Gulf Spill Is Minor

The British Petroleum rig spilling oil into the Gulf of Mexico pales in comparison to amount of oil spilled annually in Nigeria, a reminder of the double standard when it comes to poor countries. “If this Gulf accident had happened in Nigeria, neither the government nor the company would have paid much attention,” said the writer Ben Ikari, a member of the Ogoni people. “This kind of spill happens all the time in the delta.” The Guardian’s chief environmental correspondent, John Vidal, reports that “According to Nigerian federal government figures, there were more than 7,000 spills between 1970 and 2000, and there are 2,000 official major spillages sites, many going back decades.”