The Shell Oil Company began its intrusion into Ogoni with its discovery of oil there in 1958. The Ogoni people had been living relatively peaceful lives, fishing and practicing subsistence farming in order to survive. To date, some 900 million barrels of oil worth some 30 billion US dollars has been taken from the land in Ogoni. The Ogoni have seen nearly none of the financial benefits of the oil, having no running water, no electricity and improper government health services. The Ogoni people have been denied reward for the oil under their soil because of the unholy alliance between Shell and the Nigerian dictatorship.
Oil revenue accounts for ninety percent of Nigeria's foreign export earnings.
This money helps bankroll the dictatorship's military occupation of Ogoni. The compensation that a specify Ogoni person might receive for oil operations directly on their land is ridiculously low. By 1990, the Ogoni people had had enough. They issued an Ogoni Bill of Rights that called for their own control over their resources, and autonomy over their own affairs. More than 300,000 Ogoni took to the streets and not a soul was injured.