Oil on troubled waters
Before the River Niger ends its long journey to the Atlantic, it splits up and runs like spreading veins through a vast swampy delta. Having followed the river all the way from its first foray into the world in Guinea, it’s in the Delta at one of the river’s many mouths into the sea that we’d hoped to bring our journey to an end. For reasons beyond our control, it seems we’re going to be out of luck.
Readers with a little knowledge of current affairs will probably know that the Niger Delta is and has been for a few years an international security hotspot. The Delta has always been a hotbed of international trade, first for slave merchants, then, under the Brits, for palm oil, then, more recently, for oil of a different kind – the black stuff.
Sadly, the discovery of black gold in the Delta, and its exploitation largely by big foreign multinationals, has driven the region to the brink of anarchy. It’s a familiar story: valuable commodity is discovered in impoverished area, large foreign company with the resources and wherewithal to extract moves in and begins doing so, locals get shafted. It was the same in the days of palm oil trading, when the Brits ran their monopoly in the Delta and on the Lower Niger with a rod of iron, and it’s exactly the same today.
To be fair, the oil companies are not fully to blame. By all accounts, most of them are ploughing fairly large sums of money into the communities from which they are taking the oil. What’s exacerbating the problem are the corrupt local politicians and officials who are taking large kickbacks, and siphoning off money that should be going to the Delta’s poor. Whatever the full story, though, the result is the same: Westerners are getting kidnapped and even killed in the Delta, and today the region is a simmering pressure-cooker of discontent that for people with white skin is best avoided.
Despite all the Delta’s well publicised problems, we still want to get there, and since before arriving in the country I’ve been talking with a contact who says he can help us in our mission. He’s a British expat working in community development and conservation all across Nigeria, but crucially he’s involved in a project in a village called Akassa, right on one of the Niger’s many mouths. Although there are security risks in the Delta, Phil seems confident that he can get us to the end and back safely.
In the end, it’s timing that lets us down. One of Phil’s people who he’s sent on our behalf to one of the local Delta officials to seek permission for our visit reports back that we couldn’t have picked a worse time. Local authorities we’re told are in the middle of sensitive negotiations with kidnappers to secure the release of ten Chinese hostages. The last thing they want is two more white guys coming into the area and potentially stirring up an already volatile situation.
Disappointing though it is, in some ways I’m relieved. The prospect of getting safely in and out of Port Harcourt, the great oil city and epicentre for much of the Delta’s strife, not to mention the boat ride through the region’s lawless swamps to Akassa, seemed remote. To have the decision of whether or not to go for it taken out of our hands makes our failure in reaching our ultimate goal easier to stomach.
Tags: Akassa, corruption, delta, Niger River, Nigeria, Oil, Travel
djnorwood