There were three guys with machetes. They hit on the front window, on the windshield, on top of the car. Then they really got berserk.Everything that is white in their minds, is from Shell and Shell is white. They hate the Shell people.
16.38 Shell rig
After an outcry over links with Nigeria’s forces the company denies it now calls in the army. But in January that didn't stop 11 protesters being shot dead at Shell’s Forcados terminal.
16.52 Henryk SochackiRig SuperintendentSearex 12
They come dancing, leaves on the head. You have men, women, kids at the back. It was not too serious but it could have been serious because they had broken bottles of coke.
17.08 Boat & Barge
To the people of the Delta the oil rigs contain vast wealth. For Shell the dilemma is just how far they can go to protect it.
17.17 Henryk SochackiRig SuperintendentSearex 12
Whenever you bring the military, or navy, all around, you make a fence, but I don’t think it’s really suitable at the moment. You are not working in a very confident environment when it’s like that.
17.34 Empty flow stations
pause
17.39 Bobo BrownShell Public Affairs
The increase in tension in the Niger Delta is serious, I would characterise it as serious. That would be one way to look at it. Serious in terms of its implications, serious in terms of the way we as a company regard it.
17.59 Ante-natal classes natsof
18.03 Ante-natal classes
Shell says it now spends $36M a year on community programs.
18.07 Owaza exterior hospital
Like this, the Owaza hospital. It’s one of 6 sponsored by Shell. But critics say such programs are often ill judged.
18.14 Ante-natal class
Doctors here said only the ante-natal classes are thriving. The hospital hasn’t had water and electricity for 3 years.
18.22 Surgery
The cupboards stand empty. And there are no patients in the wards. In the Delta Shell is being asked to be much more than an oil producer.
18.35 Coke on Boats
It's alway been known as a troubled region but now the widespread ill will has reached a peak.
18.46 Oronto Douglas on boat
In the complex waterways politicians and activists have an audience ready for their message.
18.49 Oronto Douglas Chicoto Movement
Our culture is being ruined by the recklessness of a multi-national. I lived in England. I schooled there. I’ve been to Holland and I’ve seen the way that Shell operates there. The way they operate in Nigeria is environmental racism.
19.02 Shell meeting
Shell doesn’t like to discuss government corruption. But in private meetings their executives do blame the government for the shortage of cash in the Delta.
19.13 Shell executive
We have a problem in Nigeria, in the sense that. You have to be very careful what you say. We have a government who is a partner. If you take the front page of a newspaper which says that Shell pays tax and the government steal the money we’ll probably have our licence revoked.
19.35 MOSOPSpeaker
I call on the Ogoni people. The peoples of the Niger Delta, and the oppressed and the minorities of Nigeria, to stand up now and fight, fearlessly and peacefully, for their rights. History is on their side.
19.49 MOSOP meeting
The Ogoni struggle has now travelled to other tribes. Shell and the other oil companies face a crisis which is far from defused.
ENDS20.10
CREDITS
Director/ Camera: Mark Stucke
Producer/ Editor: Keely Purdue
Production Assistants: Jennie Gardner/ Ilse Van Heerden
A JOURNEYMAN PICTURES Production 1999
(All music is location music)
20 mins - March 1999
10.00.0 River at sunset
The Nigerian Delta in West Africa, where the great River Niger fans out into the Atlantic.
Natsof
00.06 Ogoni church
It’s Sunday in Kegbara Dere and church is in full swing.
00.12 Flare
Nigeria’s vast oil industry is based here. Now it’s under siege from the ordinary people of the Delta…
00.19 Dancing
….who say they produce Nigeria’s wealth but get nothing in return.
00.26 Shell Oil Rig
Shell Oil, known here, as SPDC, pumps the bulk of Nigerian oil in a joint venture with the government, through over a thousand well heads and flow stations.
00.39 Cleaning drains
But in Port Harcourt there is little evidence of a booming oil town. Electricity and local amenities are a luxury few can afford.
00.49 Refineries/Tankers
Thanks to massive government corruption petrol refineries stand empty. Tankers wait weeks for imported fuel.
00.59 Petrol Queues
The queues outside petrol stations can be kilometres long.
1.07 Police
Even worse, each day the military descend on petrol stations.
Pause
1.12 Police bribe
Cars can enter only once a bribe has changed hands.
1.18 Police whip
Those who can’t or won’t pay are forcefully sent on their way.
1.24 Ogoni land driving with Ledum Mitee
Ledum Mitee led a campaign with Ken Saro Wiwa against Shell Oil in Ogoniland. Saro Wiwa and nine others were executed after a flawed trial. Mitee still holds Shell partly responsible for the military crackdown which lead to the executions.
01.43 Ledum Mitee MOSOP Ogoni Organisation
They clearly were bringing some sort of blackmail against the government. Look we control over 50% of the oil and if we don’t have a free environment to exploit that resource it has a certain effect on the economy. If you have such a situation and a government that is dependent on only that sole commodity then you can understand, control of political power is almost control of oil resources.
2.08 Petrol station
Oil brings in 80% of earnings but Shell says that doesn't allow it to meddle in government.
2.15 Bobo Brown,Shell Public Affairs
The reality is that we’re just a company. We’re not a parallel government. And the government of Nigeria is the government of a sovereign country. Shell has only limited access, or leverage, with government. And that leverage comes from her being a good corporate citizen.
2.34 Ogoni pipes
Today Shell’s oil pipes still cris-cross Ogoni land, through front yards and across their fields. Shell says they won’t go back to Ogoni unless they’re invited but for now that's unlikely.
02.50 Ebubu Spill
Behind this wall in Ebubu hides a 30 year old oil spill. Saro Wiwa used it as a symbol of Shell’s lack of care for the environment. Today they’re still waiting for the company to come and clean it.
03.05 Ledum Mitee MOSOP Ogoni Organisation
The only reaction of Shell was to put a wall around the place to prevent access to this place. In fact soldiers were guarding here until recently. It shows clearly that nothing has changed in spite of the international outrage that followed the execution of Ken and the others and the activities of Shell that were brought to the attention of the world.
3.27 L/S Ledum walks
Shell bought the land for $850 and it blames the Ogoni for delays in mounting a clean up.
3.36 Bobo BrownInterview
You are dealing with several communities each of whom have a different set of questions and concerns. We have come through the process almost to the point where we could have awarded the job for remediation only for the unfortunate break in our relationship with the Ogonis in 1993/94.
3.55 First oil well at Oloibiri.
Factionalism divides the Delta’s people but spurred on by the Ogoni campaign other tribes have begun to challenge Shell. These are the Ijaw.
4.10 Monday EreboIjaw Activist
We need infrastructure development, sustainable manpower development and sustainable infrastructure development. Since the laws cannot enable us to control our resources ourselves.
4.26 Purane EbelegiIjaw Activist
The issue here in Nigeria is tribal. We feel that we are a minority. If you’re a minority you cannot change the decisions of a majority. So it’s only the oil companies that we believe can change this thing.
4.38 Youth walks through Oloibiri
In the Delta it is young men, they call them the ‘youths’, who are encouraging the communities to ask for a greater share of the oil.
4.47 Oloibiri oil well
Oloibiri is the sight of Shell’s first Nigerian oil well, sunk in the 1950’s. For now Shell’s not drilling here but they still keep the land.
5.0 Village pan
The village Chiefs complain they’re not paid properly. Their current contract with Shell pays about $4.00 a hectare per year.
5.10 Chief Ombu AlekeChief Oloibiri Village
This is the document that proves this is my well, this is well 12. The agreement for that particular oil field is 99 years - that is the first agreement. You know our people, are so blind, they were not learned. And any time they want to pay if I say I will not sign, the next day I see someone else has signed and collected the money.
5.29 On boats
The villages that flank the shores of the Niger Delta are cut off without roads or electricity. Shell operates here with few outside witnesses.
5.39 Flares
With hundreds of wells most villages have Shell’s gas flares somewhere nearby. Environmentalists say they cause acid rain and dry out crops. This is the town of Otuagwe.
05.56 Otuagwe 1
Surrounded by malnourished children they tell stories of oil spills and declining yields.
6.01 Bare feet natsof
6.03 Walking
Ijaw villagers rely on fishing and agriculture for their food. A crop destroying oil spill can travel far in the rainy season. This spill has been here for nearly six months.
6.23 Chief Promise OsumaOtuagwe Town
I went to Shell and reported it. Since then this oil just spread all over. That time it was during the flood period so the water covered the whole area. From this area the water carried the oil to very close to our community.
6.43 Stirring oily water
Many crops were destroyed. We had nothing to feed on.
6.50 Shell flow station
Nigeria is one of the poorest countries in the world but it’s the sixth largest oil producer. The Delta people demand Shell pays fair recompense for the damage caused by spills.
7.05 Oil and canoe
In August 1998, near Nun River flow station, a massive spill occurred.
7.10 Oil spill
Q: The place is polluted there is no way you’ll catch fish again. Remove it.A: This is the only place we can kill fish and they have spoiled the place. There is no way for us to kill fish again.
7.23 Women show ruined nets natsof
7.32 Woman with net
Until this oil came we survived on fishing. Oil has damaged everywhere, all around. We used to catch plenty, now all you see is oil. There’s no fish in this basket. Our clothes are stained with oil.
7.51 Community on boats
For this community the spill at Nun River is a calamity. It means their lives will be uprooted and they’ll have to settle a new fishing ground.
8.14 Ledum Mitee
To us land is not just some property, some factor of production to be exploited and wasted. To us land is more than that. It has some spiritual significance. It’s where our Gods are supposed to reside.
Spill – 6 months later Six months later at the Nun River spill the water has gone but the oil still covers the ground.
8.36 Charles Willabo, Community Development Council, Oporoma
Shell has done nothing. For some time we have made a series of outcries to the company but nothing has been done. You see there are no operations so they are not coming to investigate the spill.
8.53 Bobo Brown’s office
In Shell’s Port Harcourt headquarters the head of PR is an Ijaw. Bobbo Brown accuses the villagers of engineering spills in order to claim compensation.
9.04 Bobo Brown Shell Public Affairs
We’ve had cases where we’ve gone into communities. We’ve inspected the village site, identified that the cause was sabotage, fully signed the documents. Members of the investigation team, which includes members of the community, endorsed that this was a sabotage spill.
9.28 Shell sabotage video
To find the source of this leak Shell had to excavate ten feet down. They say most spills are caused by sabotage from local communties. When they unearthed this damaged pipe the investigators claimed it was sabotage - in order to claim compensation
9.47 Bobbo BrownShell Public Affairs
We are beginning to see the compensation culture syndrome where people want to earn money without working for it. Where people want easy cash. Where people are anxious to deny authority because it is their best way of getting their own.
10.06 Mangroves
In the mangrove swamps of the Delta it’s claim and counter claim.
10.09 Shell installations
Shell must be asking itself where the friction came from. The Ijaw point to the tactics Shell has used to keep communities at loggerheads with each other.
10.19 Saturday setup
Saturday used to work for Shell. He was paid to organise dissenting mobs to suppress protest.
10.25 Saturday Namonex Shell employee
I was close to the head of public & government affairs by the name of Steven Lawson Jack. He called me and informed that I should assist Shell company to protect the oil facilities in my community, which is Kegbara Dere. He gave me assistance of ten thousand Naira to mobilise some youths, which I did.
10.45
The level of poverty here, the level of unemployment, it makes everybody vulnerable to temptation
10.52 Boats and Chiefs
Communities accuse Shell of securing their land contracts by any means.
10.58 Chief Evanus AwoalaIjaw National Congress
What Shell and other oil companies do is to approach 1 or 2 rulers, recognised chiefs, to cause a division among the chiefs, to whittle down, or make incoherent , the demands that ought to be made by the community.
11.21 Dirty sign
The Ijaw say, set against their own grinding poverty, the vast oil profits can't be right.
11.28 Bank and boats
The town of Oporoma is only accessible by water
11.33 Distant flare
It is surrounded by oil installations.
11.37 Oporoma
Shell has built a walk way through the village but the people of Oporoma aren’t satisfied.
11.42 Boy eats
The King of Oporoma is determined that his village should be getting more.
11.48 ouths in kings office
Oporoma's youths are putting pressure on him to get tough with Shell.
11.52 King BE Abolu Paramount Ruler of Oporoma
Alright. If we are producing 45 000 barrels of oil daily from Oporoma now give us one third. Since you are not ready to develop the place give us one third of what you are producing so we can sell it in the open market ourselves.
12.12 Photos
On December the 30th the Delta exploded. The patience of the Ijaw youths snapped. Thousands came onto the streets demanding Shell close down. Five were shot dead in Yenagoa town. Many others were beaten and locked up without any hope of a trial.
12.31 Purane EbelegiIjaw Activist
We marched through those places. They shot the people they were supposed to shoot. Some, they couldn’t shoot down. Eventually people scattered. We had the intention of frustrating the government intention to continuously degrade our environment.
12.49 On car
Since December everything has changed in the Delta. Ijaw youths now drive four by fours looted from Shell.
13.04 Bomadi
The Nigerian authorities only come to the town of Bomadi in force. Otherwise it’s ruled by the angry young men. It’s become something of a political headquarters for the Ijaw youth movement.
13.12 Kuku Kingsley Valentine, Kaiama Committee
Help us beg the Nigerian military because there is no democracy in this country. What we have now is military people suppressing the people every day. We are appealing to them, appealing to everybody who is well meaning to speak to the federal government which is now militarily controlled, to leave our people alone.
13.26 Occupied flow station
The Nun River flow station has closed. It’s one of many which has been forced out of operation, their staff chased away by furious communities. There are no guns but the atmosphere is tense. As a result of these closures Shell has lost a third of production. The youths have also seized boats and helicopters.
13.51 Charles WillaboCommunity Development Council, Oporoma
The reason for the close down is because the villagers nearby were annoyed. They seized a lot of vehicles belonging to SPDC, so Shell withdrew her staff.
14.05 King BE Abolu Paramount Ruler of Oporoma
Youthful exuberance is also a factor we’ve observed from the actions of the youths. They have no patience. So they feel since we wrote them one letter, they’ve not replied. The second the third and so on. Ah these people what are they doing. Since they don’t want to respect even our chief, let’s now kick them!
14.29 Shellfish and woman natsof
14.33 Rainy village
Now the villages are demanding that Shell renegotiate the whole deal. The Kaiama declaration demanded every Shell site close down and stop working.
14.41 Felix Tuodolu and Kaiama declaration
Felix Tuodolo is on the run. He signed the Kaiama declaration and lead assaults on flow stations.
14.50 Felix TuodoluKaiama Committee
We loaded four flying boats, speed boats to go down there. On reaching there, unfortunately as is being done everywhere now the oil company invited in the military to guide and protect all flow stations and their facilities.
15.11 Wounded
In the hospitals and back rooms of the Delta languish scores of gunfire wounded youths. Around the country the army and the people have squared off from each other.
15.22 Felix walks
Felix warns the oil companies the youths' ultimatum still stands. In the rain forests nearby there are rumours of a thousand armed Ijaw in military training.
15.35 Felix TuodoloIjaw Youth Congress
The oil money is blood money, and if they continue to kill us so that oil will flow, let them keep killing us. We will keep going down to those flow stations en masse, and let them keep killing us. We know we will succeed to close down those flow stations. They can’t kill all of us.
15.54 Felix and heavy youths
But Felix is struggling to control his fledgling movement. The young men are impatient and often lash out. In this town a day later, two journalists were taken hostage by an angry mob of Ijaw youths.
16.08 Fire & Sky
Hostage taking is now endemic. The oil companies have paid large ransoms and now every foreigner has a price.
16.15 Perry KretzStern Photjournalist
They were in front of the car. Then they jumped on our car. There were three guys with machetes. They hit on the front window, on the windshield, on top of the car. Then they really got berserk.Everything that is white in their minds, is from Shell and Shell is white. They hate the Shell people.
16.38 Shell rig
After an outcry over links with Nigeria’s forces the company denies it now calls in the army. But in January that didn't stop 11 protesters being shot dead at Shell’s Forcados terminal.
16.52 Henryk SochackiRig SuperintendentSearex 12
They come dancing, leaves on the head. You have men, women, kids at the back. It was not too serious but it could have been serious because they had broken bottles of coke.
17.08 Boat & Barge
To the people of the Delta the oil rigs contain vast wealth. For Shell the dilemma is just how far they can go to protect it.
17.17 Henryk SochackiRig SuperintendentSearex 12
Whenever you bring the military, or navy, all around, you make a fence, but I don’t think it’s really suitable at the moment. You are not working in a very confident environment when it’s like that.
17.34 Empty flow stations
pause
17.39 Bobo BrownShell Public Affairs
The increase in tension in the Niger Delta is serious, I would characterise it as serious. That would be one way to look at it. Serious in terms of its implications, serious in terms of the way we as a company regard it.
17.59 Ante-natal classes natsof
18.03 Ante-natal classes
Shell says it now spends $36M a year on community programs.
18.07 Owaza exterior hospital
Like this, the Owaza hospital. It’s one of 6 sponsored by Shell. But critics say such programs are often ill judged.
18.14 Ante-natal class
Doctors here said only the ante-natal classes are thriving. The hospital hasn’t had water and electricity for 3 years.
18.22 Surgery
The cupboards stand empty. And there are no patients in the wards. In the Delta Shell is being asked to be much more than an oil producer.
18.35 Coke on Boats
It's alway been known as a troubled region but now the widespread ill will has reached a peak.
18.46 Oronto Douglas on boat
In the complex waterways politicians and activists have an audience ready for their message.
18.49 Oronto Douglas Chicoto Movement
Our culture is being ruined by the recklessness of a multi-national. I lived in England. I schooled there. I’ve been to Holland and I’ve seen the way that Shell operates there. The way they operate in Nigeria is environmental racism.
19.02 Shell meeting
Shell doesn’t like to discuss government corruption. But in private meetings their executives do blame the government for the shortage of cash in the Delta.
19.13 Shell executive
We have a problem in Nigeria, in the sense that. You have to be very careful what you say. We have a government who is a partner. If you take the front page of a newspaper which says that Shell pays tax and the government steal the money we’ll probably have our licence revoked.
19.35 MOSOPSpeaker
I call on the Ogoni people. The peoples of the Niger Delta, and the oppressed and the minorities of Nigeria, to stand up now and fight, fearlessly and peacefully, for their rights. History is on their side.
19.49 MOSOP meeting
The Ogoni struggle has now travelled to other tribes. Shell and the other oil companies face a crisis which is far from defused.
ENDS20.10
CREDITS
Director/ Camera: Mark Stucke
Producer/ Editor: Keely Purdue
Production Assistants: Jennie Gardner/ Ilse Van Heerden
A JOURNEYMAN PICTURES Production 1999
(All music is location music)