A few hours outside Port Harcourt, we visited Nigeria's very first oil well. Not far from the faux-marble plaque that commemorates this historic event in 1956, we were greeted by a group of 20 government-sponsored thugs. They surrounded us while we were interviewing a local chief about how his community had seen no benefits after decades of oil production. After some b.s. and bluster, the chief managed to sneak us out the back of his village, explaining that the men were there to intimidate the local community from speaking to us.
The other memorable oil well we saw on our tour was spewing crude into the mangrove swamps of a small fishing village in Ogoniland. Other than the fact that the rivers smelled like a gas station and the marsh crabs were suffocating under an oil slick, it was an idyllic place. And here there was history, too. Ogoniland was the heart of the nonviolent protests that became a bit of a cause celebre in the early 90s. One guy we met was even sporting an old Body Shop sweatshirt that read, "Boycott Shell". But the movement fizzled out after its leader, Ken Saro-Wiwa, was arrested and hanged by the military dictatorship. "Fizzled out" probably isn't the right word. "Evolved" might be better. As one of the Ogoni leaders explained, having learned the futility of peaceful protests, people are now taking up arms. Which brings us back to MEND.
General Shoot at Sight came through on our last day in the delta.
When we arrived at our designated meeting point, a small port in the creeks, a group of young boys approached our car.
"Oyibos (white people), the men are waiting for you," one said. "Follow me."
We had the impression that this was all going to be very clandestine, so we were surprised when arrived at the dock and saw that in the middle of the daily hustle and bustle, there were half a dozen young men holding AK-47s and machine guns with bullet belts draped Rambo-style across their shoulders.
The militants, we were told, operate openly here. After decades of watching their leaders pocket and squander billions in oil funds, many in the Niger Delta support the militants or, at least, sympathize with their struggle. After all, what harm does blowing up a pipeline do to people who never benefited from it in the first place?
Darren Foster and Mariana van Zeller's film, Rebels In The Pipeline is currently airing on Current TV and available on Current.com.
To the many reasons given for why oil prices have hit record highs -- a weak dollar, market speculators, peak supply concerns -- you can also add rebels in Nigeria. Oil analysts have been pointing to the growing violence in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta for a while now, but rarely with the frequency that they have over the last few weeks. In that time, militants have pulled-off about a half-dozen attacks on oil pipelines and facilities. With world oil supplies already stretched, Africa's largest producer -- and the US's fifth largest supplier -- has been forced to cut production. And if the rebels themselves are to be believed, the situation may only get worse.
