Saturday, December 10, 2011

Deep in the oil fields with a militant

Sun News
5 December 2011

By Godson Nwa Offoaro

It had been a journey long planned in my mind. If I had to do a comparative dissertation on the political economy of oil in the Niger Delta and its counterpart in the Mississippi Delta, I’d rather start exploration from home. Yes, I had to. Professors Mike Ogbeidi and his friend Ademola Adeleke, who were my mates but now my supervisors would not take anything but quality work from their doctoral student.

What does the black liquid gold look like? What does an oil pipeline look like? What is a rig? What is a flow station? What is gas flaring? What is pollution and what are ecological disasters and environmental degradations? What’s the impact of oil on the peoples of the two look-alike deltaic oil rich regions of the world – comparatively speaking? Hmmm but what really is an oil well or its head?

Why is it, that some oil wells are cocked (keys thrown away) say by Shell while Agip and SAIPEM remain in constant (sometimes) elusive search for glory that comes with discoveries – whether active, dormant, abandoned, cocked or effusive?

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