A COURT in southeast Nigeria has ordered the Anglo-Dutch oil company Royal Dutch Shell to pay out $40-million in compensation for an oil spill that happened 30 years ago. The Port Harcourt High Court at the weekend ordered Shell to pay the money to the Ejamaa Ebubu community, nine years after the community first went to court over the issue. In a statement, the Nigerian subsidiary of Shell confirmed the ruling. “We can confirm that a Rivers State High Court in Port Harcourt delivered a judgement in a case arising from the 1970 oil spill at Ebubu, Rivers State, and awarded four billion naira against SPDC,” the company said. Ebubu lies in the politically sensitive Ogoni region, known around the world for the campaigns of the late minority rights activist Ken Saro-Wiwa.
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