Oil Exploitation in the Niger Delta: The Social-Economic and Environmental Implications to the Ofuoma Community

Abstract

Crude oil exploitation activities have been implicated as major causes of social political and environmental destruction within the oil-bearing communities of the Niger Delta. This study analysed the social-economic and environmental impact of oil exploitation on the Ofuoma community. The study relied on interview, secondary data from journals, published and unpublished materials on related literature. The data were analysed using descriptive and historical methods to make reasonable deductions. The study revealed that severe social-economic and environmental degradation has been inflicted on the Ofuoma community as a result of oil spillages and other factors to the extent that economic activities in the area have been adversely affected leaving the people completely impoverished, with no meaningful alternative source of livelihood. Both the land, water, and air have been polluted with crude oil over the years, thus depriving them of the opportunity to continue to engage in their usual basic economic activities, prominent among which are farming and fishing, from where they met their basic economic needs. Stakeholders’ participation in critical decision-making was visibly absent, thus creating doubts about the credibility of even the best and well-intended policy of the principal actors in the oil industry, thereby compounding the already pitiable situation. It becomes, pertinent to put in place a deliberate policy whereby the people will be fully integrated in the scheme of things especially when certain policy decisions are being taken.