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SHELL’S EXIT FROM NIGERIA: TO DODGE LEGAL PROBLEMS?  
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Andy Rowell and James Marriot
June 18, 2024
Scheer Post
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_ The oil giant is selling its Niger Delta subsidiary – but lending
the new owners the money for the purchase. _

“Eric Dooh at home in Goi village showing oil pollution @Marten van
Dijl_Milieudefensie, BUND Bundesverband

 

Nigerian activists believe Shell’s apparent end to its 87-year
operation in the country is an effort to avoid its legal
responsibilities while holding onto the potentially profitable side of
the business.

In January, the oil giant revealed
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had “reached an agreement to sell its Nigerian onshore subsidiary”
to Renaissance, a consortium of four Nigerian oil firms and one based
in Switzerland.

But despite the $2.8bn deal, Shell will effectively still own part of
the business and will continue to bankroll Renaissance’s onshore
exploration in Nigeria going forward.

The company’s press statement confirmed it will loan the new buyers
up to $1.2bn to help them buy their stake in the Shell Petroleum
Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC).

It will also provide Renaissance with “financing of up to $1.3bn
over future years”. This will fund its “share of specific
decommissioning and restoration costs” and part of the development
of gas resources for NLNG, a company producing natural gas in Nigeria
to export to global markets, in which Shell will retain a 25.6%
interest.

Renaissance, meanwhile, will take over responsibility
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dealing with spills, theft and sabotage, as well as Shell’s ongoing
contributions to the remediation of past environmental damage.

Campaigners have told openDemocracy that Shell should not be allowed
to escape culpability for the environmental and societal damage it has
caused in Nigeria.

Celestine Akbopari, a long-term environmental activist from
Nigeria’s Ogoni region, said: “Shell has to restore our
environment and lost livelihoods before selling anything. Our
environment should be restored to the level Shell met it.”

Akbopari believes the millions of oil barrels spilt in the Niger
Delta over almost nine decades have significantly worsened his
community’s finances. There were more than 10,000 oil spills between
2011 and 2022 alone, according to the National Oil Spill Detection
and Response Agency [[link removed]].

“Our people enjoy their fishing and farming business but can’t do
that anymore,” Akbopari said. “In a situation where there is a
complete absence of government as we presently have in Nigeria, it is
monies we get from our fishing and farming business that we use in
sending our children to school, provide health care and pay other
bills.

“Now, we can’t even do that and we watch our children and
dependants die of hunger and sickness because of poverty.”

Civil society and community opposition to Shell has been widespread in
Nigeria since the early 1990s. Many have been angered by the pollution
the company has emitted in the country, as well as its burning of
natural gas
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practice associated with oil extraction that can save an energy firm
money but is associated with serious health complications for those
living nearby.

Public discontent only grew after the executions of the Ogoni Nine, a
group of activists who opposed Shell’s operations in the Niger Delta
and alleged exploitation of the Ogoni people.
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The activists were sentenced to death at a trial by Nigeria’s
military in 1995, having been accused of inciting the murders of four
Ogoni chiefs who disagreed with the strategy of their organisation,
the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People.

Shell had a ‘watching brief’ at the trial, which was widely
discredited even at the time – with then UK prime minister John
Major describing it as “fraudulent”
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witnesses have since claimed
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actors and government officials “bribed” them with offers
of money, a house, and jobs at the oil company
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the activists had been involved in the murders. The oil giant has
always denied these accusations, as well as claims it colluded with
the Nigerian military on the trial.

In the decades since, Ogoni communities have sought justice and tried
to hold the oil giant accountable for the role they believe it played
in the activists’ deaths.

Shell, meanwhile, has tried to distance itself from its Nigerian
subsidiary with a public relations
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driven not by staff in Lagos or Port Harcourt but by its London head
office, which suggested there was a problem with one local branch in
Africa, but not a larger issue – a practice it began even before the
trial.

In a 1993 letter, Shell said it did “not operate using a top-down
management approach”, adding: “Each operating company not only has
its own legal identity, but also responsibility for its own day to day
operation.”

‘LEGAL GYMNASTICS’

Nigerian political scientist Claude Ake believes Shell has always
responded to the backlash against its operations in Nigeria with a
focus on “damage limitation”, rather than sincerity.

This alleged strategy of reputation protection is seemingly present in
the oil giant’s court cases. Back in 2009, Shell agreed to pay
$15.5m to the family of Ken Saro-Wiwa, the president of the Movement
for the Survival of the Ogoni People, who was one of the Ogoni Nine.
In doing so, the company walked away from the case denying
liability. Before settling
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Shell had made repeated attempts to get the case thrown out.

Other court cases have been brought against Shell over the deaths of
the Ogoni Nine – so far without success. But another group of
activists won an unrelated battle with the company in the Netherlands
in May 2021, in which Shell was found liable for causing dangerous
climate change worldwide and ordered by District Court of the Hague
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CO2 emissions by 45% within ten years.

The historic verdict, which could pave the way for more prosecutions
of Shell and other big international polluters, was brought by Friends
of the Earth Netherlands (Milieudefensie, in Dutch) and six other
organisations and 17,000 co-plaintiffs.

Milieudefensie sent a letter to Shell’s Board of Directors in April
2022, calling for urgent action to comply with the 2021 verdict. The
NGO warned about personal liability risks resulting from a failure to
act. In July of that year, Shell appealed the decision.

Shell’s Nigerian operations have also been the subject of lawsuits
in the UK.

The company agreed to pay £55m to settle a case
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by 15,600 members of the Bodo community after a massive oil spill in
the area in 2014. Leigh Day, the the British law firm that represented
the community, told openDemocracy Shell had admitted some fault, but
disputed the amount of oil spilt.

And last November, London’s High Court ruled that 13,000 farmers and
fishers from the Ogale and Bille communities can sue Shell over
chronic pollution of their water sources and destruction of their way
of life. A report in The Guardian
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the time said Shell denied directly owing the claimants, though it
said its Nigerian subsidiary, the SPDC, had accepted responsibility
for the spills it caused and compensated affected parties where
required.

Leigh Day, which is also representing the Ogale and Bille communities,
issued a statement after Shell announced the SPDC’s sale to
Renaissance, saying its “clients are concerned about how the
proposed sale could affect their claim”. The law firm has since told
openDemocracy that the details of the sale still remain unclear.

In its statement, Leigh Day added: “It would be unconscionable for
Shell to pack up its onshore operations in Nigeria without cleaning up
its mess and paying compensation…

“We consider that Shell, having made billions of pounds over decades
from extracting oil resources from Nigeria, should fulfil its legal
responsibilities and not leave behind an environmental catastrophe as
it seeks to exit the Niger Delta.”

Renaissance, which is based in Nigeria, will likely be immune from
lawsuits in the Netherlands or the UK – one reason why activists and
civil society organisations have called on the Nigerian government to
stop the sale.

Last month, international and Nigerian NGOs, including Amnesty
International and Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth
Nigeria, wrote to the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory
Commission, urging it “to refuse regulatory approval” for the
sale.

The letter added: “Shell should not be permitted to use legal
gymnastics to escape its responsibilities for cleaning up its
widespread legacy of pollution.

“The sale… should not be permitted unless local communities have
been fully consulted; the environmental pollution caused to date by
SPDC has been fully assessed; and funds have been placed by SPDC in
escrow sufficient to guarantee that clean-up costs will be covered.”

Shell did not answer openDemocracy’s questions, with a spokesperson
instead directing us to a press release and FAQ section about the sale
on its website.

Cindy Baxter, who has campaigned against the oil industry for decades,
told openDemocracy: “Nearly 30 years after Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight
others were hung for protesting Shell’s pollution, the Ogoni people
are still fighting it in the courts. Before this corporation leaves
the country, it must clean up – and pay for its environmental
crimes.”

ANDY ROWELL is a freelance journalist & writer specialising in
environmental, health and lobbying issues. Author of four books, he is
also a director of Public Interest Investigations and a part-time
senior Research Fellow at the University of Bath.

JAMES MARRIOT works as part of Platform, who combine art and research,
activism and education, to drive change on issues of social and
ecological justice: platformlondon.org
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