family and doctors, but the order has apparently not been obeyed.

Nigeria is America's largest trading partner in Africa, based upon the oil extraction, and Africa now supplies more oil to the U.S. than Saudi Arabia. Over $50 billion in oil investments is being spent in Africa over the next three years. Companies such as Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell and Hercules Offshore are the main foreign-owned beneficiaries of Nigeria's oil production. The Ogoniland region of the Niger River Delta produces over 2 million barrels of oil per day, which trades on the current market of over $100-a-barrel, thus adding 10's of billions of dollars into the Nigerian national economy.

Yet, in Ogoniland the profits are not only not being equitably distributed among the local population, but the impact upon theenvironment has been absolutely devastating. Emanuel Nnadozie, writing about the oil contribution to the national economy, wrote: "Oil is a curse which means only poverty, hunger disease and exploitation" for the local residents. Once pristine rivers flowing through the delta have been devastated since Shell began drilling for oil in 1958. Pipelines now cross peoples farmlands and the flaring (burning) of natural gas into the air is occurring at the rate of 70 million cubic meters a day, "the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions on the planet." Once pristine lands teaming with fishing and farming communities are now subject to contaminated water, acid rain, fish kill offs, and increase sickness. Shell, claiming that it cleans up its oil spills, used "techniques like burning the crude which