What’s Shell & UNEP Hiding in Nigeria?

As any child educated in Nigeria will tell you, oil was discovered in Oloibiri, Nigeria in 1956. Oil spills in Nigeria date back to those early days of exploration and production and increased significantly with the expansion of infrastructure onshore and offshore in 1970s. All the more shocking then that Mike Cowing, the UNEP’s leading expert on...

UN Report Accused of Bias

The top story in The Guardian today is the global outrage at a UNEP study which ‘exonerates’ Shell for oil spills in Nigeria. What started as an environmental audit of Ogoniland has become another manipulative PR strategy. A three-year investigation by the United Nations will almost entirely exonerate Royal Dutch Shell for 40 years of oil pollution in...

UNEP Report: More Harm Than Good?

There are some things that the debate over oil spills in Nigeria cannot change. Under Nigerian law, Shell has principal responsibility to clean up all spills from its facilities, regardless of whether the cause is sabotage or neglect. And Shell has all the resources and technology to stop these spills from happening. If the UNEP...

Delta Activists Assaulted and Illegally Detained by Nigerian Police

Frontline human rights defenders in the Niger Delta suffered a brutal police attack on Monday 5th April, it emerged today in an Amnesty International statement. Activists from the Ogoni Solidarity Forum and Social Action were beaten, illegally detained without charge and denied access to lawyers and medical treatment. The text below is cross-posted from the Amnesty...

Oil activists attacked and detained by Nigerian police

From RSW blog: Frontline human rights defenders in the Niger Delta suffered a brutal police attack on Monday 5th April. Activists from the Ogoni Solidarity Forum and Social Action were beaten, illegally detained without charge and denied access to lawyers and medical treatment. The text below is cross-posted from the Amnesty International website and community rights monitor, Niger Delta Watch: “Amnesty International...

Scraping the Barrel: Shell’s Article in Guardian Comment

Shell’s Malcolm Brinded wrote an article recently in the Guardian’s Comment section, that was savaged for its patronising tone and ‘all-round offensiveness’. Brinded would like us all to believe that Shell are the nice guys in Nigeria, who settled out of court as a ‘humanitarian gesture’ to the Ogoni people. The very notion is an...