Group Tasks Shell, HYPREP, FG Over Neglect
3 min read
Edith CHUKU
Determined to ensure justice, equity, environmental sustainability and a better future for Ogoni land and the Niger Delta region, the Lekeh Development Foundation, LEDEF, has restated its demands from Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria SPDC, Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project HYPREP and the Nigeria Federal Government.
To Shell, LEDEF, a grassroots advocacy organization established to address local and global challenges, called for the clean up of the polluted environment, compensation of affected communities, and also ensure environmental restoration before any divestment takes place.
For HYPREP, the group warned against any plan of carbon credit schemes, insisting they focus on its core mandate of environmental remediation and restoration.
LEDEF commended HYPREP over its scholarship scheme for Ogoni post graduate students, but regretted that the body had made limited progress in the Ogoni cleanup, despite significant funds allocated to the project.
The group urged the federal government to phase out fossil fuel and make paramount, the just and equitable transition to renewable energy, impose fossil fuel taxation and prevent Shell’s divestment without accountability.
It also requested the FG to fast-track the establishment of the proposed Federal University of Environment to drive development in Ogoni, strengthen institutions to hold oil companies accountable and ensure justice for affected communities.
LEDEF stated these in a press conference organized to mark the 2025 Ogoni Day 32rd anniversary, where it lamented over the health and environmental havoc decades of pollution had brought on Ogonil, its people and the region at large.
The group, in collaboration with Yeraba Women Foundation, described Shell as reckless, accusing the company and her joint ventures of waging an ecological war against the Ogoni people and her neighbouring communities with its oil and gas activities.
Stressing that Ogonis were not weaklings, the group demanded that environmental restoration, political inclusion, and economic justice be addressed. They also requested for a just, equitable and culture-based transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources that are affordable and accessible to the Ogoni people and general population of people of the Niger Delta and Nigeria.
Insisting that their voice must be heard this time, LEDEF called for the immediate mobilization of Ogoni communities to resist the resumption of oil exploration and exploitation in the land, as well as the planned divestment of Shell’s onshore assets without addressing the liabilities caused by decades of pollution in the Niger Delta.
Addressing journalists as they mark Ogoni Day which coincided with World Indigenous Peoples’ Day, LEDEF founder, Mr. Friday Nbani, revealed that, “LEDEF was established by ecological defenders trained by the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) to monitor, verify, and report incidents of oil spills, gas flaring, land grabbing, and violations of environmental and human rights in the Niger Delta.
“Our thematic areas include climate justice, energy justice, gender justice, and agricultural livelihood support. To ensure a safe and healthy environment for our children and society at large.”
Speaking about the historical context of the Ogoni struggle, Nbani recalled that, “in 1993, Ogoni communities shut down oil wells in response to economic exploitation, environmental degradation and repression of Ogoni people caused by Shell and the Nigerian military government.
“This non-violent struggle tragically resulted in massacres and bloodshed. The Ogoni struggle for justice and against environmental degradation, political marginalization and economic strangulation can be traced to the early 1990s and to the establishment of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP).
