Godwin Bebe Okpabi calls for the clean up of the oily mess in Ogale in the Niger Delta

Shell’s tanker, the Hemifusus, carried the first ever shipment of Nigerian oil to Rotterdam in 1958. The company’s operations expanded massively in the Niger Delta over the following years, with hundreds of wells drilled, thousands of miles of pipelines laid, and the construction of two export terminals at Bonny and Escravos. From a purely commercial point of view, the company’s investment has earned billions of pounds for its shareholders.

If anyone wonders whether we, the people of the Niger Delta, have also benefitted, I’d invite them to visit Ogale, the community of which I am the Paramount Ruler. I’d take them to a tap in the centre of the main town. This is connected to a borehole that reaches more than 100 metres underground. This tap is open for anyone to use, and people do use its water for cooking, washing, and laundry. But they should not be touching it. It reeks of oil. The white tiles on which the water splashes are stained yellow and brown. The water is tainted from leaks over the years from Shell’s pipelines and is clearly unsafe, but people have little choice.

Ironically, this tap was provided to Ogale by a generous individual from elsewhere in Nigeria. She read in the newspapers that our water had been poisoned by years of oil spills. In fact, according to a survey by the United Nations Environment Programme in 2011, the level of Benzene in one of our wells exceeded the World Health Organization’s safe limits by 900 times. However, since then things have got worse. Our lawyers came with leading international experts in August last year and found the Benzene levels in our drinking water was now more than 3,800 times WHO safe limits.

We had no idea our water was so contaminated until the UN’s 2011 report. Some months later, Shell started trucking in what they said was safe water in tanks, two or three times a week. But the water they supplied was insufficient, it only lasted for two or three hours and wasn’t enough for everyone. The government then put up signs warning us not to drink water from our wells or go near our streams. Shell then paid for the government to connect us to a mains water system, but this works only sporadically, and even when it does, it is not enough to supply all 40,000 people in Ogale.

It is because of the poisoned water that members of my community and I decided to sue Shell in London. We want damages for the harm that spills from Shell’s wells in Ogale and pipelines that cross our land have caused to our fields, fishponds, and streams and a clean-up of the pollution that has yet to be properly carried out.

We brought the case together with another community, Bille, more than ten years ago. We have not yet had the chance to present our evidence in court because Shell has fought us on technical and jurisdictional grounds ever since. But the moment of truth is getting closer. In 2021, the UK Supreme Court ruled in our favour, allowing the case to proceed against both Shell’s London-based parent company and its Nigerian subsidiary. Earlier this year, I was proud to sit in the Royal Courts of Justice in London and attend a trial on preliminary legal matters. I am looking forward to returning for the full trial.

But it frustrates me that Shell is paying its expensive legal team to fight us on every issue, when it should be using that money to do the right thing by the people of Ogale and other communities that have been forced to take Shell to court. I am also deeply concerned by the sale earlier this year of Shell’s onshore business in the Niger Delta to a consortium of mainly Nigerian-owned companies. 

Nigerian civil society organisations and Amnesty International campaigned against this sale, warning that it could be a way for Shell to escape meeting its responsibilities in Nigeria. That must not be allowed. Shareholders can pressure the company to fulfil its obligations to compensate the communities that have been devastated and to clean up the pollution it caused rather than passing that burden to a third party less able or willing to take it on.

Communities across the Niger Delta have been blighted by Shell’s operations. Its oil spills and leaks — resulting from poorly maintained pipelines and wells, and inadequate clean-up efforts have devastated the health and livelihoods of many of the 30 million people living in the region. The pollution has contaminated their water sources, killed fish and crops, destroyed mangrove forests, and caused serious health issues, including respiratory illnesses, increased rates of miscarriage, and infant mortality.

Despite making billions in profits, Shell has consistently failed to adequately clean up or compensate those whose lives and livelihoods it has blighted.

 Okpabi is the Paramount Ruler of Ogale community in Rivers State

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