Oil Giant Shell, Ready To Pay €15m Compensation To Nigerian Communities

 


By Nkoyo Etim

Shell oil company asked to  pay 15 million

 euros ($15.9 million) to communities in

 Nigeria that were affected by multiple oil

 pipeline leaks in the Niger Delta, the oil giant

on friday said in a joint statement with the

 Dutch division of Friends of the Earth,

the compensation is  as a  result of a Dutch court case brought by Friends of the Earth, in which Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary last year was found to be responsible for the oil spills and was ordered to pay for damages to farmers.

However,  Kukuruku News  gathered that the Niger Delta pollution has continued despite years of promises by successive governments in Nigeria to clean it up.

In 2016 President Muhammadu Buhari launched an ambitious clean-up operation in Ogoniland.

The work is ongoing but residents say little progress has been made.

Continued oil spills from the activities of multinationals have also cast doubt on the impact of the clean-up exercise. “Things are getting worse by the day,” Celestine Akpobari, an environmental activist from Ogoni, told the BBC.

The region provides most of Nigeria’s government revenues but the communities say successive governments have neglected them. Mr Akpobari says people can no longer fish or farm because of the devastation.

“People are dying, there are strange diseases and women are having miscarriages” from the pollution, he says. But the communities and campaigners say the recent court victory gives them hope they will see justice.

In February last year, the UK Supreme Court ruled that oil-polluted Nigerian communities can sue Shell in English courts.

The decision which was seen as a victory for the affected Communities after a five years battle and overturns a court of Appeal rulling.

The Niger Delta communities of more than 40.000 people says decades of pollution have severely affected their lives, health and local environment.

The oil giant had argued it was only a holding company for a firm that should be ludged under Nigerian law.

Shell describe the legal rulling as disappointing.

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