Oil tarred Ogoniland - now Nigeria wants to drill anew

LAGOS - Supporters point to the jobs and talk up the money. Opponents mourn the lost mangroves, the oil-slicked earth and all the broken promises to mop up past spills.

Drilling is back on the agenda in Nigeria.

Every Saturday now, tribal chiefs gather their families close in a bid to drum up support for government plans to pump oil once more in Ogoniland, an ancient kingdom blighted by decades of oil spills, fires, leaks and pollution.

The meetings can run late into the night, as pressure mounts and tempers flare between community leaders and Ogoni elders.

"There is so much discord among the tribes," Nigerian youth activist Dum Syl Aminikpo told Context.

Those who reject the idea of fresh drilling after a 30-year hiatus are smeared as "enemies of progress", he said, despite the heavy toll oil has taken on his people and their land.

"Many people don't trust this process, and the government seem to be in so much hurry but we can't forget our bloody past relationship with oil," he added.

The meetings are part of initial steps aimed at persuading communities in Ogoniland to consent to plans to pump oil in the area. It is unclear when any drilling operations will start.

Oil output from Nigeria, Africa's top exporter, has fallen in recent years due to mass theft, the sabotage of pipelines and oil giants switching to offshore exploration.

Oil accounts for 90% of the nation's export revenue, and the drop in crude volumes has hit government finances hard.

To make up the shortfall, the state oil company NNPC Ltd has launched several new exploration projects.

First and foremost: proposals to drill anew in Ogoniland, an area spanning more than 1,000 sq km, as rich in ancient culture as in diverse ecosystems. Its location in the oil-rich Niger Delta means it is top of the government's radar.

But the plans to drill have opened old Ogoni wounds about pollution, health hazards and long-lasting environmental damage wrought by oil wells that have sat idle for decades.

The government says new drilling means new money to build infrastructure and create jobs in a region where thousands of oil spills have killed off farms and fisheries.

But environmental campaigners say the oil giants only brought death and destruction last time around and have yet to clean up their old mess. Why drill anew, they ask, when yesterday's business remains unfinished?

"Only a madman will turn on the tap and mop the floor at the same time," said Celestine Akpobari, an Ogoni-born environmental campaigner.

World largest clean-up

Sixty years of oil exploration in the Niger Delta has polluted swathes of mangroves, creeks and lakes, according to the United Nations, a mess that would take 25 years and at least $1 billion to clean up.

Nigeria launched plans in 2012 to begin what would be the world's biggest oil clean-up, largely funded by Shell.

But progress has been slow, partly because the government had yet to contribute any funds, said Akpobari, one of the activists who helped negotiate the 2012 deal.

Both the clean-up operation, called HYPREP, and the Nigerian presidency did not respond to requests for comment.

Social justice?

Long-standing leaders in the blighted area say that old opposition to Big Oil has waned through the years, with eyes more keenly turned to making money than saving mangroves.

When campaigners stopped Shell operations in the region in 1993, Nigerian poet and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight others were hanged by the government, sparking international outrage.

This time, they said, federal government has used the promise of universities, schools and jobs to win support.

In January, the president summoned Ogoni chiefs to his villa and urged them to rally tribal support for drilling. A month later, he signed a bill to set up a college in Ogoniland.

Activists say it makes for a terrible tradeoff.

"How can you say you will give me a university and then pollute my land? Other Nigerian communities without oil have schools and jobs," Akpobari said.

Joseph Emmanuel, a 23-year-old from Bodo village - where oil spills have blackened rivers and forced farmers off their land – said the region desperately needs a boost and hoped revenue from renewed drilling could offer a lifeline to young Ogoni like him.

"Our youths need jobs instead of being idle, we need industries and projects that will employ them so they can earn and look after their families," he said.

With the two sides locked in stalemate, economists say the best hope is finding a compromise that might work for everyone.

For instance, said political economist Uche Igwe, revenues from new drilling could help pay for the old clean-up and let Big Oil redeem its tarnished image, too.

But only, he said, if communities hold government to account this time around and if the terms of any deal are transparent.

"The 'Polluter Pays' principle is an international standard," said Igwe. "Nigeria should not be different."

(Reporting by Bukola Adebayo; Editing Lyndsay Griffiths and Jack Graham.)