As the UN-Shell scandal continues, UNEP has found another person to blame: it’s all the media’s fault. After presenting Shell’s disputed oil spill data as fact, the Port Harcourt-based team of 100 scientists denied allegations that their report will clear Shell’s of causing the spills. Nick Nuttal, spokeperson for UNEP, blamed “misleading media reports” for stirring global outrage.
Media reports over the past days and weeks have indicated that it is UNEP’s determination that 90 per cent of oil spills are linked with so called ‘bunkering’ and criminal activity.
In referring to this data UNEP clearly indicated that these figures represented official estimates of the Government of Nigeria, based in part on data supplied by the oil industry.
Today Amnesty International joined the chorus of disapproval and outrage at UNEP’s decision to clear Shell of all responsibility for oil spills in Nigeria. UNEP has been widely criticised for recently using Shell data to announce that the company is only 10% responsible for the causes of oil spills.
“Relying on these figures would be a serious misjudgement, with potentially significant ramifications for those living in the Niger Delta,” said Audrey Gaughran, Director of Amnesty International’s Global Thematic Issues Program. “UNEP must be aware that the figures have been strongly challenged for years by environmental groups and communities. They are totally lacking in credibility.”
Amnesty went on to highlight how UNEP’s use of Shell data raises serious anomalies:
As any child educated in Nigeria will tell you, oil was discovered in Oloibiri, Nigeria in 1956. Oil spills in Nigeria date back to those early days of exploration and production and increased significantly with the expansion of infrastructure onshore and offshore in 1970s.
All the more shocking then that Mike Cowing, the UNEP’s leading expert on its study in Ogoniland, is reported to have made the startling claim that oil spills in the Niger Delta “have probably been continuing for nine years”, at a press conference in Geneva on 10 August 2010. Such glaring inaccuracy casts doubt over the credibility of the forthcoming report, which the authors have been forced to admit will be “controversial”.
Cowing’s statement is further evidence that UNEP is attempting to hide the historical impact of Shell’s oil spills. For village communities like Ejama-Ebubu, this adds insult to injury. They have waited over 40 years for Shell to clean up several massive oil spill that devastated their land. The Federal High Court in Nigeria fined Shell over $100 million in damages from the spill. However, Shell has refused to pay, and as of writing the damaged ecosystem has still not been cleaned up. Devastating spills like these have been commonplace throughout the Delta for almost as long as oil production in Nigeria.
The top story in The Guardian today is the global outrage at a UNEP study which ‘exonerates’ Shell for oil spills in Nigeria. What started as an environmental audit of Ogoniland has become another manipulative PR strategy.
A three-year investigation by the United Nations will almost entirely exonerate Royal Dutch Shell for 40 years of oil pollution in the Niger delta, causing outrage among communities who have long campaigned to force the multinational to clean up its spills and pay compensation.
The $10m (£6.5m) investigation by the UN environment programme (UNEP), paid for by Shell, will say that only 10% of oil pollution in Ogoniland has been caused by equipment failures and company negligence, and concludes that the rest has come from local people illegally stealing oil and sabotaging company pipelines.
UNEP’s heavy focus on sabotage and theft comes as no surprise, as the study is being bankrolled by Shell and the Nigerian government. UNEP’s report is in direct conflict with local environmental groups who monitor almost daily spills caused by neglect. They claim that the majority of spills are the result of mechanical failure; in other words, worn out, leaky infrastructure (like this abandoned Shell well-head in K-Dere, Ogoniland, aboveright).
It is widely known that Shell under-reports its spill volumes and frequencies. UNEP’s confidence in Shell’s data is misplaced, misleading, and unfortunate, coming at a time when oil companies are under increasing pressure to address the risk of oil spills.
There are some things that the debate over oil spills in Nigeria cannot change. Under Nigerian law, Shell has principal responsibility to clean up all spills from its facilities, regardless of whether the cause is sabotage or neglect. And Shell has all the resources and technology to stop these spills from happening. If the UNEP report fails to hold the company to account, it may do more harm than good by weakening the incentive for Shell to take action and stem the tide of daily spills.
Aggressive independent oversight is part of the solution, but this is unlikely to be provided by a Shell-sponsored report. UNEP’s findings are a distraction from the destructive legacy of Shell’s oil spillage in the region, which Amnesty International called a ‘human rights tragedy’ in a recent report.
Whilst oil production continues apace, there is very little sign that Shell is doing anything to repair & replace its ageing pipelines which are causing widespread pollution in the Niger Delta. Shell has stalled for years on a comprehensive clean up of 52 years of spilling. Never lacking excuses when held responsible, Shell claims lack of funding, security concerns and now blames the problem entirely on impoverished locals.
My name is Ed, and I teach about politics, religion and philosophy, and one of the other things I do is volunteer at PLATFORM. For most of the past few weeks I’ve been enjoying the privilege of summer holidays, but this week I’m participating in an experiment. It’s a course for young people called SHAKE!. Conceived by PLATFORM, it is an attempt to bring together this dizzying collection of elements: the stories of Stephen Lawrence and Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa; the vast range of themes and issues that spring from those stories; the role of art-forms in bringing about social change; and the technical crafts of spoken word, DJ-ing, and film-making. It’s an experiment for the seven facilitators – who are campaigners, educators and artists – in working together in such a diverse format. It’s an experiment for me, as I find myself blending many roles Continue reading “SHAKE! getting young people creative at The Stephen Lawrence Centre”
New from Talib Kweli, this hard-hitting music video unpacks the story of of Nigeria’s oil curse, the Ogoni struggle and the complicit role of Western governments and companies. Warning: this video contains strong political language.
Breaking years of silence, politicians and regulators in Nigeria are talking tough on oil spills in the aftershock of the BP disaster. Officials had stern words with Shell over its inadequate clean-up activities, and Exxon Mobil, who were ‘cautioned’ over a recent spill of over a million gallons. Upping the stakes, the governor of Delta State appealed to Goodluck Jonathan to launch criminal prosecutions against oil companies for decades of oil spills.
This rhetoric is welcome, but Nigeria’s National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) is a muzzled watchdog, easily overshadowed by oil giants, like Shell. Under current regulations, a single payment of $7,000 to NOSDRA completely discharges oil companies from having to clean up major oil spills. Such token fines would be unthinkable in the US or UK, but companies like Shell have exploited the lack of oversight for decades, with widespread human misery and environmental devastation the result.
President Goodluck Jonathan must empower Nigeria’s environmental regulators to bite as well as bark. Allowing companies a free hand to pollute will continue to devastate the Delta’s marginalised poor, and make a mockery of Nigeria’s sovereignty.
On day 58 of BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster, the US government forced BP to allocate $20 billion to compensate victims affected.
While US lawmakers decried the fact that only $71 million had been paid out last Tuesday, the contrast with the Niger Delta is striking. Victims in the small village of Ebebu have waited for 40 years for Shell to clean up a major oil spill. The average life expectancy in the region is 45 years. Delays are the norm for oil spills in Nigeria. Communities wait weeks, months and even years before companies respond to oil spills and even longer before they pay minimal compensation.
A compensation fund, like that created within one day of US negotiations with BP, is urgently required for Niger Delta, where villagers have battled oil giants in costly litigations only to receive inadequate compensation or nothing at all.
Since companies get off the hook easily in the Nigerian courts, some victims, like Alali Efanga have taken their claims to a District Court in The Hague, home of oil giant Shell, in a case brought with Friends of the Earth Netherlands. Companies headquartered in London, The Hague or Houston must be held responsible, and activism is needed from governments, courts and civil society to force companies to compensate victims who have lost everything because of oil production. The same level of accountability applied in the US must be applied in Nigeria.
That BP covered up its worst-case scenario of gushing 100,000 barrels of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico simply confirms what many people living in Nigeria’s oil region have long protested about.
In the Niger Delta, companies like Shell routinely under-report spill figures and volumes to limit their liabilities in terms of fines and diminish the amount of compensation owed to victims in local communities. When faced with environmental disasters, oil companies will do anything to avoid responsibility, even if that means telling blatant lies.
The consequence is that nobody in Nigeria knows exactly how many oil spills there are or how much oil is spilled. The real figures may be much higher than even the most reliable (conservative) estimates. Companies keep their data secret, but if the real figures were ever known, the potential liability facing oil companies could be enormous. Elsewhere, Chevron for instance, is facing a $27 billion lawsuit after being accused of 26 years of dumping toxic waste in the Amazon…
