The people of Ogale in the Eleme local government area of Nigeria filed the $1 billion compensation case at a court in Detroit, USA.
Billionaires row
Contamination of drinking water sources is extreme. In Ogale a United Nations environmental report found people drinking water contaminated by oil spills with carcinogens at 900 times the World Health Organization’s safety limit.
Ogale is emblematic of Nigeria’s resource curse from its exploitation of its oil resources. It was in Ogale that the first operational oil fields were discovered in Nigeria, and where the nation’s first shipment of 22,000 barrels of crude oil exported to Europe.
The one billion dollars is the estimated cost of cleaning up the oil spills, according to their lawyer, Benjamin Whitfield Jr.
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