Chris Grimshaw

2006 is the fiftieth anniversary of the discovery by Shell of large oil reserves in the Niger Delta. The day I write this review, news has been announced that Exxon plans to invest over $2 billion in Nigeria to ensure a steady production capacity of 1 million barrels per day. Ten years after the judicial murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa, how much has changed in the world of Nigerian oil?

Only a few weeks ago Shell was instructed by a Nigerian court to pay $1.5 billion to the people of Ijawland in compensation for pollution. Shell, whose profits for 2005 exceeded £13 billion has refused to pay. Now decades of struggle for control of the oil and peaceful protest against the ecological devastation wreaked by the oil industry has given way to armed resistance and kidnappings of oil workers.

Released last year to commemmorate the 10th anniversary of the execution of Ogoni activist and writer Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight others, The Next Gulf by Andy Rowell, James Marriott, and Lorne Stockman investigates the appalling history of the oil industry in Nigeria, particularly documenting the recent history since 1995 after the media's attention moved on to other things.

1995 was a crisis year for Shell. After the Brent Spar protests, the death of Saro-Wiwa ignited a public relations crisis and a collapse of morale within the company. Shell embarked on an unprecedented public relations campaign to rebrand itself as an open caring and responsive company. Glossy reports, such as Profits and Principles, followed and selected journalists were invited on tours of the region. The previously obscure concept of 'corporate social responsibility', became Shell's mantra. Whilst Shell was forced to pull out of the small Ogoni region, for the rest of the delta little has changed. Shell and the other oil companies continue to pollute the land, water and air, whilst denying all responsibility. In 2005 Shell's non-executive chairman, Lord Oxburgh, even claimed that the hated gas flares were a positive benefit, 'the locals appreciate the flares as a heat source to dry their fish.'

The book also traces a detailed history of Nigeria since the British takeover in the 17th Century. It illuminates the long centuries of exploitation, administered by the Royal African Company (founded 1672) and its sucessor, the Royal Niger Company (1886), through slavery and then palm oil and other industrial products, up to the modern era of oil production. It shows how Shell and the Nigerian government have become intertwined and interdependent and how the oil giant has profitted from the brutal military repression of the people of the Delta and from inter-ethnic conflicts in the region. It details also the corruption which is endemic to the oil industry in Nigeria.

In December 2003 a report by Shell's consultants WAC was leaked. The report, examining the poltical situation in the Niger Delta, concluded that Shell's own operations there are actually fuelling the inter-ethnic violence and warned that Shell may lose its social license to operate throughout the whole region. Predictably, this part of the report was dismissed by Shell which maintains that it can keep going by changing 'operating, security and community development practices.' In 2004 Christian Aid's report Behind The Mask found that Shell's CSR programme in Nigeria had utterly failed to deliver real benefit to the Delta's people.

Appalling though the history of Nigeria is, it is the authors' examination of the area's likely future that is most chilling. In recent years, with the security of Middle Eastern oil supplies becoming a source of deep anxiety to American energy interests, the hungry eyes of the White House have turned towards the Gulf of Guinea and identified it as a source of strategic interest. US arms and military advisers are now pouring into Nigeria to protect new investments in Nigerian oil.

The Next Gulf is a highly authoritative work of history and politics but it also contains many poignant and personal reflections. In a number of different ways the authors attempt to show how many facets of British life are intimately connected to the Niger Delta, just how much of our lifestyle is made possible by oil. The book quotes Ogoni leader Ledum Mitee, 'When I travel outside Nigeria people often ask me how far away Ogoni is. I tell them it's as far as the nearest Shell service station.'