Lagos street scenes/church singing
| Traffic/singing
| 01:00:00:00 |
| Wilson: Sunday in Lagos, and it's standing room only at the suburban Hope Hall.
| 00:22 |
| Singing
| 00:29 |
| Wilson: The charismatic church is booming in every corner of Nigeria's commercial capital. Here it's the redeemed Christian Church of God that's leading the way.
| 00:35 |
| Singing
| 00:47 |
| Wilson: It's hardly surprising they're looking to the heavens for answers, because they're certainly not getting any on the ground. And for these people, nothing short of divine intervention is going to change that.
| 00:53 |
| Traffic
| 01:12 |
Woman in car | Woman: People are suffering for God's sake, it's not easy. People are really, really suffering.
| 01:18 |
Cars |
Wilson: In this most bountiful oil producing nation, Nigerians must wait in long queues for overpriced and often imported fuel.
| 01:24
01:26 |
Oronto | Oronto: Oil is conflict, oil is war, oil is division, oil is destruction.
| 01:43 |
Man in boat on river | Wilson: In the country's south, oil pollution ravages fishing grounds in the mighty Niger delta. Villagers say they're dying from strange new illnesses.
| 01:53 |
School room | And children learn maths on a dirt floor.
| 01:06 |
| And that, as foreign companies pump enormous natural wealth out from underneath their feet.
| 02:11 |
| Music
| 02:17 |
| Nigerians have come to expect nothing from their politicians safe self interest, corruption, upheaval and - more often than not - a leader in a soldier's uniform.
And that includes that man Ollessegun Obasanjo. 20 years ago he ruled the nation as a military man.
Retired from the army and repackaged, he's just been elected President in an intensely scrutinised popular vote. | 02:23
02:37
02:47 |
Boy playing drums | Wilson: Nigerians, desperate for a future, have gone back in time.
| 03:05 |
| But that's the way it is in this deeply troubled, densely populated black nation that straddles a great and ancient divide.
| 03:12 |
| Music
| 03:03:20 |
Map |
| 03:30 |
Kano street scenes |
Wilson: In the far north, just shy of the Sahara Desert, Kano is one of Nigeria's oldest cities. Here the rituals and traditions of a different age continue to thrive.
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03:40 |
| Wilson: Kano is the historic home of powerful dynasties that to this day wield enormous influence in Nigeria.
| 04:05 |
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| Wilson: It's political and economic clout that's brought the north more than its fair share, and driven a wedge deep into Nigerian society.
| 04:20 |
| Music
| 04:35 |
Emir mounting horse | Yusuf: The emirs are heading traditional institutions, an institution that is about the most powerful institution in the country. They love him, they respect him, they revere him.
| 04:54 |
| Wilson: Emir Al Haji Bayero enjoys the unwavering loyalty of his people, just as Muslim chiefs here have done for centuries. As he rides through Kano, the reverence is profound. | 05:19 |
| All along the way, townsfolk stop to pay their respects to the emir. It's a parade fit for royalty.
| 05:38 |
| Yusuf: They see themselves as fathers of all. The emir in the past, especially around the colonial days, he was the sole native authority.
| 05:47 |
Yusuf
Super: YUSUF MAITAMA SULE Former U. N. Ambassador | He had control over the police, the prisons, the judiciary. He was in charge of all the land. He allocated the land to whom he wanted. So he was everything. With the coming of politics, all these powers were taken away from him, from the emir.
| 06:00 |
| Wilson: And yet he is clearly powerful. This is the emir's court, an extraordinary sight. Villagers come here with their grievances and supplicate themselves, seeking the emir's judgement.
| 06:24 |
Emir's court | This group has come with a property dispute. They accuse their local chief - he's the one in the middle - of swindling some land.
| 06:42 |
| The emir suspends him from office, effective immediately. Appeals to a civilian court are rare.
| 06:55 |
| Yusuf: I think it is a beautiful arrangement. If you have any misunderstanding or any quarrel between the sections, then the emir can come in. And he will be listened to with respect.
| 07:05 |
Wilson and Yusuf | Wilson: Few know more about the enormous implied power of the Islamic chiefs than Yusuf Maitama Sule Nigeria's former ambassador to the United Nations counts the Emir of Kano as a close friend, and concedes that those with an eye to ruling this country - civilian or soldier - need the solid support of these northern clerics.
| 07:20 |
| Yusuf: The military just came in, they are not elected, they want the support of the people. The military ousted the civilian politicians.
| 07:42 |
Yusuf | The only institution that can get support for them from the public is the traditional institution, the emirs. | 07:56 |
| Wilson: So is it fair to say then that the emirs are more powerful under a military government?
| 08:03 |
| Yusuf: Yes. I must say this.
| 08:08 |
| Wilson: And perhaps that's why a former military man fared so well here in Nigeria's presidential poll.
| 08:14 |
Emir's advisors | The emir and his council of advisors didn't explicitly endorse General Obassanjo, but that he won an overwhelming majority of the vote in the north says a lot about the public perception of old alliances.
| 08:22 |
| Singing
| 08:37 |
| Wilson: It's the great Nigerian paradox that its arid, resourceless north enjoys wealth, stability, and the patronage of government. | 08:49 |
Niger River delta | When those who live right on top of Nigeria's riches enjoy next to none of it. | 09:00 |
| In the south, the might Niger River dislocates into a vast delta and at almost every turn there's a sign of the epic wealth below, a resource so rich, a fortune could flow to every Nigeria door. But of course, it doesn't.
| 09:11 |
| Oronto: The oil, rather than being a blessing, is a curse. And the local people are disempowered and they cannot stop the oil companies from doing what they want.
| 09:29 |
Yusuf and Wilson in boat | Wilson: I'm travelling with activist Oronto Douglas into the heart of the delta, the oil fields of Nigeria. Here lies 95% of the country's wealth, and foreign companies are pumping it out at the rate of two million barrels a day.
| 09:47 |
| Wilson: It's a bonanza for companies like Shell and Chevron, and of course the Nigerian government, which takes a half share.
| 10:15 |
| But it's a blight on local villages like this one, Batan.
| 10:23 |
| Wilson: So how often do company representatives come here?
| 10:29 |
| Oronto: Any time they think there's trouble. When there's no trouble they don't come. And the community always for these amenities.
| 10:33 |
| Wilson: The villagers of Batan say they scratched together a pittance to establish this classroom. But there's no power, and no health care. They claim pollution is killing their fish, poisoning their food and that it's brought deadly illnesses.
Oronto: They are fisherman and farmers. Look at our mothers, our fathers, | 10:52
11:07 |
Kids in village | they're going to the river to look for fish, they're going to the farm to try to get food, but where they plant their crops the crops no longer grow because it is polluted. They go into the water to catch their fish and the fishes are not there. So there is, they're waging a violent and vicious ecological war on our people. They want us to die that is that is the basis.
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| Now, in Batan and elsewhere across the oil grid the indigenous communities have had enough. A new militancy is emerging. They are sinply turning off the oil at pumping stations likr this one. They're wild cat hits, that are draining the oil companies and the Nigerian governments offers of millions of dollars. | 11:36 |
Oronto | Oronto: The people are not benefiting, and if the people are not benefiting from this oil, for Christ sake, they should keep it for the people.
| 11:57 |
| Wilson: What's the situation with these boats here?
| 12:03 |
| When disputes emerge over pollution, they'll even commandeer a boat or two until the oil companies pay compensation.
| 12:07 |
| Translator for man: Last year there was oil spillage, two of them. Compensation was not duly paid. ‘Til now they are looking up to Shell for reaction.
| 12:19 |
| Wilson: But Shell says that they don't pay if the installation is sabotaged.
| 12:31 |
| Translator for man: The spillage last year was not sabotage. Shell acknowledged it, accepted it that it was their mechanical failure.
| 12:40 |
| The Delta is approaching flash point...sabotage, piracy, oil blockades all aimed at forcing the giants like Shell and the Nigerian government to share it's bounty. | 12:56 |
Hubert Nwokolo | We believe that some of the things the community is asking us to do is what the government should be doing. So we don't believe it's the development of the community or the area is solely an oil company affair. | 13:10 |
Nwokolo with Wilson | Wilson: Hubert Nwokolo is a Shell executive who's feeling the heat in the delta.
| 13:29 |
| Hubert: But if the community comes and says the government should have paid us two million, or this oil belongs to us, that's a political issue. We have been shut down in some cases because a local government headquarters has been moved to another place. That's a political issue. And therefore we have nothing to do with that. If they insist that we stop production, well we'll stop production. And I don't see that as our problem.
| 13:34 |
Shell plant
Oronto: | Wilson: In reality, a Shell shutdown and withdrawal is about as likely as a swift solution to this hard question of equity in the delta. The anarchy here is only like to build. We are saying we want to survive. | 14:03
14:16 |
Oronto | The key issue here is survival, don't forget, survival of a people. We have right to survive. You pollute our air, you destroy our waters, you pollute our land and you want us to die. We can't. We will have to struggle back, we will have to insist on survival.
| 14:18 |
| As a military leader Ollesegun Obassanjo might have crushed this uprising with brute force and terror. Now as a reborn civilian President he'll have to broker a political solution. With a strident, newly assertive constituency he'll need the wisdom of an Emir and more then a little divine guidance to settle the most pressing problem facing his country both north and south | 14:47 |
Yusuf | Yusuf: Nigerians, both Christians and Muslims, are the most religious people in the world. We believe in prayers. | 15:23 |
| Today, if we are sensing any crisis, or if there is any problem in the country, or any crises in the country, the authorities do not have to ask the people to go to the mosques and churches to pray, the people on their own will go to the mosques and churches and pray for peace, pray for a solution to the problems facing us.
| 15:32 |
| Singing
| 15:52
01:15:57:00 |
| CREDITS
Reporter BEN WILSON Camera TIM LAMBON Sound STUART MILLER Producer HAMILTON WENDE |
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