There are high rates of cancer in Bayelsa State in the Niger Delta in an ‘eco-genocide’. Families drink toxic water and breathe toxic air. Children climb over great oil pipes on their way to school. For decades, multinational oil companies have left old pipes and machinery to leak oil into the rivers and across the land, destroying local wells, crops, herds and wildlife. Around 40 million litres of oil are spilled annually in the Niger Delta, in comparison to 4 million litres of oil spilled in the whole United States each year. It is estimated that oil spills could have killed around 16,000 babies within their first month of life. Life expectancy in the Niger Delta is about ten years lower than the national average.

A Commission of Inquiry reviewed environmental, health, socio-economic, cultural and human damage and also identified unseen influences. The Commission concluded that the oil companies put profit first. Their policies are racist and neo-colonialist when Nigerian lives in the delta are deemed to be worthless. The oil sales bring in 40 per cent of the GNP, which could deter government action to prevent pollution. No national or international standards can be enforced to control the companies. The ten Commission members advised on a new legal framework to ensure accountability: the oil companies should agree to a global standard of behaviour and operate in Bayelsa as they would in Norway, Scotland or the USA.