ERA/FoEN to FG: Hold Shell Accountable for Environmental Crimes in Niger Delta
Blessing Ibunge in Port Harcourt
The Environmental Rights Action/ Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) has urged the federal government to ensure that Shell takes responsibility for the environmental crimes in the Niger Delta before its divestment.
Executive Director of ERA, Mr Chima Williams, who made the call yesterday, faulted Shell for trying to run away from its responsibility even with the uproar that had greeted its divestment plans in affected communities and among civil society organisations.
The demand was informed by SPDCs plans to sell its onshore facilities to a conglomerate of five oil companies.
In the statement signed by Communication Officer of ERA, Elvira Jordan, ERA stated that as an organisation that has tracked the activities of multinational oil companies for decades, the decision of Shell to sell off its onshore facilities to domestic companies, with the intention of remaining in Nigeria to conduct their business offshore, was a deliberate attempt to evade the liabilities the company has incurred overtime.
It pointed out that Shell should not be allowed to abandon its onshore facilities to domestic companies without cleaning up the alleged damage they had caused on the environment, and the cost to locals who had been impoverished by their business activities.
“These communities who have played host to Shell for decades have been left in abject poverty, with several degrees of damages to their health and environment, while Shell explores their resources to enrich foreign coffers. Shell should not be allowed to sell off its facilities and abandon the liabilities they owe these communities,” the organisation added.
Williams said it will be shameful that the Nigerian government will value its quest for revenue, over the lives and livelihoods of the common people who have suffered from the decades long environmental pollution caused by Shell.
He called on the President Bola Tinubu’s administration to ensure that Shell’s divestment plans are accompanied by full remediation plans in their various communities of operations, and full payments of loss and damages to host communities.
He also called for a close evaluation and monitoring of Shell’s offshore operations to checkmate the scope of their activities in order avert any impending damages to the environment.
