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Decades of neglect, years of waiting: it’s time to clean up Ogoniland’s oil pollution
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Jun 4, 2018
Two years ago, the Nigerian Government officially launched a clean-up programme of Shell’s oil pollution in Ogoniland. But today communities are still waiting for emergency measures on drinking water and health protection and the clean-up to begin. Here’s what Godwin Uyi Ojo, Executive Director, Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria had to say about it:...
Update: The Bus, its seizure and our story
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May 14, 2018
Here is the latest on the campaign to pressurise Nigeria Customs release the Living Memorial to Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni 9 known as the Bus. Customs seized the Bus in 2015 and has refused to release it despite the huge efforts and directives described below. The guest blog is written by Celestine AkpoBari, National Coordinator for Ogoni Solidarity...
Win! Mayor of London and More Councils Back Divestment
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Mar 29, 2018
Yesterday, the Mayor of London joined the divestment movement. Sadiq Khan announced plans to divest the London Pension Fund from fossil fuels, calling on other London boroughs to do the same. We are seeing a wave of divestment pledges across the capital. Lambeth and Islington Labour have announced divestment commitments in their manifestos. With some local...
Communal Memory – the power of community to resist Shell in Nigeria
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Feb 22, 2018
I’m holding in my hands a report published by Amnesty International in November last year – ‘A Criminal Enterprise? Shell’s involvement in human rights violations in Nigeria in the 1990s’. It analyses in forensic detail exactly how much Shell staff knew about, and were involved in supporting, the actions by the Nigerian military taken against...
Today, remembering the Ogoni Bill of Rights
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Nov 10, 2017
10th November 2017 marks the 22nd anniversary since the executions of nine Ogoni men from the Niger Delta who had been protesting against the exploitation of oil in their homelands. These Nigerian activists – outspoken author and playwright Ken Saro-Wiwa, Saturday Dobee, Nordu Eawo, Daniel Gbooko, Paul Levera, Felix Nuate, Baribor Bera, Barinem Kiobel, and John...
There is no magic money tree, except for handouts for BP
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Jul 3, 2017
The UK government paid oil companies $312 million to drill in the North Sea during the fiscal year 2016-2017 according to a new report by the HMRC, The Times reports. Successive UK governments insist “there is no magic money tree” to fund public hospitals and schools, or to insulate cold homes. But apparently the magic...
Conversations with Suzi Gablik – Living in wartime.
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Apr 29, 2017
I’ve recently returned from a visit to my friend and mentor, Suzi Gablik, in Virginia, USA. She has been an inspiration to so many over the past 33 years since the publication of ‘Has Modernism Failed’, and later her book ‘Conversations Before The End of Time‘. Her work harnessed an ecological sensibility in the...
UK High Court: Shell won’t answer for Nigeria spills
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Jan 26, 2017
News just in: UK’s High Court has blocked a court case by 42,000 people in the Niger Delta seeking justice for Shell’s oil spills poisoning their land. The ruling could create a dangerous precedent, showing that communities subjected to abuses by UK corporations cannot seek compensation through the legal system here. Shell has gone to great...
Hackney Council as the climate vanguard – or is it just a laggard?
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Jan 24, 2017
Hackney Council is voting tonight on its investment policy regarding fossil fuels and climate change. After years of campaigning by Divest Hackney and lots of media attention, this Tuesday is the big day for the Pensions Committee. But despite the hype and the repeated delays, the proposals are pretty disappointing. Hackney Council has £42 million in fossil...
“Art is direct, it challenges the authorities, the power structure” Ken Saro-Wiwa jr, 1968 – 2016
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Nov 29, 2016
Yesterday at All Saints Church in Fulham, London, we attended a celebration of the life of journalist, government special advisor, and digital tech innovator Ken Saro-Wiwa jr. His life was suddenly cut short at the age of 47. We are sorrowed by this profound loss to the Saro-Wiwa family, and of a talented man invested in...
We are still feeling the aftershocks of Ken Saro-Wiwa’s murder 21 years later
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Nov 16, 2016
November 10th marked the 21st anniversary of Ken Saro-Wiwa’s murder by Nigeria’s military dictatorship for challenging Shell’s devastation of his home – Ogoniland. His only remaining son died a few weeks before this terrible anniversary. His funeral was this week. Last year, at the request of allies in the Niger Delta still resisting Shell’s oil...
Today’s oil drilling round could bust us through UK’s climate limits
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Oct 26, 2016
The UK government is pushing a massive new offshore drilling programme, that will take the UK beyond its climate limits. Oil companies had until 2pm today to bid for 1200 blocks covering large swathes of the sea off North-west and North-east Scotland and England. This is the the 29th Offshore Licensing Round, and it aims to identify hundreds of millions in...
