PETRÓLEO Y POBREZA EN EL DELTA DEL NÍGER

Abstract

The abundance of mineral resources may be both a source of
income to push a country’s growth and a permanent cause of conflict
given the resulting income distribution. Oil exploitation in Nigeria over
the last 45 years is an example of how a country can waste its petroleum
and natural gas wealth while allowing irresponsible exploitation
of its fields and disrupting the environment in the extraction areas,
condemning entire communities to poverty. Around 2.5m barrels of
crude oil per day are extracted from the ground in the Delta of the
Niger; the income which is derived is millionaire but it is not re-distributed
in this producing country except in meager quantities. Since the
oil companies settled in the area, its inhabitants have witnessed the
environmental pollution caused by gas emissions. Living conditions
have deteriorated remarkably, and marginality and poverty have been
the consequences. Different protest movements have denounced such
conditions and have been repressed in return; they have been integrated
into a very particular political dynamics in a perverse corruption,
marginality and violence play in a country plagued by ethnic and cultural
divisions.