Human rights activists from across Africa have expressed worry over renewed focus on Africa by emerging global economic powers as one of the fastest growing sources of oil and gas for the global markets amidst tightening oil supplies and low sulphur content of the oil found in Africa. The activists who converged in South Africa recently for a conference convened by Oilwatch Africa and Groundwork South Africa noted that Africa was facing another round of colonization that threatens livelihoods and ecology.

According to them, increased attention on Africa means increase in offshore exploration in traditional crude oil exporting countries from around the gulf of Guinea like Nigeria and Angola, and increased exploratory activities in the Horn of Africa.

The activists used Nigeria’s Niger Delta and South America as case studies of what happens when multinational companies dig underneath people’s land in search of oil, expressing fears of a replication in countries like Angola and Mali where the activities of trans-national oil companies mainly from the United States of America and China have commenced what could be termed as a new Scramble for Africa.

Executive Director of the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN), Nnimmo Bassey, in his presentation at the conference titledThe Future of Crude Oil is Already History highlighted the environmental degradation in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria in the last 50 years, stressing that fallouts of oil exploration included socio-economic displacement of the locals, pollution-induced sicknesses and violent conflicts in the region.

Bassey also exposed the horrendous facts of the gas flaring leading to the loss of $15 million daily despite a court ruling in 2005 outlawing the practice, and over 6, 817 documented oil spills in Nigeria since 1976, adding: The announcement of oil find in any territory is comparable to the declaration of war against the territory.