by Alkasim Abdulkadir

For a known fact the control and maintenance of oilfield infrastructure in Ogoniland has been and remains inadequate: the Shell Petroleum Development Company’s own procedures have not been applied, creating public health and safety issues.

As you read this lawyers and arbitrators on both sides of Shell PLC and the lawyers representing 15,000 Nigerians claiming compensation for two oil spills that occurred in the Niger Delta in 2008 are getting set to begin the herculean task of out of court settlement next week, one more attempt at ending the lingering and controversial litigation. For the 15000 thousand farmers, it has been a torturous journey in search of justice.

Though Shell has agreed that it was responsible for the spills, it has not agreed to how much the farmers should be paid as compensation.

“We will be doing our damnedest to ensure that Shell pay out a fair amount for the damage they have caused and put the Bodo Creek back into its pre-spill state,” Martyn Day, was qouted as saying on behalf of Shell.
“We’ll be hoping for a trial date around the end of next year,”

In the first quarter of this year a court in the Netherlands awarded damages to a Nigerian farmer after it found that SPDC failed to prevent sabotage to its pipeline that caused a spill between 2006 and 2007.

However the same court also dismissed four other claims for compensation and claims against the parent company, ruling that in these cases the spills were caused by third party sabotage.

Environmental rights activist and President of Agape Birthrights, Ankio Briggs is of the opinion that “The pollution in the Niger Delta has been adjudged as the worse in the world.”

“Shell must be made to protect the people, the mangrove, because of the pollution; marine life is known existent in Ogoni land. The devastation in this area flows into the Atlantic, so other coastal areas are also victims”

Chief Eric Bariza Dooh, head of Gah Saangu dynasty of Lah bon Goi Community of Ogoniland said compensations are yet to be paid to their community by companies like Shell even despite judicial interventions, “four fish ponds, bakery and school owned by my family was destroyed by Shell’s activities and we are yet to be compensated and because our businesses are registered we still pay taxes to the government.

UNEP report had last year documented wide spread pollution in the Niger Delta “In one community, at Nisisioken Ogale, in western Ogoniland, families are drinking water from wells that is contaminated with benzene- a known carcinogen-at levels over 900 times above World Health Organization guidelines.

UNEP scientists found an 8 cm layer of refined oil floating on the groundwater which serves the wells. This was reportedly linked to an oil spill which occurred more than six years ago. While the report provides clear operational recommendations for addressing the widespread oil pollution across Ogoniland, UNEP recommends that the contamination in Nisisioken Ogale warrants emergency action ahead of all other remediation efforts. While some on-the-ground results could be immediate, overall the report estimates that countering and cleaning up the pollution and catalyzing a sustainable recovery of Ogoniland could take 25 to 30 years.

According to Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, as at the time the report was released said “The clean-up of Ogoniland will not only address a tragic legacy but also represents a major ecological restoration enterprise with potentially multiple positive effects ranging from bringing the various stakeholders together in a single concerted cause to achieving lasting improvements for the Ogoni people,”

For a known fact the control and maintenance of oilfield infrastructure in Ogoniland has been and remains inadequate: the Shell Petroleum Development Company’s own procedures have not been applied, creating public health and safety issues.

The most poignant metaphor is made Ankio Brigs in a conversation I had with her last year, she said “a dead environment can only give rise to dead people, it is most unfair, an example of man’s inhumanity to man.”

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.