Since 1956, when Shell first struck oil in Nigeria, the Anglo-Dutch oil giant has never been under fire like it has since the beginning of the year, analysts said on Wednesday.
Shell’s foray into Nigeria’s lucrative oil and gas industry began with the historic feat of striking the first oil well in Oloibiri in present-day southern Bayelsa state.
The company is the biggest oil operator in Africa’s largest producer and exporter, accounting for around half of the nation’s 2,6-million barrels per day.
“Shell has to be more socially responsible to its host communities. The company is making a fortune from the Niger Delta, but what does it give in return? Very little,” environmental campaigner Sunday Banigo told Agence France-Presse.
“Shell has to do more to calm the restiveness and militancy in the region. They have to give hope and succour to the people in terms of physical and social development,” he said.
“Go to Oloibiri where oil was first discovered, there is nothing on the ground to show that it is the goose that lays the golden eggs. The people live in squalor. Their seas and rivers are polluted. No water to drink. The fishes are dead. All because of oil pollution and spills,” he lamented.
A resurgence of attacks by separatist militants on rigs and pipelines in the Niger Delta swamps since January has cut production by 20%, with Shell shutting some oil pumping stations and supply pipelines.
The minority ethnic Ogoni people of the region have also been fighting Shell for the same cause since the 1980s, forcing the firm to quit their community in 1993.
A government peace panel, set up last year to mediate the dispute, is still working but there appear to be problems.
On Tuesday, Shell welcomed the efforts and pledged commitments to the panel’s success, but on Wednesday the Ogoni’s minority rights group slammed the company on the issue.
“The movement hereby expresses dissatisfaction at a Shell press statement wherein it pretentiously declared commitment to the presidential initiative for reconciliation,” the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (Mosop) said.
It said Shell’s commitment was doubtful since the Anglo-Dutch oil group had repeatedly “taken steps to undermine the success of the process”.
Mosop then asked Shell to apologise for its many years of injustice to the Ogoni people.
As if that was not enough, a federal high court, sitting in the southern city of Port Harcourt, in February ordered the Anglo-Dutch group to pay $1,5-billion in compensation to the 22-million strong ethnic Ijaw community of the region.
Although Shell appealed the ruling, the court rejected the request and last week gave the company up to last Monday to pay the money. Shell has again appealed.
“We have appealed the ruling of the court. Shell will not pay any money until our appeal has been heard and decided,” spokesperson Bisi Ojediran told AFP, adding that no date had been fixed for the hearing.
The Ijaw indigenous people of Bayelsa state had gone to court to compel the company to pay compensation for what they called the devastation of their environment following many years of oil-exploration activities. — AFP