Oloibiri – The Nollywood Movie That Explains It All -By Jeff Okoroafor

In 1956, after half a century of exploration, oil was discovered in Oloibiri, a small community in Bayelsa State where the inhabitants are mainly fishermen and farmers. After the discovery, Oloibiri became a historic town to the oil and gas industry in Nigeria. Now you would expect that a town that became the birthplace of a country’s oil, will be well developed – stable electricity, good road network, quality education, clean water, job opportunities, etc., but the reverse is the case. It is an “eye sore” to say the least. The place is under-developed, the people are poor peasants, the epidemic rate is off the charts, unemployment rate is alarming, and their land has suffered deadly blows from oil spills. The oil in Oloibiri has since dried up but there is nothing to show that it was the place where Nigeria’s oil breakthrough started. In plain terms, it could be said that the town of Oloibiri was used and ‘dumped’ after the oil explorers found no more use for it. While oil production has ceased, pipelines operated by Shell as well as ExxonMobil still traverse the land, creeks and waterways. Leakages – caused by corroded pipelines – mean that the area is still plagued by oil spills.

Modern day Oloibiri is like a ghost town, the only difference is that in this ghost town, human beings are living there.

If you travel through Ogoniland today, the first thing that hits you is the stench of oil – crude oil – that pervades the air. More than 25 years have passed since Ken Saro Wiwa was executed, along with eight other Ogoni leaders, by the Nigerian government for standing up to Shell’s operations in their communities. It is more than a decade since four Nigerian farmers alongside Friends of the Earth Netherlands launched a court case against Shell in the Netherlands to hold the company to account for its destruction of the Niger Delta. Decades have come and gone yet no justice, no clean up, no assistance whatsoever and the Nigerian government is completely silent, or disinterested.

According to a new investigation by four NGOs, nearly 10 years after a clean-up was urged for areas polluted by Shell and other oil companies in the Niger Delta, work has begun on only 11% of planned sites while vast areas remain heavily contaminated. Children in the Niger Delta grow up drinking, cooking and washing with polluted water. They eat contaminated fish and vegetables. They suffer from breathing problems. A 2017 study showed that babies in Nigeria were twice as likely to die in the first month of life if their mothers were living near an oil spill before becoming pregnant.

The Federal Government of Nigeria once promised to build a museum in Oloibiri, but till date, that promise has not been fulfilled. It promised a clean-up, set up a $1 billion fund yet nothing has been done. It promised well-furnished medical centers to take care of the health needs of the people of Oloibiri, not a single medical center has been built. It promised scholarship to the youths of the community, skilled and unskilled jobs and yet, nothing has been done.

The movie, Oloibiri sub-titled “The Revenge Has Come” is an action thriller that narrates the tale of Gunpowder (Richard Mofe-Damijo) and Timipre (Olu Jacobs), two natives of Oloibiri. Gunpowder engages in a violent struggle in protest to the squalid living conditions in his community despite their oil wealth; accusing Timipre’s generation of doing nothing whilst their land was exploited and plundered. It’s a movie that every Nigerian, particularly those in the corridors of power should see. We must all watch it to understand the evil that for decades was unleashed on the people of Niger Delta. We must watch it because what happened (and still happening in Oloibiri) is exactly what has befallen the rest of the country today, only in a different light. While Oloibiri was being pillaged, raped and destroyed, some bunches were busy cheering, scavenging and being too timid to stand up to those turning their communities and towns to wasteland. Ogoni needs a holistic clean up. The people deserve better. The companies – Shell, ExxonMobil and others that are responsible for what Ogoniland and its people have become will only continue to deviate as long as the Nigerian government remain spineless and utterly disinterested in the overall outcome and happening. Ogoniland needs a new Ken Saro Wiwa.