With the decline in value of world currencies the price of gold is going through the roof. It is at the writing of this article at $1,388 per ounce, which would lead one to think that the present gold boom going on in Nigeria would be a good thing for the Nigerian people. Not so. Nigerian farmers have had their land destroyed by large mining operations leaving them with no other way to make a living than to dig ore out of the ground and crush it in order to retrieve the precious metal which they then sell to the large operations that destroyed their land.
Nigerians are now finding out that in the process of crushing the ore to obtain the gold they have been releasing lead dust which they and their children have breathed and is causing them to die by the score. UNICEF and other agencies regularly come in to clean up the mining sites but the time they have accomplished their task it is too late.
So what is the Nigerian government, which has allowed the large companies to come in and displace their people and leave them no other option than the mining that is killing them, doing to remedy the situation? One would think at the very least they could provide their people with protective breathing apparatuses to use during the mining process. But in this greedy sick world, being what it is, the Nigerian government is doing nothing. I guess the lives of their people are not worth the gold it would cost to protect them.
The exploitation of the natural resources of the peoples of the third world is of course nothing new. It has indeed become common place for the peoples of the richest lands on this planet to die in mass famines. They have been dispossessed and left to starve by literally a hand full of international elitists who will never acquire enough wealth to satisfy their insatiable greed.
The rest of the peoples in the world will continue their time honored tradition of observing and ignoring until the cold hand of despotism sits upon their own shoulders, as those sick with greed cannot and will not stop until they have everything and everyone else is dead.
God help the people of Nigeria.