Ogoni: The Struggle Continues. - book reviews

The World Council of Churches has produced this very thorough expose of the human rights atrocities taking place in Nigeria, through the stories of the Ogoni people, one of the many ethnic minorities of that country. The issues: economic exploitation and environmental destruction. The Nigerian government and the Shell Petroleum Development Corporation have colluded through the years to keep the oil flowing at all costs. Imprisonment, torture, and death have been the consequences of direct involvement, or even suspicion of sympathy, with the Ogoni rights organization, the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP). One chapter is devoted to the life and work of Ken Saro-Wiwa, the Ogoni activist who, along with eight other Ogonis, was executed in 1995 despite international protest.

The book is detailed and well-documented with numerous first-person accounts -- a compelling report of a tragic situation.

"It is important for the reader to understand that hectares upon hectares of land have been destroyed by oil spills. We visited the Ebubu spill site. To walk on the oil-encrusted earth and see deep recesses in which oil was still present was an overwhelmingly dismal experience, but it was even more shocking to realize that this land has been this way for 26 years, and will remain in this state for many, many, many more years. At the Yorla spill site that occurred in 1994, after Shell "ceased operations in Ogoniland," we saw the appalling destruction that oil spills and blowouts cause and realized that even more valuable land to Ogoni farmers had been laid to waste. Most importantly, we knew that Nigerians outside of Ogoniland have little idea about what life with the oil companies has been like....

"With the pull-out of Shell from Ogoniland, gas flaring has stopped in 4 of the 5 flowstations. Where the gas flaring has stopped, people were able to see a difference in their vegetation; farm yields are better than before. The people did not know what it was like to live without Shell. it is only now that the people in these areas can see what type of environmental devastation the gas flaring had been causing for the past 35 years.

COPYRIGHT 1998 Point Foundation
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