Shell has fuelled armed conflict in Nigeria by paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to feuding militant groups, according to an investigation by the oil industry watchdog, Platform, and a coalition of non-government organisations.
The oil giant is implicated in a decade of human rights abuses in the Niger Delta, the study says, claiming that its routine payments exacerbated local violence, in one case leading to the deaths of 60 people and the destruction of an entire town.
Platform’s investigation also alleges that government forces hired by Shell perpetrated atrocities against local civilians. Shell disputes the report, defending its human rights record and questioning the accuracy of the evidence, but has pledged to study the recommendations.
In “Counting the Cost: Corporations and Human Rights in the Niger Delta”, Platform says that it has seen testimony and contracts that implicate Shell in the regular awarding of lucrative contracts to militants. Last year, Shell is said to have transferred more than $159 000 to a group credibly linked to militia violence.
One gang member, Chukwu Azikwe, told Platform: “We were given money and that is the money we were using to buy ammunition, to buy this bullet, and every other thing to eat and to sustain the war.” He said his gang and its leader, SK Agala, had vandalised Shell pipelines. “They will pay ransom. Some of them in the management will bring out money, dole out money into this place, in cash.”
The gang fought a rival group over access to oil money. “They will come and fight, some will die, just to enable them to also get [a] share … Who takes over the community has the attention of the company.”
Platform alleges that it was highly likely that Shell knew that thousands of dollars paid a month to militants in Rumuekpe was used to sustain a bitter conflict. Rumuekpe is “the main artery of Shell’s eastern operations in Rivers state”. Shell distributed “community development” funds and contracts through Friday Edu, a youth leader and Shell community liaison officer, the report said.
By 2005, Edu’s monopoly over the resources of the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC) had sparked a leadership tussle with Agala’s group. The latter was reportedly forced out of the community and a number of people were killed. Dozens reportedly died in counter-raids. The violence killed an estimated 60 people, including children, between 2005 and 2008. Thousands more were displaced.
Platform says the local conflict created regional instability. Displaced villagers were hunted down in the regional capital, Port Harcourt, and killed. Gangs active in Rumuekpe collaborated with prominent criminal networks in Rivers state and doubled as Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) militants.
Mend’s activity in Rumuekpe seriously disrupted Shell’s operations and sent shock waves through world markets, the report notes, yet Shell paid little heed to it. One manager was candid: “One good thing about their crisis was that they never for one day stopped us from production.”
The allegations were largely substantiated by a Shell official, Platform claims. A manager confirmed that in 2006, one of the most violent years, Shell awarded six types of contract in Rumuekpe. It eventually terminated some of the contracts. Platform says: “Through Shell’s routine practices and responses to threats, [it] became complicit in the cycle of violence.”
Rumuekpe is just one of several case studies examined by the report, which alleges that in 2009 and 2010 security personnel guarding Shell facilities were responsible for extrajudicial killings and torture in Ogoniland.
Shell insists that it respected human rights. “We have long acknowledged that the legitimate payments we make to contractors, as well as the social investments we make in the Niger Delta region, may cause friction in and between communities,” a spokesperson says. “We work hard to ensure a fair and equitable distribution of the benefits of our presence —
“The federal government — deploys government security forces to protect people and assets. Suggestions in the report that the SPDC directs or controls military activities are therefore untrue.” —