Page:Niger Delta Ecosystems- the ERA Handbook, 1998.djvu/178

Environmental Impact of the Oil Industry

Because most people in the Niger Delta have very low or no disposable income while workers in the oil industry receive comparatively high incomes. For instance a flow station supervisor may receive up to N80,000 a month (about US$800 in 1997) compared with a well paid security guard who gets about N4,000 or a University lecturer, about N6,000. Civil servants are particularly badly paid compared to oil industry workers, which encourages corruption.

Because of the income inequality, which is exacerbated by corruption (whereby a very few people are extremely rich), only the top few percent of the population have access to services such as water electricity and education because they can pay for them. Everyone else more or less does without because public provision is so bad. Also because public housing is severely limited and because the house building industry concentrates on building for the rich, housing provision for the middle classes and the poor is of a very low standard. This is discussed in the final chapter on the special problems of Port Harcourt.

Which arises from income inequality and the unjust provision of services and housing in urban areas. This ranges from a general awareness of the injustices of life to an anger that can occasionally flare up into mass political action. But perhaps the worst manifestation is the general air of depression that the condition lends to life as a whole in the Niger Delta.

Caused by social discontent which gives rise to political tensions and to the subsequent strong military influence which is characteristic of civil society in the Niger Delta. 176