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Project October 16, 2023

The Poisoned Wells of Baruwa

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Nigeria is Africa’s largest oil-producing country, and crude-oil revenue accounts for 50 percent of the country’s income. But its oil-rich regions have also suffered some of the worst volumes of oil spills from pipelines – sacking whole communities and laying vast expanses of land to waste in the West African nation.

Baruwa, a community of over 1 million people, where residents have abandoned their taps and wells due to an underground oil leak first discovered in a school’s water supply in 1996, confronts years of hydrocarbon pollution caused by ruptured government-owned pipelines.

This data reporting project produced with support from the Pulitzer Center and Code For Africa explores the health and environmental consequences residents have endured living in the community.

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