On February 22, 1895, a British Naval Force under the command of Admiral Sir Frederick Bedford laid siege to Brass, the chief city of the Ijo people of Nembe in Nigeria's Niger Delta. After severe fighting, the city was razed to the ground. More than 2000 people, mostly women and children perished in that attack - launched at the behest of a British company in the name of Queen Victoria. writer, political activist and leader of the Niger Delta's Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People. Again, the people of Nembe were locked in a grim life-and-death struggle to safeguard their livelihood from two forces: a series of corrupt and repressive Nigerian governments and another British company, the giant multinational Royal Dutch Shell. the Nigerian military, demonstrating (in contrast to Shell's public profile) how irresponsible practices have degraded agricultural land and left a people destitute. Compelling and angry, it draws attention to a grave injustice. The plunder of the Niger Delta has turned full circle as crude oil has taken the place of palm oil, but the dramatis personae remain the same: a powerful multinational company bent on extracting the last drop of blood from the richly endowed Niger Delta and a courageous people determined to resist.