A boy playing by Bodo Creek in Bodo, Nigeria. As many as 546 million gallons of oil spilled into the Niger Delta over the last five decades, experts said. More Photos »

The Niger Delta region contains fragile wetlands. More Photos »

Perhaps no place on earth has been as battered by oil, experts say, leaving residents here astonished at the nonstop attention paid to the gusher half a world away in the Gulf of Mexico. It was only a few weeks ago, they say, that a burst pipe belonging to Royal Dutch Shell in the mangroves was finally shut after flowing for two months: now nothing living moves in a black-and-brown world once teeming with shrimp and crab.

Not far away, there is still black crude on Gio Creek from an April spill, and just across the state line in Akwa Ibom the fishermen curse their oil-blackened nets, doubly useless in a barren sea buffeted by a spill from an offshore Exxon Mobil pipe in May that lasted for weeks.

The oil spews from rusted and aging pipes, unchecked by what analysts say is ineffectual or collusive regulation, and abetted by deficient maintenance and sabotage. In the face of this black tide is an infrequent protest — soldiers guarding an Exxon Mobil site beat women who were demonstrating last month, according to witnesses — but mostly resentful resignation.

Small children swim in the polluted estuary here, fishermen take their skiffs out ever farther — “There’s nothing we can catch here,” said Pius Doron, perched anxiously over his boat — and market women trudge through oily streams. “There is Shell oil on my body,” said Hannah Baage, emerging from Gio Creek with a machete to cut the cassava stalks balanced on her head.

That the Gulf of Mexico disaster has transfixed a country and president they so admire is a matter of wonder for people here, living among the palm-fringed estuaries in conditions as abject as any in Nigeria, according to the United Nations. Though their region contributes nearly 80 percent of the government’s revenue, they have hardly benefited from it; life expectancy is the lowest in Nigeria.

“President Obama is worried about that one,” Claytus Kanyie, a local official, said of the gulf spill, standing among dead mangroves in the soft oily muck outside Bodo. “Nobody is worried about this one. The aquatic life of our people is dying off. There used be shrimp. There are no longer any shrimp.”

In the distance, smoke rose from what Mr. Kanyie and environmental activists said was an illegal refining business run by local oil thieves and protected, they said, by Nigerian security forces. The swamp was deserted and quiet, without even bird song; before the spills, Mr. Kanyie said, women from Bodo earned a living gathering mollusks and shellfish among the mangroves.

With new estimates that as many as 2.5 million gallons of oil could be spilling into the Gulf of Mexico each day, the Niger Delta has suddenly become a cautionary tale for the United States.

As many as 546 million gallons of oil spilled into the Niger Delta over the last five decades, or nearly 11 million gallons a year, a team of experts for the Nigerian government and international and local environmental groups concluded in a 2006 report. By comparison, the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 dumped an estimated 10.8 million gallons of oil into the waters off Alaska.

So the people here cast a jaundiced, if sympathetic, eye at the spill in the gulf. “We’re sorry for them, but it’s what’s been happening to us for 50 years,” said Emman Mbong, an official in Eket.

The spills here are all the more devastating because this ecologically sensitive wetlands region, the source of 10 percent of American oil imports, has most of Africa’s mangroves and, like the Louisiana coast, has fed the interior for generations with its abundance of fish, shellfish, wildlife and crops.

Local environmentalists have been denouncing the spoliation for years, with little effect. “It’s a dead environment,” said Patrick Naagbanton of the Center for Environment, Human Rights and Development in Port Harcourt, the leading city of the oil region.

Though much here has been destroyed, much remains, with large expanses of vibrant green. Environmentalists say that with intensive restoration, the Niger Delta could again be what it once was.

Nigeria produced more than two million barrels of oil a day last year, and in over 50 years thousands of miles of pipes have been laid through the swamps. Shell, the major player, has operations on thousands of square miles of territory, according to Amnesty International. Aging columns of oil-well valves, known as Christmas trees, pop up improbably in clearings among the palm trees. Oil sometimes shoots out of them, even if the wells are defunct.

“The oil was just shooting up in the air, and it goes up in the sky,” said Amstel M. Gbarakpor, youth president in Kegbara Dere, recalling the spill in April at Gio Creek. “It took them three weeks to secure this well.”

How much of the spillage is due to oil thieves or to sabotage linked to the militant movement active in the Niger Delta, and how much stems from poorly maintained and aging pipes, is a matter of fierce dispute among communities, environmentalists and the oil companies.

Caroline Wittgen, a spokeswoman for Shell in Lagos, said, “We don’t discuss individual spills,” but argued that the “vast majority” were caused by sabotage or theft, with only 2 percent due to equipment failure or human error.

“We do not believe that we behave irresponsibly, but we do operate in a unique environment where security and lawlessness are major problems,” Ms. Wittgen said.

Oil companies also contend that they clean up much of what is lost. A spokesman for Exxon Mobil in Lagos, Nigel A. Cookey-Gam, said that the company’s recent offshore spill leaked only about 8,400 gallons and that “this was effectively cleaned up.”

But many experts and local officials say the companies attribute too much to sabotage, to lessen their culpability. Richard Steiner, a consultant on oil spills, concluded in a 2008 report that historically “the pipeline failure rate in Nigeria is many times that found elsewhere in the world,” and he noted that even Shell acknowledged “almost every year” a spill due to a corroded pipeline.

On the beach at Ibeno, the few fishermen were glum. Far out to sea oil had spilled for weeks from the Exxon Mobil pipe. “We can’t see where to fish; oil is in the sea,” Patrick Okoni said.

“We don’t have an international media to cover us, so nobody cares about it,” said Mr. Mbong, in nearby Eket. “Whatever cry we cry is not heard outside of here.”

ElRazur:

I suppose it boils down to difference in "civilisation". People can vent out their frustration and anger in the US without fear of persecution from the powers above. Try that in Nigeria and it becomes clear as to why there isn't much fuss.

Also, one can argue that much fuss have been made in the past, but the world is currently not listening I think.

Kobojunkie:

How about persecution from the LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND PEOPLE IN THE AREA BENEFITTING FROM IT ALL? The people themselves are not UNITED in their cause!

ElRazur:

Beaf,

I think she is talking about those who take money and then look the other way, without regards for the consequences.

I am sure a few village elders, people in the government etc are guilty of this kind of accusation in my opinion.

It is not far fetched to say some of the people are truly not united, and some of them people are making money out of the misery of others.

Kobojunkie:

The Concerns of the Business owners, Citizens in the area, local Governments(Mayors, Governors, Senators & Other representatives) was necessary here to get the media involved, and federal Government listening and working  . . .  Unity does not \ have to mean all 300 million citizens of America here.

Polls still show that most Americans are more concerned about unemployment figures than they are of what is going on down in the gulf area. But because the local governments in the area are unwilling to let this one go and have made it a federal issue, it is still high in the news today and will remain so until a lasting solution is found.

"I'm ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday. I think it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterise as a shakedown, a $20bn shakedown.

"I do not want to live in a country where any time a citizen or a corporation does something that is subject to some sort of political pressure that is, again in my words, amounts to a shakedown. So I apologise."

Beaf:

How would anybody be benefitting from oil spills?
That is about the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. Do they cook the oil and feed it to kids or what?
It was recently announced that Shell alone is to clean up 268 spills that have occured this year (no doubt because an ND person is in govt).

Please somebody explain to me how local people benefit from oil spills that destroy lives and livelihoods? Can the sane ones among us now understand why I said earlier that Nigeria is in many ways, worse than Nazi Germany?

FL Gators:

You never heard of "eja didin"

oyb:

are the communities and mend not also complicit in oil spills?

what happens when mend blows up pipelines?

whta happens when ateke and co engage in oil bunkering?

even communities do it as well

we need to stop going on as if the nd communities are pure victims. this is not some hollywood movie with black and white

In the distance, smoke rose from what Mr. Kanyie and environmental activists said was an illegal refining business run by local oil thieves and protected, they said, by Nigerian security forces. The swamp was deserted and quiet, without even bird song; before the spills, Mr. Kanyie said, women from Bodo earned a living gathering mollusks and shellfish among the mangroves.

After 50 years of slavery, the ND was forced to take up arms. Something they rightly did 4 years ago. What was the country doing in those 50 years? Bayelsa was not connected to the national grid until 2006! Yet, Abuja and Lagos had been built up one after the other as capitals.

oyb:

real Nigerian heroes that lot

anyway, that 20billion has their eyes popping - expect them to take up a new 'call to arms'

Kobojunkie:

Oh, because I am not into pretending to live in denial of the facts in much the same way as you continue to means I HATE ND PEOPLE?

I choose to accept that ND people/and government have their share of the blame means I hate them?

I prefer to be honestly dissect the situation now puts me in YOUR ANTI-ND bin?

You must be a brilliant one!!! Are you like the village champion of your square or something?

MandingoII:

[size=14pt]Did Nigeria get $$20 BILLION US DOLLARS put in an escrow?[/size]


In other words Obama made BP pay up 20 Billion to be drained by the United States Government, with more to come.

Beaf:

No, some Nigerians are here shamelessly blaming the victims. The past govts on their part have hawked Nigerians for twopence to the worst slavemasters and some of us are proud of it.
It is an incredible pity. Why does one need external enemies when some of their own country men and women will do just fine? I mean, they do a much better job.

Dis Guy:

OK OK OK GOODLUCK JONATHAN is the PRESIDENT NOW WHAT? Are we going to get a shakedown or serious attempt to clean up the area, this guy has 'proposed' so many blueprint and plans but no CLEAN UP MASTER PLAN and he has been in Governement for well over 8 years now

we cant keep blaming the govt (which to a large extent is made up of influencial heavy weight from that same region!!)

so much money goes into scholarship for petroleum eng,this or that engineering and very little effort goesinto environment regenration- They have basically given up hope of cleaning up this area,  

See! For the umpteenth time, and on the umpteenth thread, I have admitted I was wrong on his state of origin. This is AGAIN so you can get over your 'ticks' ,and get back to discussing this issue. Now are you going to get back to NOT DECIEVING YOURSELF, or pretending you have all of ND in your hands? Or are you stuck like a child who has lost control on the aondoakka issue ?

So MEND's 4 year old existence  is the reason for govts 54 years of total negligence and abuse?  Shocked Na wa o! This one na 9ja mathematics!

After 50 years of slavery, the ND was forced to take up arms. Something they rightly did 4 years ago. What was the country doing in those 50 years? Bayelsa was not connected to the national grid until 2006! Yet, Abuja and Lagos had been built up one after the other as capitals.

. . .Nigerians and their wickedness sha!

In the distance, smoke rose from what Mr. Kanyie and environmental activists said was an illegal refining business run by local oil thieves and protected, they said, by Nigerian security forces. The swamp was deserted and quiet, without even bird song; before the spills, Mr. Kanyie said, women from Bodo earned a living gathering mollusks and shellfish among the mangroves

Dis Guy:

and to take it further. . . why does anyone need their own federal enemy when some of their own states men and women will do just fine. . .

What will happen if/when all the senators, House of Reps, Governors from NIger Delta stay away from Abuja UNTIL A MASTERPLAN is discussed and Budgeted for? (it would seem some of them hardly visit their hometown apart from when they are commissioning aa new gloryland mansion)

We don’t have an international media to cover us, so nobody cares about it,” said Mr. Mbong, in nearby Eket. “Whatever cry we cry is not heard outside of here.”