Segment 1

TITLE

Element

TINA

The fuel you’re using comes from our area. It should be making Nigeria rich, but if you come to the Niger Delta, you don’t see any of that. Especially the environment. We don’t have anything.

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Millennium Development Goal #7: ensure environmental sustainability

IFIE

This project, it’s like a voice to the people.

IFIE

Tina is my small Auntie, and she’s always challenging me because she has that title, Auntie, she’s always preaching to me.

TINA

She wants to oppress me.

IFIE

You’re telling people that I oppress you. See, you’re quarreling again.

TINA

See, this is the oppression I’m talking about.

IFIE

Since apparently I’m oppressing you, I’m leaving!

IFIE

She’s always taking all my time; she’s a kid. She’s wild, someone can call me an idiot and I can’t say anything. She’ll say, “Call my sister an idiot again. I’ll fight you.”

IFIE

Since we can’t fight, we don’t have guns, the only voice we have is this video editing. Now we can make our own documentary and send it to the Internet, and the whole world will see it. Everybody clap for me. We’re watching the documentary that we did on the oil spill and trying to see the response from the community.

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Niger Delta: an oil spill pollutes the land. The oil company refuses to clean up, claiming the pipe was deliberately broken.

MAN 1

All our food, all our fish have died. So we are hungry.

WOMAN

And even the snails. The oil has killed everything. Small children are dying because of the effects of the oil.

IFIE

When I saw the oil pipe I was angry. I was so angry that I didn’t know what to do. I felt like I was poisoned with anger.

IFIE

He says he wants water, good water to drink.

IFIE

Oil pollution is not only damaging to the environment, but it is also causing conflict and disrupting peace in our communities.

MAN 2

We are begging them to come and clean up their oil. If they don’t come and clean it up, we will be forced to fight back.

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Gas flaring: burning off usable gas while refining crude oil. Gas flaring, Nigeria: contributes more greenhouse gases than all of Sub-Saharan Africa combined -- the World Bank. Status: Illegal.

TINA

They should do something about this gas flaring. I don’t see why they’re burning money while people are dying of hunger.

TITLE

If sold, this gas could be worth $2.5 billion a year -- the World Bank. Three out of five Nigerians live on less than $1 a day.

TINA

This is hell.

IFIE

Maybe it’s easier to waste the gas and the oil, maybe it’s easier, and that’s why. If not, then I can’t understand. Me, I’m not a scientist, but something is happening. Everywhere is getting hotter, and I think it’s all this gas that they are burning. It’s not only us who are suffering. Everywhere around the world, people are suffering. We need a different kind of energy instead of using this petroleum that is destroying our environment. People should talk to these oil companies and to the government to stop polluting the environment. They should be active, they should come out a lot, and people should see the action. Even if people are far away, they can work together in a way. With this videotape that we are making, the youths will stand up and send it to the oil companies, send it anywhere possible for the whole world to hear. If at the end we will die, then we will start fighting today.

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Millennium Development Goals: Eight goals for a better world by 2015. Every one counts. www.element-tv.net. Element. For more information, please visit: http://www.tve.org.