ABSTRACT

After the discovery of crude oil in Titusville, Pennsylvania USA and the discovery of crude oil by Shell British Petroleum in The Niger Delta in 1956, oil exploration has been crucial in facilitating the industrialization of the world and of Africa, but this exploration of crude, for the people of the Niger Delta has been merely an exploitation and an environmental decadence. The ecology of the Niger Delta is highly diverse having numerous species of terrestrial and aquatic fauna and flora and it remains the largest wetland in Africa. The decade old Oil spillage from exploitation of crude has left the Niger Delta environment with contaminated rivers, streams and forest which is the major source of income for indigenes of the Niger Delta. Over decades approximately 1.5 million tons of oil has been spilled during and after oil production, most of which has either been partially cleaned or abandoned leading to the deaths of both terrestrial and aquatic lives, thereby facilitating poverty and militant insurrections in the Niger Delta.

This research gives an extensive study on the comparative degree of the causes of crude oil spills through the usage of data analysis to decipher what is the major cause of spillage in the Niger Delta and its effects on the ecology of the Niger Delta using Ubeji and Jeddo communities as a case study.