The Gulf oil spill is big news, but how about those in Nigeria that have been going on for 50 years? Anyone cares?

BIG oil spills are no longer news in the Niger Delta, where the wealth underground is out of all proportion with the poverty on the surface. This once-verdant area has endured the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez spill every year for 50 years by some estimates. The oil pours out nearly every week, and some swamps are lifeless.

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That the Gulf of Mexico disaster has transfixed a country and president they so admire is a matter of wonder for people here, living among the palm-fringed estuaries in conditions as abject as any in Nigeria, according to the United Nations. Although their region contributes nearly 80 per cent of the government's revenue, they have hardly benefited from it; life expectancy is the lowest in Nigeria.

''President Obama is worried about that one,'' Claytus Kanyie, a local official, said of the Gulf spill, standing among dead mangroves in the soft oily muck outside Bodo. ''Nobody is worried about this one.'' Full story...

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