Contending Issues in the Niger Delta Crisis of Nigeria - Journal of ...

Olawale Olaopa, Ibikunle Ogundari, Mike Awoleye, and Willie Siyanbola
Few places better illustrate the desperation of the locals than
Oloibiri, where Nigeria first struck oil in 1956. The country's first oil
boomtown has seen its population drop to perhaps 500 from an
estimated peak of about 10,000 in the 1970s (Olojede, Op cit). Deep in
the Niger Delta, today it looks like a ghost town. Its mud streets are
empty and almost no one is employed, save those harvesting the
skimpy offerings from polluted creeks, from which residents also draw
water for cooking, drinking and their daily ablutions. The single
health center has long since closed. Electricity does not exist, and
anyone who could has already moved away.
Among those left behind is 70-year-old Sunday Foster Iningite, the
senior chief lamented the situation and his experience at Olobiri while
mourning the hollowing out of his hometown when he claimed that:
Not one of my children is here; there is
nothing for them," said the chief. "They
sucked the oil until it was dry in the 1970s,
then they abandoned us. Now, like cocks, we
scratch the ground for a living." (Ibid). But
while Oloibiri has fallen harder and faster
than most communities - many of which
never rose to begin with - it is hardly
exceptional.
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