Today's Reminiscing post looks at neocolonialism in Nigeria and how it's affected the Ogoni people in Nigeria.
Wikipedia defines neo-colonialism as such:
Neo-colonialism (also Neocolonialism) is the geopolitical practice of using capitalism, business globalization, and cultural imperialism to control a country, in lieu of either direct military control or indirect political control, i.e. imperialism and hegemony. The term neo-colonialism was coined by the Ghanaian politician Kwame Nkrumah, to describe the socio-economic and political control that can be exercised economically, linguistically, and culturally, whereby promotion of the culture of the neo-colonist country facilitates the cultural assimilation of the colonised people and thus opens the national economy to the multinational corporations of the neo-colonial country.
The rhetoric we hear in primary/secondary school is, "Nigeria got her independence from the British in 1960 and became an independent country since then". Well, we're still bitches...just independent ones. Colonial rule is over but is transformed into neo-colonialism which still retains and maintains, in this case, economic and commercial ties. Unfortunately, in Nigeria this surface change in power is taken as actual history and the neo-colonial bit is almost ignored.
The rhetoric we hear in primary/secondary school is, "Nigeria got her independence from the British in 1960 and became an independent country since then". Well, we're still bitches...just independent ones. Colonial rule is over but is transformed into neo-colonialism which still retains and maintains, in this case, economic and commercial ties. Unfortunately, in Nigeria this surface change in power is taken as actual history and the neo-colonial bit is almost ignored.
The Niger Delta has amazing agricultural land and a lot of resources. The Ogoni people are a huge ethnic group that has lived there for centuries. Thanks to Shell and other companies, the livelihood of people who live in the Niger Delta is permanently threatened. Shell began drilling for oil in 1958 and in 1990 Ken Saro-Wiwa formed the Movement of the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP), demanding environmental justice on their land. He was assassinated on November 10 1995 but the struggle continues.
In typical exploitative fashion, Shell has ignored the well-being of the Ogoni people and other tribes living in the Niger Delta and this is of course being done with the support (direct or indirect) of the Nigerian government. In case you didn't know, crude oil accounts for about 80% of government income. The government doesn't just support Shell but also ensures that peaceful demonstrations don't take place.
Here's some of the crap that's going down:
Here's some of the crap that's going down:
Whenever we visited our family in Port Harcourt, we didn't really notice the effects of environmental degradation on the land. To be honest, we had nothing to really compare it to. The only thing we constantly heard was how the price of sea food was becoming really expensive because fishermen were finding it harder to catch fish. As kids, it didn't occur to us why this was the case.
We end this with the words of Ken Saro-Wiwa:
'We either win this war to save our land, or we will be exterminated, because we have nowhere to run to.'
We end this with the words of Ken Saro-Wiwa:
'We either win this war to save our land, or we will be exterminated, because we have nowhere to run to.'
