Tonight The Guardian revealed how Shell uses a wide network of informants to infiltrate top government departments in Nigeria. The revelations are contained in a secret US embassy cables leaked via whistleblower website  Wikileaks. The cable confirms what communities in the Niger Delta have long suspected. Shell wields enormous power over Nigeria and is actively exploiting…

Last night coalition partners SpinWatch released fresh revelations  in The Independent on Sunday exposing how Shell financed Nigerian military crackdowns on the minority Ogoni people and detailing new evidence to suggest Saro-Wiwa was framed by the military. This stream of revelations has emerged following a year of dedicated research into the evidence amassed against Shell…

Power and privilege training has become commonplace in US social justice activism over the past decade as an integral part of making real and lasting change. Here in the UK, interest in engaging with this practice and developing our own models in a different context is growing; in Bristol in 2009 activists held a Race…

(This article by Ben Amunwa first appeared in the current, oil-themed issue of Foto 8 magazine –https://www.foto8.com/new/in-print/8-magazine ) Outside the plane window at the Niger Delta, the oil region of Nigeria, I can see a solid bed of rainforest with wide ribbons of water the colour of coffee dregs coiling through it. I try to orientate,…

(This article first appeared in the current, oil-themed issue of Foto8 magazine – https://www.foto8.com/new/in-print/8-magazine ) Despite the fact that there is not a single drop of crude to be found underneath the streets of London, the city acts as one the international capitals of the oil industry. Companies operate here to take advantage of the complex web…

Fifteen years ago today, Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight others were executed by the Nigerian military government in collaboration with Shell Nigeria. The oil giant is under fresh scrutiny after secret documents revealed in The Guardian today expose how Shell tried to cover up oil spill data and manipulated the media and NGOs in the wake…

It’s the kind of text message you never want to receive. Sent from an activist in the Niger Delta on November 9th at 22.00,  it reads: Teams of heavily armed policemen stormed Saro-Wiwa’s No. 24 Aggrey Road, Port Harcourt, venue of the Saro-Wiwa candle light procession, shooting sporadically causing fear and panic. [UPDATE 11/11/10: we…

Entries from Jane Trowell, Anna Galkina, and Rebecca Beinart on their separate Slow Travel journeys from England to Oslo for Gentle Actions in Kunstnernes Hus ANNA: [Anna Galkina is a researcher with PLATFORM on Arctic issues relating to oil & gas, environmental and human rights abuses.] 11.11.10 On the way into the Eurostar section of…