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« Nigeria 'hostage pictures' shown | Main | Police Reforms Com’tte Commences Public Hearing »

February 24, 2006

Shell told to pay Nigeria $1.5bn

A Nigerian court has ordered oil giant Shell's local operation to pay $1.5bn to the Ijaw people of the Delta region.

The Ijaw have been fighting since 2000 for compensation for environmental degradation in the oil-rich region.

They took the case to court after Shell refused to make the payment ordered by Nigeria's parliament.

Ijaw militants have staged a spate of attacks against Shell facilities recently and are holding seven foreign oil workers hostage.

Following the violence, Shell - the biggest oil producer in Nigeria - has halved its output from the country.

Shell says it believes there is no evidence to support the claim, and will appeal against the ruling.

A statement said: "We remain committed to dialogue with the Ijaw people."

Warning

Lawyers for the Shell Petroleum Development Company argued in the federal court in Port Harcourt that the joint committee of the National Assembly that made the order in 2000 did not have the power to compel the oil company to make the payment.

But Judge Okechukwu Okeke ruled that since both sides had agreed to go before the National Assembly, the order was binding on both sides.


Ijaw community leader Ngo Nac-Eteli said that if Shell wanted to buy time by taking the case to the appeal court, the company would not be allowed to operate on Ijaw land until the case was settled.

He did not elaborate on how the community would stop Shell's operations.

The BBC's Abdullahi Kaura Abubakar in Port Harcourt says the case has the support both of community elders and the militant groups that have been attacking oil installations in the Delta region.

But our correspondent warns that even if the money is paid, the region would not necessarily be pacified unless the various groups were happy with how it was distributed.

Nigeria is one of the world's biggest oil exporters but despite its oil wealth, many Nigerians live in abject poverty.


Posted by Publisher at February 24, 2006 03:27 PM

Comments

Deprivation! Deprivation!! This word perhaps means very little to you, but stop and think. Have you ever been deprived of your entitlements -be it privileges, rights, possessions...? Let me be a bit blunt, have you lost your wife/husband to someone who made love to her/him with impunity before your presence and there was nothing you could do about it, because the fellow was more powerful than you were? Next you watched the bully proceed to take your bothers’ and or sisters’ wives/husbands just the he had treated you. This is an example of deprivation. The question is "Can a bunch of the powerless ever be pushed to the wall by the action of the covetous greedy bloke? If eventually the victims are pushed to the wall, will the wall be able to give them strength to stand the bully?" I can imagine somebody asking "what kind of deprivation am I talking about?" Well, if a labourer deserves his wages, if it is unjust to muzzle the horse that treads the corn can someone justifiably answer why it is thought impossible for somebody from the south-south geopolitical zone to be president of the federal republic of Nigeria? Can somebody answer why for 46 years of independence the south-south has never produced even a vice president of the FRN be it military or civil?. I refuse to talk about the obvious - the environmental pollution for which Ken Saro Wiwa and 8 other Ogoni leaders were cruelly strangled. While I do not recommend the kidnapping of oil workers and destruction of oil pipes as solutions to marginalisation, I want to point out that such acts are traceable to deprivation. The treatment meted on the people of south-south is a negation of their imputes towards a united Nigeria! – There is always a unity when we remain one country, you know; even if the unity is that of Jonah in the belly of the fish.

Perhaps what Nigeria needs at a time like this is a constitutional reform. The 1995 draft constitution addressed the problem of political marginalisation which is a pivot upon which other forms of deprivations revolve, but a bunch of military tugs expunged the vital sections of that constitution, in the name of “ratifying the constitution”. Until Nigeria thinks again about power sharing and rotation we shall know no peace. Shelling Odi people and their brothers or any other military solutions shall only multiply war in Nigeria.

Posted by: Vincent Nwankwo at February 27, 2006 06:37 PM

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