January 4th of this year marked the 16th anniversary of the day more than 300,000 Ogonis participated in “a mass non-violent protest against the devastation of their environment by the heartless multinational, oppressive, genocidal, and apartheid-like policies of both the Nigerian authorities and Royal Dutch Shell towards them.”

Soldiers and mobile police responded to the protest by firing tear gas and live ammunition into the crowd, killing four youths. Over the next year, acts of genocidal violence were repeatedly committed against the Ogoni.

Three years prior to this, Ogoni …

Sweet Crude, a documentary now in post-production, tells the story of Nigeria’s Niger Delta and the struggle of the People in the region. For 50 years, the people in the region known as the ’south-south’ have lived a life of hopelessness and desperation as they watch the land become devastated, and their own lives become unsustainable—not just because of the 6,000 reported oil spills (less than 50% of which are cleaned) rampant gas flaring (2.5 billion cubic feet of gas per day) and several major pipeline explosions that …