DIRTY OIL BUSINESS
Since Royal Dutch Shell discovered oil in the Niger delta in 1958, Nigeria has developed into the sixth largest oil producer in the world. While the government was taking most of the profits, the local Ogoni people were confronted with the consequences: pollution of the environment and the disappearance of fish and wild animals. Under the leadership of the writer Ken Saro Wiwa, in the early 1990s the Ogoni demanded compensation. The campaign was hard-headedly suppressed by the government and the oil companies, and together with several co-workers Saro Wiwa was hung in 1995 after a dubious trial. In 2002 the Malawi-born Evans (b. 1968) travelled to the region for the first phase of a long-term project in which she will be following the social, political, economic and cultural developments in Nigeria.
