00:00:16 VOICE OVER (VO): The Niger delta has some of the biggest oil fields in the
world.
It's a dangerous place of guns and poverty, where people need development, and the environment
is heavily polluted, from 50 years of living with the oil industry.
00:00:31 VO: In June 2013, in the dead of night, a massive explosion occurred on a major
Shell pipeline, near the village of Bodo, spilling thousands of barrels of oil into
the swamps. 00:00:44 VO: It was the 25th attack on that
pipeline in the last two years, but the size of the Bodo explosion, and its proximity to
the very people who were supposed to have been guarding it, made it remarkable--exposing
the depths of corruption at the heart of the Nigerian oil industry.
00:01:02 VO: We went to the swamps in Bodo, to see where the accident took place.
00:01:08 JOHN VIDAL PTC: Just a few hundred yards over there is the Joint Task Force - that's
the military's station.
It's impossible to know exactly what was going on but the likelihood is that oil was being
stolen in a very very large way, right under the noses of the authorities, and perhaps
with the collusion of the authorities.
00:01:29 VO: In the days following the explosion, a team was assembled to investigate what happened.
Catholic priest Father Obi, was invited to join this official investigation.
00:01:40 FATHER EDWARD OBI: 'From the very moment I got to the area I was suspicious,
you know, because I wondered why a site that should have been well protected - the JTF
were probably 70 meters from the scene, because I could see their houseboat from the scene
of the site' 00:01:58 JOHN VIDAL: The Military were within
70 metres?
00:02:00 FATHER OBI: Yes.
They were, at most, maybe 100 meters but I don't think it was up to 100 meters'.
00:02:04 JOHN VIDAL: So clearly the military knew what was going on?
00:02:06 FATHER OBI: 'They knew exactly what was going on there, and then also - later
on in the investigation - it was clear to me that Shell was aware that this was probably
one of the most bunkered points on the pipeline' 00:02:19 JOHN VIDAL:When you say "bunkered"
that is where the oil was being tapped off?
00:02:23 FATHER OBI: 'Was being tapped off, because there is always oil there.
And from the investigation it was clear to us that Shell knew this.'
00:02:31 JOHN VIDAL: So what you're saying is that the company knew, the contractors
knew, the military knew, everybody knew that this oil was being taken out?
00:02:40 FATHER OBI: 'And for me, there was clear complicity from everybody around'
00:02:48 VO: But everyone has a different story to tell.
Shell, which says it's losing 40 to 60,000 barrels of oil a day to theft, has stated
that oil was being stolen in Bodo, but they told us emphatically that their own contractors
were not involved.
00:03:05 VO: Nigeria says it's losing 400,000 barrels of oil a day, to sabotage, theft and
lost production.
That's nearly 20% of everything that's produced in the delta.
And it's costing the government and oil companies 20 billion dollars a year.
No other country in the world is losing anything like this much.
00:03:24 JOHN VIDAL PTC: For 20 minutes now we've been flying over a devastated landscape,
with dozens of illegal refineries - some small scale, some quite large scale - which have
been tapping oil off the main pipelines, putting the oil into barges and exporting it, who
knows where.
00:03:41 JOHN VIDAL PTC: The landscape has been destroyed, it's a very tragic situation.
00:03:54 VO: If you want to understand the problems of the people in the delta, then
come to Bodo.
There are no wells there, but still the community is plagued by oil.
00:04:04 VO: In 2008, faults in the Shell pipeline spilled tens of thousands of barrels
of crude into the mangrove swamps, causing total devastation.
5 years later, and people are still awaiting compensation and cleanup.
They've lost their fishing grounds and much of their farmland; oil has been nothing short
of a disaster for these people.
00:04:26 JOHN VIDAL PTC: This, underneath me is the Trans Niger pipeline- the great
24 inch artery of oil which leads from the oil fields here out to the terminal at Bonny
down the river.
It's not protected, you can see, look, it's right under my feet - if I jumped hard enough
on it I'd probably break it myself.
00:04:42 JOHN VIDAL PTC: This pipeline provides nothing for these communities, they get nothing:
they get none of the oil from it, they get none of the money from it.
Shell runs this pipeline, Shell is now saying that it needs to make a new pipeline.
It's going to spend 1500million pounds on a new pipeline, to avoid communities like
this and sabotage.
If it spent a tenth of that money on the communities, you could argue that you wouldn't have these
problems in the first place.
Oil and people here do not seem to mix.
00:05:11 VO: Not only have the people of the delta had to live with the disastrous effects
of oil, they are routinely blamed for most of the spillages and theft.
Community leaders in Bodo insist this simply isn't possible.
00:05:26 JOHN VIDAL INTV: We saw the pipeline going through Bodo, and its not protected!
Anyone could break into it.
If I had a chisel and I broke into it, what would happen?
00:05:36 CHRISTIAN SUBBED: 'It is not easy to use a chisel.
With a chisel they cannot do it.'
' MENE SUBBED: They use an engine to bore it.
You cannot easily do it manually.
It must be done by an engine.
00:05:50 CHRISTIAN SUBBED: 'When you pass through the community, you will see it's not
easy for a poor man like us to make an [oil] barge.
A barge would cost millions of [Nigerian currency] naira to construct.'
00:06:05 VO: So is the oil being stolen by the rich?
The fact is it takes serious money to set up even a moderate operation for the removal
and refining of crude from the pipelines.
00:06:17 VO: There are just a handful of legal refineries in the delta, and they're not working
at full capacity.
That means there's a gaping hole in the fuel market, that can be filled by anyone with
the financial clout.
00:06:30 VO: The same day we met this major oil trader.
He told us he'd been offered 50,000 litres of stolen oil.
00:06:37 JOHN VIDAL INTV: The big oil companies are blaming the poor, is this honest, or dishonest?
00:06:41 OIL TRADER SUBBED: 'This is very dishonest, because of what is required to
engage in the large-scale stealing that we see.
The claims by the big oil companies [of stolen oil] are not small.
We are talking millions of barrels of crude oil.
How does the poor man engage in stealing these things?
He doesn't have the means.
He cannot do it.'
00:07:02 JOHN: VIDAL INTV: So what kind of resources, what kind of financial resources
do you need to get yourself involved in this thieving of oil.
00:07:12 OIL TRADER SUBBED: 'You need what is called the "pour-puts".
It's a very big wooden boat.
You can't build that boat for less than 2.5 million naira [$15,500].
You need that boat.
You need to settle the military.
To settle the military is not in hundreds of thousands, it's in millions of naira.
At that level it's 5m [naira], you can acquire crude oil to move to your refining base.
But it doesn't stop there.
For you to get involved in moving product means you have to have an existing refinery
already.
And it costs money to have an existing refinery.
00:07:57 VO: The size and scale of the illegal refineries varies, but collectively, they
do massive environmental damage.
They're open secrets that scar the landscape.
00:08:08 VO: Mela Oforibika, a lawyer and chief from the town of Bolo, took us to see
a recently destroyed illegal refinery, just a mile from shore.
It was only a medium sized operation, but it was capable of processing 10,000 litres
a day, much of which was spilt into the creeks. 00: JOHN VIDAL PTC: Ay ay ay ay ay ay ay:
it absolutely stinks of oil.
This was just one refinery, and it's an area 2, 3 acres I should think at least, and it's
completely devastated.
The ground is just saturated completely.
00:08:49 JOHN VIDAL: This is a big operation.
This has got lots of money about it.
00:08:53 MELA OFORIBIKA: 'Yes, and you'd have about 20, 30 persons, every minute, working
here full time' 00:09.03 JOHN VIDAL INTV: And this was done
under the very nose of the military, in your estimation, was it done with the connivance,
with the complicity of the...
00:09:10 MELA SUBBED: 'Of course there was a high level of complicity.
You cannot rule out the level of corruption.'
00:09:18 JOHN VIDAL INTV: But is your belief that these refineries started because companies
like Shell never did the cleanups, never kept their promises?
00:09:27 MELA 'Oh yes' SUBBED: '[Shell] had spillages from equipment failure.
They always denied them, and charged them as sabotage.
All the people say, if [Shell] are saying everything is sabotage, why don't we start
sabotaging them ourselves'. 00:09:39 JOHN VIDAL INTV: So if Shell had
been a good company, if the other oil companies had acted properly, you would never have had
this criminality?
00:09:46 MELA SUBBED: 'You would not have had this scale.
And you would not have had the level of connivance that also went with it, the level of silence.
It's spoilt the environment.
This used to be a pristine area.
See the mangroves?
See the trees?
Everything.
00:10:07 VO: Illegal refineries in the delta operate only with the permission of the military
and the police, and they demand payment.
Every so often they close down in a show of military power, but most relocate and start
again.
00:10:20 VO: This small-time trader dealt in just a few barrels a day.
He claims that what little he earned from the trade was far outstripped by the money
that the police would demand in bribes. 00:10:32 JOHN VIDAL INTV: When the business
was working, how much did you have to pay the authorities, in other words the police
or the JTF, how much did you have to pay them to keep quiet?
00:10:43 OIL TRADER 2 SUBBED: 'Whenever they come...For instance, if they ask [for payment]
for five drums, which is worth 10,000 [naira], they would charge me 5,000.
But at times they don't collect anything.
They destroy all'. 00:10:59 JOHN VIDAL INTV: But the police are
part of the business in the sense that you have to give them money to be able to carry
on your work.
00:11:07 OIL TRADER 2 SUBBED: 'The police are just the same as the JTF [Joint Task Force].
When they come, what little I have, I give to them.
For me the military are the biggest players in this.
None of this can be done without the military.
The Niger delta has been militarised in a very large way.
So there's nothing you can do without seeking their consent.
Their consent means they are involved in the business.'
00:11:39 VO: What's clear, is that the oil industry in Nigeria has developed a culture
of secrecy and complicity, that allows the wealthy and powerful to prosper, but only
offers crumbs to the poor.
00:11:54 VO: Almost nowhere in the delta is completely untouched by oil, but just a few
miles down the road from Bolo and Bodo, is the town of Kaa, where there are no pipelines,
and despite the occasional slick coming from upstream, life continues much as it always
has.
00:12:20 JOHN VIDAL PTC: This is great, this is the Nigeria we don't see enough of in the
media- we read about the oil pollution, we read about the terrorism, we read about the
corruption.
This is just an ordinary small town in Nigeria, going about its business, and it's humming,
it's thriving, it's lovely, there's music, there's kids, it's calm, it's just everything
we don't expect from Nigeria.
This is how the place was, and this is why it's really worth fighting for.
00:13:11 JOHN VIDAL PTC: This is palm gin, cheers, its really good!
00:13:24 NON-SUBBED, LOCALS' SHOUTS AND LAUGHTER 00:13:38 VO: We may never know who was responsible
for the explosion in Bodo, because the authorities themselves may be implicated.
Oil theft seems practically out of control.
00:13:49 VO: Ken Saro-Wiwa Jr. is an Aide to the president.
He knows only too well how the oil industry has failed the people of the delta.
00:13:58 VO: So who is responsible?
00:14:00 KEN SARO-WIWA: 'Well it's a complex network.
You can look at...the allegations are including commodity traders, you're looking at people
who are lifting oil, you are looking at insurance, people who own ships, you're looking at security
agencies, you're looking at militant networks, so it goes right across, the value chain is
long and complicated.'
00:14:21 JOHN VIDAL INTV: Are the oil companies implicated?
00:14:24 KEN: 'Well, there are some suggestions, but again, these are things which require
proper investigation, and certainly it's not, in the end its not so much about pointing
fingers, but it's looking for solutions.
00:14:36 VO: Whatever the solution, poverty must be addressed.
Community leaders across the delta want licenses to set up small-scale legal refineries that
would provide diesel for local consumption.
This, they say, would create jobs, stop much of the pollution, and generate real development.
00:14:55 MELA OFORIBIKA SUBBED: 'Why not let them get modular refineries on board...5,000
litres...10,000 litres...'
00:15:01 JOHN VIDAL INTV: You're arguing for communities to have their own legal refineries,
in every major community...
00:15:06 MELA SUBBED: 'Yes, legal refineries on these small stages.
And then the sale of the crude at domestic price.
Not at international spot price.
It would stop the criminality.' 00: MELA SUBBED: 'Who are you stealing it
to sell to?
Who are you refining it for?
When there is a legal refinery here catering for 10,000 litres, who is going to buy that
one that you went into the bush to do?
Nobody.
Because they are such that it is of a better quality.
They are sure that it is made in line with environmental practices.
Nobody is going to buy yours that you made in the bush. '
00:15:40 JOHN VIDAL INTV: So it would end the criminality and it would bring prosperity.
00:15:44 MELA SUBBED: 'It would end everything.
And it would bring prosperity.'
00:15:49 VO: But some reject oil completely.
Nnimmo Bassey, Chair of Oil Watch International, believes that oil in Nigeria has been a disaster
for his country.
00:15:59 NNIMMO: 'Oil has been the major factor that has dislocated everything in Nigeria:
about Nigerian politics, Nigerian economy, the infrastructure.
Before oil, Nigeria was a rich country, since oil began to be a major income earner, Nigeria
has become an impoverished country.
00:16:17 NIMMO: 'Oil should be left in the soil.
Coal should be left in the hole.
Tar sands should be left in the sand, and there should be no fracking at all.
The oil-based civilisation has gone on for about 200 years, it's not going to take us
eternity.
It's time now for us all around the whole world, rich or poor, to move from this fossil-fuel
driven production, and go towards renewables.' 00:16:51 JOHN VIDAL PTC: So this is what oil
does, in it's crudest form, to the environment.
It destroys it.
There's nothing left.
And it's going to go on, that's the whole point, it's going to go on, until somebody
says that's enough.
That's enough exploitation of the resources, that's enough exploitation of people, that's
enough thieving of resources, that's enough destroying of the environment.
JOHN VIDAL PTC: This sort of culture of rape and destroy will just inevitably go on in
every oil field of the world.
It's happening: it's happening in Ecuador, it's happening in Columbia, it's happening
all over Africa, it's happening in the East- and war, and political strife comes with oil.
JOHN VIDAL PTC: The oil culture is just a disaster, it's a curse, it is not a blessing
at this level; it is a curse.