/ 5 October 1998

Oil giant admits role in Nigerian killing

DANIELLE KNIGHT, Washington | Monday 8.30pm.

UNITED States-based oil company Chevron on Monday admitted that it did have a role in an incident in Nigeria last May in which security forces shot at and killed two activists who had taken over one of the firm’s offshore oil platforms.

Until now, Chevron held it was not responsible for the military actions. Chevron spokesman Sola Omole, in an interview on Radio Pacific, acknowledged that the corporation authorised Nigerian troops and hired armed security forces to fly by helicopter to Chevron’s offshore oil field where Nigerian demonstrators had taken over a drilling platform.

The two Nigerian activists, Jola Ogungbeje and Aroleka Irowaninu, were shot and killed when the security forces opened fire from their aircraft. The two protesters were demanding that Chevron contribute more to the development of the impoverished region where they lived. Chevron previously denied that it either paid for the helicopter, or the hired armed security unit.

Radio Pacific, however, produced a tape recording of an interview with a subcontractor, who alleged that Chevron had supplied both. At the corporation’s headquarters in San Francisco, Chevron spokesman Mike Libbey said that he has no knowledge that Chevron paid for the helicopter. He said that, by law, the firm was required to report the take-over of the platform to Nigerian police authorities. The company was then directed to provide the police transportation to the platform. “We had no choice but to comply,” he said.

“It was a very unfortunate incident that we are sorry it happened on our platform,” he said. “[Some] 60% of this project is owned by the Nigerian government while we own 40% and operate it for the government. When they came to us and said take us to that project we had obviously no choice but to comply,” he said.

When asked if Chevron had condemned the Nigerian government for the killing of the two activists in May, Libbey said that it was not Chevron’s position to criticise the operation of any government with which the corporation was involved.

“We do think it is unfortunate that people died, perhaps unnecessarily, but that doesn’t change the fact that in order for Chevron to do business in 90 countries around the world, we must co-operate with governments of many kinds,” he said — IPS