Picture credit: ERA/FoE Nigeria - Morris Alagoa

On Thursday 7 July, shortly after 6am, women and youth from communities in the Kolo Creek area of the Niger Delta protested against more than a decade of broken promises, oil spills and gas flaring from Shell.

With only placards and palm fronds, peaceful protestors confronted heavily armed military soldiers and succeeded in breaching the gates of the Shell Base, temporarily disrupting its operations. Shell has a long and shameful history in Kolo Creek, as Mrs Beauty James, a woman leader from Oruma, recounted:

We are not coming to make new demands from Shell, but that they fulfil the agreement they reached with us [in 1999]. We want our communities to be connected to the source of power that supplies them electricity twenty four hours every day.

Picture credit: ERA/FoE Nigeria - Morris Alagoa

Another protester summed up the communities’ sense of deep exploitation:

Can you imagine a situation where Shell prefers giving light to mosquitoes in the bush than human beings; even when the oil and gas they use on the plant that supplies them light is from our soil?

You can read a stirring report on how the protestors broke through the military blockade to reach the Shell Base, and find out about the protester’s demands here, as recorded by colleagues at Environmental Rights Action/FoE Nigeria. Pictures by ERA field reporter, Morris Alagoa, are reproduced here and have also been posted on facebook.

Picture credit: ERA/FoE Nigeria - Morris Alagoa

I met with community members when I visited Kolo Creek in late 2010 with ERA and SDN. Then I was told that poverty, neglect and  military repression had turned the local community into “a slave to Shell”. As Shell continues to break its promises and systematically abuse human rights in Kolo Creek, more protests are likely until the company and authorities prioritise the basic human rights of communities.

Platform stands in solidarity with the communities protesting and we will be holding Shell and the Nigerian authorities to account in a forthcoming report & campaign this Autumn.

For the past few months, the Nigerian military has waged war on the Niger Delta in a desperate attempt to restore Nigeria’s faltering oil production, which has almost halved due to security concerns.

Tuesday 15th September is due to be the last day of the ceasefire observed by MEND, the main group of insurgents in the oil-rich Niger Delta. The Federal Government’s amnesty for militants expires on 4^th October, and beyond it the prospects for a peaceful resolution to the crisis will be remote unless the long-standing grievances of the region are addressed.

Daniel Volman, director of the African Security Research Project writes in a new blog, Niger Delta Rising:

It is clear, that the Nigerian government is getting ready to mount a massive military offensive in the Niger Delta…Despite all the firepower and sophisticated weaponry that it has acquired in recent months, there is no reason to believe that this offensive will be any more successful in bringing the insurgency to an end than any of its previous military operations.

Evidence of the Nigerian government stockpiling arms includes recent international deals with Israeli, Malaysian, Singaporean, Dutch, and Russian companies. And some of these lethal imports have been paid for by Shell Nigeria’s largest business partner and shareholder, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation:

The Nigerian Navy also recently procured 35 new machine-gun equipped fast patrol boats in a deal that was paid for by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, reportedly on the instructions of President Yar’adua.

Yar’adua appears to be preparing for a major civil conflict, despite admissions from retired Nigerian General Victor Malu, that there is no military solution to the Niger Delta crisis.

While the crisis is complex, much of the blame falls on the multinational oil companies and their accomplices, the Nigerian Government. Village communities are infuriated by the many broken promises and ongoing neglect and undevelopment of the Niger Delta region, which provides the bulk of the nation’s wealth. As Volman points out:

Most members of MEND say that the government’s amnesty was not made in good faith and that they have no confidence that that the government will honor its promises to improve the lives of the Delta impoverished residents or to fix the massive environmental damage caused by decades of unregulated oil production.

Decades of pollution and gas flaring by oil companies like Shell, aided by a succession of corrupt Nigerian regimes has left the once fertile Niger Delta one of the worst oil-affected ecosystems on the planet, according to a 2006 report by WWF.

The ongoing Nigerian military offensive in the Delta confirms the unacceptable human cost of Nigerian oil. It means extra-judicial killings, routine human rights abuses, torture and imprisonment for any person the Joint Task Force labels a ‘militant’. The military’s objective is to increase oil production. But military crackdowns do not make the region more secure, nor do they address the injustices of decades of pollution and neglect.

Any oil companies with a serious commitment to human rights would refuse to operate behind such a brutal military shield. The Nigerian government must stop its lethal spending spree, and instead invest in protecting its people from the impact of the oil industry by stopping the gas flares and oil spills that are destroying the Delta region.

Oil giant Shell has been covering up catastrophic oil spills in the Niger Delta by blaming them on sabotage by local people, according to a leading human rights group. Read more

As Peter Voser becomes Shell’s new CEO on 1st July, his inbox is already feeling the weight of a 143-page report from Amnesty International, and a critical report from the ShellGuilty coalition. The reports document Shell’s appalling impact on the human rights of oil-producing communities in Nigeria and Shell’s impact on the global climate, respectively. They will make unsettling reading for Shell, the largest operator in Nigeria’s oil fields, and campaigners are urging the company to address the social and environmental injustices occurring daily in the oil-rich Niger Delta.

Audrey Gaughran, author of the Amnesty International report said:

Despite its public claims to be a socially and environmentally responsible corporation, Shell continues to directly harm human rights through its failure to adequately prevent and mitigate pollution and environmental damage in the Niger Delta.

These conclusions back up recent findings of ‘Shell’s Big Dirty Secret’, a report launched yesterday by the ShellGuilty coalition, Friends of the Earth, Oil Change International and PLATFORM. Shell’s operations in Nigeria are marred by persistent oil spills and gas flaring, where the gas that comes mixed with oil is simply burnt off.
One of the disturbing findings of Amnesty’s report is the unmonitored impact of waste water and effluent that Shell and other companies keep dumping in the fishing waters of the Niger Delta. Amnesty International cite a Shell publication that

SPDC’s environmental programme aims to progressively reduce emissions and effluents and discharges of waste materials that have a negative impact on the environment.” Petroleum, Pollution and Poverty in the Niger Delta

Internal Shell documents seen by the authors of ‘Shell’s Big Dirty Secret’ point to a more damaging picture of deception and negligence on the dumping of waste by-products.

Although Shell’s PR documents would say the environment was “central” to its activities, as international pressure grew against the company, the Shell Group lowered its environmental standards. One confidential Environmental Management Audit for Shell Expo, written in June 1994, noted that Shell’s “policy aim ‘To eliminate emissions, effluents and discharges that are known to have a negative effect on the environment’ has been abandoned.” Shell’s audit team said it could be “interpreted as a retrograde step”. Shell’s Big Dirty Secret

The human impact of Shell’s negligence is hard to imagine, but in Audrey Gaughran words:

People living in the Niger Delta have to drink, cook with and wash in polluted water. They eat fish contaminated with oil and other toxins – if they are lucky enough to be able to still find fish. The land they farm on is being destroyed. After oil spills the air they breathe smells of oil, gas and other pollutants. People complain of breathing problems and skin lesions – and yet neither the government nor the oil companies monitor the human impacts of oil pollution.

The high level of toxins in the environment can be traced to gas flaring, which also accounts for a substantial portion of Shell’s colossal contribution to climate change.  Shell refuses to take decisive action to halt this toxic and wasteful practise. At a time when the world needs urgent reductions in carbon emissions, Shell’s impact on the global climate is only set to increase. Under Jeroen Van der Veer, Shell expanded its investment into Canada’s tar sands, one of the most carbon intensive forms of fossil fuel, second only to Nigerian oil.

Shell aggressively increased its position in Canada’s oil sands industry through three major strategic moves. Throughout 2006 the Shell Group began buying out the minority shareholders in Shell Canada. The deal, concluded in March 2007, at a cost of $7.4 billion, put Shell in full control of the group’s most significant oil resource. Shell’s Big Dirty Secret

The upshot is that in years to come, Shell will be producing the most carbon. At precisely the time that the world needs urgent reductions in carbon emissions.

…based on reported total resources – Shell’s production of oil and gas will become the most carbon intense of its peers. It will rise by 85 per cent from today’s figure – an increase markedly greater than its competitors. This sharp rise is due to Shell’s total resources being dominated by unconventional oil [tar sands], as well as Shell’s ongoing reliance on Nigerian crude with its associated gas flaring. Shell’s Big Dirty Secret

When Shell CEO Jeroen Van der Veer retires on 1st July, he leaves behind a legacy on the environment so disastrous that Peter Voser will face enormous challenges in turning the company around. Whether Voser can put a stop to Shell’s trail of destruction in Nigeria and sabotage of the climate depends on our ability to take action and demand change, by sending Voser a strong message.