Africa: Oil spills, holding governments and multinationals to account

Five million barrels of oil reportedly spilled into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. For both environmentalists and people whose livelihood depends on the fishing and tourism potential of the Gulf, this was a grim disaster. But if Americans with all the sophisticated necessary gadgets could not contain the oil spill, what is the fate of developing economies of Africa, especially the Gulf of Guinea where oil discoveries are mostly offshore? Indeed, recent discoveries in Sierra Leone, Ghana and Angola are all offshore, writes Edem Torkornoo for TWN Africa.