The Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) yesterday, bemoaned the plans by Shell Petroleum Development Company to sell its land based and shallow offshore oil fields and infrastructures in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria.
ERA said Shell, in its characteristic nature, have drained the region dry of oil and gas resources, engaged in ecocide through it’s reckless and unconscionable operations in the region and now seeks to walk away from its crime scene with billions of dollars in its kitty.
The group in a statement
signed by Mike Karikpo, Programmes Director
and made available to Journalists in Benin City, Edo states, said , “whilst it has been at the forefront of campaigns to leave the oil in the soil and to halt oil and gas extraction, it strongly deplores the insensitivity of the transnational corporation that has over the last few years been divesting from the region, collecting huge payouts for the oil fields and infrastructure sold and leaving local communities to deal with the devastation and destruction of the ecosystem, their lives and livelihoods. Shell recently sold OML 17 to HEIRS Holding in a deal worth well over half a billion dollars and absolutely nothing wasset aside for the remediation and restoration of the damaged ecosystem of communities around this area.”
A community leader and critic of Shell in the Niger Delta region, Mr Eraks Kobah, says,
“Shell is a criminal enterprise that is only interested in maximizing profit”. He states further that his community has been in court with Shell for decades over the major oil blowout and destruction of the environment and the community’s sources of livelihood around the Bomu manifold in Kdere in the Ogoni area of Nigeria.
Also,the Executive Director of ERA/FoEN, Dr. Godwin Uyi Ojo, said that,Shell owes the environment and the people of the Niger Delta region a huge ecological debt for its reckless operations in the region over the last seven decades. Dr Ojo further states that Shell is running away from accountability for its ruinous actions in the Niger Delta region and amounts to, “eating your cake and having it”. He called on the Nigerian state to protect local communities’ interest within the divestment process of oil and gas multinational companies operating in the Niger Delta region and halt Shell’s attempt to run away from its mess without proper clean up of the Niger Delta.
