Ben Amunwa
UN Blames Media for Shell Scandal
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 [...]
Amnesty & FoE Slam UN’s Reliance on Shell Data
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 [...]
What’s Shell & UNEP Hiding in Nigeria?
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 [...]
UN Report Accused of Bias
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 [...]
UNEP Report: More Harm Than Good?
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 [...]
SHAKE! getting young people creative at The Stephen Lawrence Centre
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 [...]
Ballad of the Black Gold
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.
Nigerian Regulators Need Real Powers
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 [...]
The $20 Billion Question
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 [...]
Of Spills and Spin
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 [...]
