“I want to give my family the best I can afford. We cannot just stay and survive. We really want to live,” Tam G (not his real name) said. “This business really pays us; the income is good. We’re not just talking of the owners of the product, we’re talking of even the workers, they get good pay,” he told DW. For nine months, Tam G has been running an oil refinery hidden in a clearing down a creek in Nigeria’s Niger Delta. Locally, illegal oil refining is known as “kpokpo fire.” As a leader in his church choir and a graduate of one of the prestigious universities in the country, Tam G never thought he would end up doing kpokpo fire. However, one year without a source of income, the pressure of caring for his pregnant wife and baby forced him to find a way out of poverty. […]