MEA RISK’s SHIELD & ALERT notifications: Access requires installing Shield & Alert mobile application. More info on S&A here or click here to signup and install

Nigeria grapples with end of fuel subsidy

By Alexandre Martins Lopes: Nigerians are struggling with surging fuel prices after newly elected President Bola Tinubu declared an end to popular subsidies, a move analysts and experts said was long overdue. On his first day in office, Tinubu kept to his campaign...

Nigeria: Bandits raid six villages in north, kill 30 civilians

Armed men killed 30 people in weekend raids on six villages in Nigeria's north, a region regularly hit by criminal violence and clashes between communities, local police have said. The bloodshed is the latest outbreak of inter-communal violence which the country's...

Nigeria: ISWAP ambushes army unit, kills several soldiers

Several Nigerian soldiers died in an attack on a military convoy in the Lake Chad region by jihadist fighters aligned with the Islamic State group, security forces said Tuesday.  The convoy was hit by militants from the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP)...

Nigeria: Cash-strapped Boko Haram kidnaps herders for ransom

Boko Haram jihadists have kidnapped 30 ethnic Fulani herders near northeast Nigeria's Lake Chad, demanding ransom for their release, fishermen and the head of an anti-jihadist militia told AFP Tuesday. The militants in eight boats stormed the fishing and herding...

Nigerian farmers take on Shell in landmark oil spill case

Posted On 12 October 2020

Lawyers for four Nigerian farmers accused Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell on Thursday of causing widespread pollution in a landmark court case filed in the Netherlands. The farmers first filed suit in 2008, demanding Shell clean up devastating oil spills in three villages in the Niger Delta, prevent further pollution and pay compensation. Two of the farmers have since died, as Shell spent years arguing that the case, backed by Dutch environment group Milieudefensie, should not be heard in the Netherlands. Judges ruled in 2015 that the suit could go ahead, and lawyers for the farmers opened their case at The Hague Appeals court on Thursday.

The surviving farmers and their relatives watched via video link from Nigeria. “This has been a long-running case and you are aware of the subsequent problems as a result of the oil pollution in the Niger Delta,” lawyer Channa Samkalden told the three-judge panel. “But a solution still seems a long way off,” she said. Samkalden showed satellite images and played videos of three spills which occurred in the 2000s around the southeastern Nigerian villages of Goi, Oruma and Ikot Ada Udo.

The images showed gushing and burning oil spills as well as villagers dragging their hands through water sources, their hands streaked with the chemical afterwards. “The land that contained our source of income had vanished,” one of the original plaintiffs, Chief Fidelis Oguru, told journalists via video link ahead of the case. “I hope that the Dutch court will give us a favourable judgement,” said Oguru. He blamed the loss of his eyesight on spills near Oruma, one of which dumped some 150 barrels, or 24,000 litres (6,300 US gallons), of oil in the environment around 2005, according to his lawyer.

Shell has always blamed the spills on sabotage and said it has cleaned up with due care where pollution has occurred. “The law in Nigeria is clear that operators are not liable to pay compensation for the damage from sabotage spills,” Igo Weli, director of Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary, said in a statement. Nigeria was the world’s ninth-largest oil producer in 2018, pumping out volumes valued at some $43.6 billion (37 billion euros), or 3.8 percent of total global production. In a separate case in the Netherlands, the widows of four Nigerian activists executed by the military regime in the 1990s last year accused Shell of complicity in their deaths.

AFP

Recent News from Nigeria

Nigerian army drone hits village in Kaduna State, kills civilians

By Aminu Abubakar with Laurie Churchman in Abuja: An army drone strike accidentally hit a village in northwestern Nigeria killing dozens of civilians celebrating a Muslim festival, local authorities, the military and residents said on Monday. Nigeria's armed forces...

Shield and Alert Nigeria

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This