THE history of crude oil production in Nigeria informs us that the Shell Oil Company was the first to discover oil in commercial quantity in Nigeria. The location was Oloibriri (now in Bayelsa State), and the year was 1956. Two years later, Nigeria’s first consignment of crude oil was exported from the Oloibiri oil fields. But what is not well advertised is the fact that gas flaring has been taking place in Nigeria since 1958. The ecological disaster and associated consequences of gas flaring in Nigeria have been well-documented, and do not constitute the main objective in this dispatch from America. As a Vanguard newspaper reporter, I once joined the Nigerian Navy on an exercise in Escravos. As we flew in their helicopter above the off-shore oil rigs at night, we could see what looked like a festival of a million tongues of fire in the ocean. Our Navy […]