This work is a visual narrative of life in the oil-rich riverine communities of the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, where the vast majority of the population has been excluded from the benefits of the multi-billion dollar oil industry that pumps directly from their land.
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Fires from hundreds of illicit fuel refineries burn every night throughout the Niger Delta. Concealed deep within mangrove swamps and raffia forests, men, women and children work by flashlight, manually tossing stolen crude oil into burning pits to keep the refining process going. Flames explode momentarily then recede into darkness.
Set against the mass disparities of Nigeria’s oil industry, the Niger Delta has witnessed an ongoing conflict between armed groups seeking access to the country’s oil wealth and the Nigerian security forces. Despite a 2009 amnesty — which saw several thousand militant fighters submit weapons in exchange for cash — little effort has been made to address the pollution, corruption, and political sponsorship of armed groups, which drive the underlying violence and endemic poverty in what is Africa’s largest oil producing region and fifth largest supplier of crude to the United States. Decades of unchecked gas flaring and spillage from multi-national oil operations, sabotage of pipelines and bunkering has severely damaged vast swaths of one of the world’s largest and most magnificent wetlands. The vast majority of the delta’s riverine population remains shut out entirely from the benefits of the multi-billion dollar industry that pumps directly from their land.
Faced with limited options in an increasingly ravaged landscape, many people living within the creeks of the Niger Delta are risking everything, including the future of the river upon which their lives depend, to survive.
Since 2008, I have been exploring the ruthless contradictions that define the post-colonial petro-state that is Nigeria. This work builds upon this passage, and stands as an inquiry into our collective relationship to the environment and each other.
