*Oil Exploitation in the Ogoniland* and the Niger Delta Oil in Nigeria has not significantly benefitted the communities from which it is extracted, but has lined the pockets of multinationals while the people of the Niger delta live in absolute poverty, environmental devastation, and have been terrorized by the government in their attempt to protect the profits of oil corporations. Oil production began in Nigeria in 1958 after the British government and Royal Dutch/Shell discovered the first "commercially viable" Nigerian oil field in the Niger Delta. This created the atmosphere for Nigerian independence two years later, in 1960, just after exploitation of a resource that would assure neocolonialism and foreign dominance. The Niger Delta region accounts for 90 percent of Nigeria's oil, and a region of the Niger Delta known as "Ogoniland" has gained much attention; the violent repression there is unequaled in any other part of the world where oil is extracted (Zunes 192, Cayford 184). Ogoniland, an area of 404 square miles in the southeastern Rivers State, is inhabited by 500,000 indigenous people who call themselves the Ogoni's, a group who do not have a myth about their common origin, but constitute an ethnic group based on a common language, tradition, and culture (Cayford 184, Welch 639). This area is comprised of three Local Government Areas, Khana, Tai-Eleme, and Gokana. Ogoniland is the most densely populated region in Nigeria, and possibly in all of Africa, and has become probably the most oil productive area on the continent.
Nigeria is the fifth-largest oil-producing country in the world, and also the most populous country in Africa; with a population of over 100 million. One of every five Africans and one in ten blacks are Nigerian. It also has one of the largest percentage of indigenous people, and the largest areas of biodiverse tropical rainforest in all of Africa (Wiwa xiv). Corporations like Royal Dutch/Shell, ExxonMobil, Agip, ChevronTexaco,...