“Hear rare footage of Ken Saro-Wiwa’s last televised interview, juxtaposed with contemporary footage from Channel 4’s Unreported World from the Niger Delta and the creation of a memorial to Saro-Wiwa in London.
Also featuring a photomontage of the remember saro-wiwa project and music by Nigerian-European artist and spectacular singer, Nneka.
Learn more & get active at http://www.remembersarowiwa.com.“

For the past 13 days the Nigerian military has been mounting an offensive in the swampy creeks of the Niger Delta, pursuing oil militants who kidnapped 15 sailors, 18 soldiers and hijacked a petrol tanker belonging to the national oil company.

They say the continuing military action is an attempt to rescue their men or confirm if they are dead.

The militants started it, they say, and the military is just reacting, according to commander Gen Sarkin Yakin Bello, whose name means “lord of fighting” in the northern Hausa language.

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By Gilbert da Costa
Abuja

Some of Niger Delta’s prominent groups and ethnic leaders have called for urgent talks with the government to end the military’s ongoing operations in the region. Rights groups say the army’s indiscriminate bombing of villages in the oil-producing Niger Delta has created a humanitarian crisis.

The Nigerian military says troops will continue their search of the creeks of the Niger Delta to flush out militants whose criminal activities have hurt the country’s oil production.

An army spokesman in the delta, Colonel Rabe Abubakar, says the military will continue securing the region and dismissed any talk of a so-called cease-fire.

“I am not aware of any cease-fire,” he said. “We are a military people. We are not at war. It is only when you are at war that you begin to ask for cease-fire. You are just conducting an operation which will assist you in recovery or rescuing some of the foreign nationals who were taken hostage by the militants. The operation is only targeting the militants, not any other person - the militants and their hideouts.”
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“The Gods have been driven far away…”

Violence and kidnappings in the Niger Delta are triggered by decisions made inside multinational oil company boardrooms in far away lands. These interventionist activities in turn affect the global price of oil. It is no less a symbiotic relationship than any other.

Armed men in speedboats have abducted a Romanian crew member after an attack on an oil tanker off Nigeria’s southern coast, security sources say.

The MT Meredith, loaded with 4,000 tonnes of diesel, was badly damaged in the attack early on Wednesday.

“The ship called for assistance as its engine and superstructure were reported to have been seriously damaged,” a private security source, who asked not to be named, said.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend), which wants greater autonomy for the region, claimed that an “affiliate group” carried out the attack.

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I created this short clip in memory of the exploited people of the oil rich Niger Delta in Nigeria, with music from Fela Anikulapo Kuti. This was inspired by “The Next Gulf: London, Washington and Oil Conflict in Nigeria” a terrific book by British authors,Andrew Rowell, James Marriott, Lorne Stockman at Platform.

At the Delta of Niger River in Nigeria, where a vast proportion of planet’s oil is excavated, bomb attacks, abductions and murders form part of daily routine.

The documentary portrays the image of “development”, the way giant multinational petroleum companies would define it. Petroleum leaks in the River destroy flora and fauna, poison the food chain and consequently wipe out the 27 million indigenous people of the area - the Ijaws, the Ogoni and the Itsekiris. The inhabitants dare to ask the self-evident, they demand an end to it. As a response they are massively and brutally attacked by special forces of the army and the police, which are armed by the oil companies. The camera meets at the river militia of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta-MEND- and presents to the world for the first time shattering images of their speed boat patrols and of their heavy weaponry.
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