New law in Nigeria could hold polluters to account
Blog post -
Feb 18, 2014
Last week, a letter coordinated by Platform and signed by 18 organisations was published in the Nigerian media. The letter focussed on a new piece of legislation designed to improve the response to oil spills. In 2012, Senator Dr. Bukola Saraki, the Chair of the Senate committee for the environment tabled a bill aimed at strengthening...
Nigerian Regulators Need Real Powers
Blog post -
Jun 22, 2010
Breaking years of silence, politicians and regulators in Nigeria are talking tough on oil spills in the aftershock of the BP disaster. Officials had stern words with Shell over its inadequate clean-up activities, and Exxon Mobil, who were ‘cautioned’ over a recent spill of over a million gallons. Upping the stakes, the governor of Delta...
Of Spills and Spin
Blog post -
Jun 21, 2010
That BP covered up its worst-case scenario of gushing 100,000 barrels of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico simply confirms what many people living in Nigeria’s oil region have long protested about. In the Niger Delta, companies like Shell routinely under-report spill figures and volumes to limit their liabilities in terms of fines...
Will BP Oil Spill Make Shell ‘Come Clean’?
Blog post -
Jun 16, 2010
As the US government takes BP to task over the disasterous Gulf of Mexico spill, many Nigerians (including twitter users) are asking, ‘what about Shell?’. There is nothing clean about Shell’s operations in the Niger Delta, where daily oil spills are frequently ignored for months and where ‘clean up’ methods include dumping oil-drenched soil into pits before...
