In the second part of the series Ross goes to Nigeria to investigate more modern day piracy. Nigeria is said to be one of the bloodiest hotspots for piracy & they say its because of foreign oil companies illegally stealing their natural resources & destroying their environment in the process. Ross quickly establishes a link between piracy & the pollution of the regions waterways, because the waters are so polluted the local fishermen are said to be turning to crime & piracy to survive. What surprised me was the fact that Nigerian pirates don’t only attack large international cargo vessels but they even go so far as to attack small local fishing trawlers often violently assaulting the fishermen themselves.
Because of the conflicts between the oil companies & the pirates, kidnapping is a weekly occurrence with figures as high as 300 a year. Many of the kidnapped victims are company workers from as far away as the UK & he meets the family of Matthew McGuire a man from Liverpool who was kidnapped by the piracy organization known as MEND (movement for the emancipation of the Nigerian delta). It is this organization that Ross & the crew try to meet but because of the situation the Nigerian government security forces follow them everywhere they go thus hampering their efforts & effectively putting them under house arrest. The new governor of the region himself admits to as going so far as to forcing the death penalty on anyone who is caught in the act of kidnapping, a tough law but for a tough country.
Its clear from the show that Nigerian is a very beautiful country with a lot of potential but its unclear as to if the potential will ever be realized. The vast labyrinth of the delta is perfect for the pirates to operate as they can attack & then disappear effortlessly but its this delta that’s being damaged daily from the many oil spillages that occur in the area. The companies themselves say they have done the cleanup work but from what I saw it was far from clean. Rivers of thick black oil surround the area & the locals tell Ross that spillages & leaks occur daily They call it bunkering & it happens when people illegally tap the wells but don’t seal them properly causing them to leak & spill over flooding the rivers. He learns that the estimated value of the bunkering is said to be over 15 billion dollars since oil was discovered in the delta many years ago. Unlike in the gangs series this time around Ross never got to meet any pirates & anytime they had a meeting set up they would cancel but given the level of violence inflicted by Nigerian pirates its probably just as well he didn’t.
