Little Nina and the lost beauty of the Niger Delta: Climate change: In the life of an African child

By Chiazo Anyaso

Bodo is a village in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. 
If all variables met their desired expectations, Bodo would have shared a name recall in comparison to places like Dubai.
Its land and waters are rich with oil but since the 1960s, upon its discovery; it has known nothing but plunder and neglect.
This is not a protest book against the Nigerian government and the oil corporations per se.
This book is aimed to shine a light on the plight of the vulnerable and voiceless, at the brutish receiving end of man's vain-glorious pursuit for profit, with total disregard for the environment...and human health.
Told from a girl child's viewpoint and experience-it exposes the greater tragedy beyond that inflicted on the earth. 
The simplicity in rendition and the art is deliberate, aimed to bring issues of our changing world to teeny comprehension and appreciation. And, the narrative is far from fiction. It is a truth presently lived by most ethnic minorities in the global south.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BooxAi
• Release date: Oct 7, 2023
• ISBN: 9789655784602

Book preview

PREFACE

Early 1960’s: Before Oil Menace

From the 1960s, upon its discovery in the Niger Delta region in Nigeria; it’s become a staple for conversations: is it a blessing or a curse?

Of what it had given, a greater much it had taken…and still taking.

The pool from its trade has contributed immensely to the national wealth and desired infrastructural developments but, its plunder has known no boundaries: from the irredeemable devastation of the environment, loss and damage to biodiversity, and the lingering toll on human health which is ever evolving.

A view of the Bodo enclave’s present state or any Niger Delta region will blur any resident’s memory of a near paradise it once was (before oil was discovered)

One can still come across rare photographs of the region’s pre-1960s in a few older folks’ keep and a dossier of more vivid testimonials supplied from a reel recount from the indigenes’ collective memory.

In the 1960’s, good looking natural environment existed in the Niger Delta

The natives testify:

I remember going to pick periwinkles in the swarms, meeting blue-colored water that reflects the blue skies on a hot afternoon.

I remember, on a rainy day and especially at night, going to the creek with only calabash and bare hands and coming home with a good catch of fish.

I remember not bothering about tap water every morning to bathe for school but jumping into the river as you do in today’s swimming pool, washing myself, and off to