Edith CHUKU
Dismayed by the sufferings of oil producing communities in Rivers State, following the neglect by Shell Petroleum Development Company SPDC, the Executive Director of Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Centre, Dr. Emem Okon, has tasked SPDC to prioritise public health over profit.
Okon stated this while lamenting that the findings from the blood tests of 80 women in Otuabagi revealed hydrocarbon levels more than 8000 times above World Health Organization permissible limits because of the vast oil pollution caused by decades of Shell’s operations in the Niger Delta.
She decried that the Bayelsa Oil and Environment Commission tested the blood of 1600 persons and all had hydrocarbons in their blood.
According to her, women are suffering from respiratory diseases, fertility problems, breast cancer, eyesight impairment, among many others, insisting that Shell cannot divest without clean-up and remediation.
Okon described as ridiculous, shocking and a show of unaccountability, Shell plc sale of its Nigerian subsidiary, SPDC, to the Renaissance Group without any public commitment or funding to clean up and without compensating the hundreds of thousands of people whose lives and livelihoods the pollution has affected.
She lamented that for over six decades, Shell’s oil exploration and extraction activities have caused irreparable environmental damage, destroyed livelihoods, endangered health, and deepened poverty and underdevelopment in the once-thriving Niger Delta region.
In their determination to get justice for the people of the Niger Delta, Kebetkache in collaboration with Lekeh Development Foundation, led concerned citizens, environmental organizations and other affected communities, on a peaceful demonstration to Shell Industrial Area, along Aba Road, to demand the clean up, compensation and stop to all new oil and gas exploration in frontline communities.
The solidarity walk which was held on Tuesday, was also to ask about Shell’s responsibility to clean up its legacy pollution in light of the recent sale of Shell’s subsidiary SPDC to the Renaissance Group.
During the walk, they charged Shell to as a matter of urgency, ensure the immediate and full implementation of environmental remediation plan with timeline in oil spill affected areas, show transparent and independent environmental assessments led by local communities and civil society and provide full support and funding for the Ogoni clean-up and expansion to other polluted communities.
The environmental advocacy groups also demanded for a fair and just compensation to all individuals and communities impacted by oil spills, gas flaring, and land degradation. That compensation must reflect decades of ecological loss, health burdens, and destroyed livelihoods and the establishment of a community reparations fund, jointly managed with community representatives and neutral oversight bodies.
Other demands they made were that Shell must publicly acknowledge the full extent of environmental, health, and socio-economic harm caused in the Niger Delta, that shareholders be made aware of Shell’s unfulfilled legal and moral obligations in Nigeria. Also, a stop to all legal maneuvering to avoid accountability in Nigerian and international courts.
Further, Kebetkache asked Shell to invest in renewable energy which it described as access for affected communities as part of a just energy transition and respect the Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) of local communities in all future dealings.
They lamented that “while Shell shareholders gather in comfort at the 2025 AGM, we remind you that your profits are soaked in the tears and suffering of our people. Your pipelines leak poison into our homes and rivers. Your flares choke our skies. Your silence and denial have become complicity in injustice.
“We are not passive victims, we are survivors and defenders of our land, and we are demanding urgent redress.”
Speaking in an interview with newsmen, Okon who was represented by Kebetkache Programme Coordinator, Idongesit Smart asked Shell’s management to provide assurances that oil pollution in the Niger Delta will be fully cleaned up and communities compensated.
“Shell will retain legal liability and moral responsibility for the clean-up of historic pollution in the Niger Delta if the buyer of its Nigerian subsidy SPDC cannot pay. These liabilities, from 70 years of oil exploration and extraction, could total tens of billions of dollars.
“Shell claims that under the terms of the sale to the Renaissance group, a consortium of five firms comprising four Nigerian exploration and production companies and an international energy group, it has passed these liabilities to the buyer. However, under Nigerian, English and International law, there may be historic and residual liability that remains with Shell plc.”
Also speaking, the Programme Coordinator, Climate and Gender Issues, Melody Gold Barry-Yobo said, “we, the Lekeh Development Foundation, the indigenous people and impacted communities of the Niger Delta region with the international supporters, are today demonstrating at Shell Annual General Meeting (AGM) to seek justice and ask about Shell’s responsibility to clean up its legacy pollution in light of the recent sale of Shell’s subsidiary SPDC to the Renaissance Group.
“We are here today to demand justice for our land. Over five decades ago, when Shell came into the Niger Delta region and discovered oil in the Niger Delta region, we thought that development has come to the region, but it wasn’t about the oil, it was about the blood of the Niger Delta people, the blood of the Niger Delta women, it was about the blood of the Niger Delta children and the Niger Delta men.
“After oil exploration in the Niger Delta region, our land lay ruined in waste, our waters have being contaminated with benzene; a carcinogen as 900 times higher than World Health Organization standard.”
Barry-Yobo decried that, “the Niger Delta region do not have access to clean drinking water which is the basic fundamental human rights, our farms lands have been destroyed, our very source of livelihood has been destroyed, taken away from us.
“The people of the Niger Delta region have been negatively impacted, they have become environmental refugees even in their own land and their own home.
“Our lands are washed away, the Niger Delta region has faced alot of injustice, ranging from environmental degradation and pollution, our waters, creeks, our mangroves have all been destroyed, our fishing activities have been taken away because our rivers, streams have been polluted.
“The Niger Delta people are left with nothing but diseases, sickness, abject poverty, lose of lives, hunger and famine. This is the reward we have gotten from Shell, we have gotten death sentence from Shell and our only crime is to be born in the Niger Delta region.”
She further demanded for a reparation, rehabilitation and that the lands of the Niger Delta region be restored to its original position.
“We demand that Shell should own up, pay up and clean up their mess in the Niger Delta region. Every attempt of Shell to divest from the Niger Delta region without restoring the land back to its original state, we stand here to declare that divestment criminal in all of its entirety.”
In her message to the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project HYPREP, Barry-Yobo warned against any form of biasness and ensure full implementation of everything recommended in the UNEP report.
Further, a student representative, Evidence Amos highlighted the impact of oil exploration and Shell on the education in the Niger Delta, which he said included degraded environment that affects the socio-economic of the state and health of students.
