You ask me what we’ve gotten from all the oil here in Aluu? I tell you: nothing. We know that the pumping station that the oil company has on our land, which they call Agbada 1, pumps 30,000 barrels a day.
But the oil company uses our land and gives us nothing for it; and the government gives us nothing either.
We don’t have electricity or clean water or anything that human beings need to develop themselves.
The oil company did build a health clinic here a few years ago but it’s not functioning any more. There is a secondary school but it doesn’t have competent teachers or any equipment.
Most of the oil money gets eaten [through corruption] and the money allocated to us is wasted.
Look, for example, at the huge 4-line highway that goes past our village. The government started building it more than six years ago. When they started we said to ourselves, ‘Why do we need such a big highway here?’ but we’re going to complain. At least we were getting something so we shut up.
The highway was to start at Port Harcourt international airport and end at a junction that would join us to the highway going to [the town of] Warri.
But then after one year the work stopped, and now it’s now been five years and the work never started again.
We have this beautiful highway going past our village but it just ends down the road in the middle of the bush. It’s a huge highway going to nowhere. And the road we have to use still to get to Warri is worse than ever.
dh/nr
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
