{"id":44580,"date":"2021-01-31T22:23:40","date_gmt":"2021-01-31T22:23:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=44580"},"modified":"2021-01-31T22:23:40","modified_gmt":"2021-01-31T22:23:40","slug":"nigerian-farmers-hail-shell-ruling-but-future-remains-uncertain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=44580","title":{"rendered":"Nigerian farmers hail Shell ruling, but future remains uncertain"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Lagos, Nigeria \u2013<\/strong> It has taken 13 years for Fidelis Oguru to get the victory that he and a group of other farmers in Nigeria\u2019s oil-rich Niger Delta region so badly wanted.<\/p>\n

On Friday, the Court of Appeal in The Hague ruled that Shell\u2019s Nigerian subsidiary, the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC), was at fault for environmental degradation caused by pipeline leaks in the villages of Oruma and Goi in the Niger Delta region.<\/p>\n

The Dutch court ordered the Nigerian arm of the British-Dutch company to pay yet-to-be-decided compensation to the affected villages.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am very happy and I thank God,\u201d said Oguru, an 80-year-old farmer and one of the plaintiffs from Oruma village.<\/p>\n

He told Al Jazeera oil leaks from pipelines have devastated farmland and waterways in the region, and the SPDC\u2019s reluctance to replace old pipelines had led farmers to watch in angst as their crops such as cassava and plantain succumbed to oil pollution and their livelihoods eroded.<\/p>\n

Frequent appeals to the SPDC for compensation and environmental clean-up had been futile, he said.<\/p>\n

In 2008, four farmers from the villages of Oruma, Goi, and Ikot Ada Udo received backing from an environmental campaign group, Friends of the Earth Netherlands, to file lawsuits against Shell in a Dutch court over oil spills related to the SPDC between 2004 and 2007.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2013, I went to the Netherlands when the judgement was on and the [court] ruled against us,\u201d Oguru recalled.<\/p>\n

SPDC and other oil companies often blame oil leaks on sabotage. Under Nigerian law, applied in the Dutch civil case, the company is not liable if the leaks were the result of sabotage.<\/p>\n

But on Friday the court found it could not establish \u201cbeyond a reasonable doubt\u201d that saboteurs were to blame for leaks that spewed oil over an area of a total of about 60 football pitches in Oruma and Goi.<\/p>\n

Although the court ruled that sabotage was to blame for an oil leak in the village of Ikot Ada Udo, it said the case over whether Shell was liable would continue.<\/p>\n

Eric Dooh, a 50-year-old plaintiff from Goi, told Al Jazeera the victory meant \u201coppressed people\u201d such as farmers from the Niger Delta can take their \u201crightful place in society\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said the ruling sets a \u201cworld-class precedent\u201d that could a be a turning point to give hope to those who have similar cases against multinational oil companies that they can get justice regardless of \u201cthe number of years and tribulations that they have been going [through]\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cOther multinational companies must also know that they must adhere to international best practices in their oil exploration activities and respect fundamental human rights,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe victory is not for only me,\u201d Dooh added. \u201cIt is for the entire Niger Delta region.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friends of the Earth supporters unfold a banner outside the district court in The Hague, Netherlands [Mike Corder\/AP]<\/figure>\n

Nnimmo Bassey, a Nigerian environmental activist, also believes Friday\u2019s ruling is the beginning of \u201ca process that should bring hope \u2026 [because] lies told by the [oil] industry cannot hold water forever\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe victory means no matter how long an injustice prevails, justice must come one day and it means that the people did not persist for nothing for 13 years,\u201d Bassey, former executive director of Environmental Rights Action, a local advocacy NGO, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

Shell discovered and started exploiting Nigeria\u2019s vast oil reserves in the late 1950s and has long faced heavy criticism over oil pollution and for allegedly close and enabling ties to the government.<\/p>\n

Bassey said vast swaths of the Niger Delta remain \u201csacrifice zones\u201d and there are still oil spills and contamination on a daily basis in many areas. He also cited a fire at an oil well in Ondo State that has been raging since May with \u201cno stoppage, no clean-up\u201d.<\/p>\n

The only place a serious effort is being made to carry out an environmental clean-up in the Niger Delta is in Ogoniland, Bassey said, and even that is \u201cvery tentative and not yet comprehensive\u201d.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Shell said it was dismayed by Friday\u2019s ruling as it believes the spills were caused by sabotage.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are \u2026 disappointed that this court has made a different finding on the cause of these spills and in its finding that SPDC is liable,\u201d the company said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The SPDC said in a statement: \u201cLike all Shell-operated ventures globally, we are committed to operating safely and protecting the local environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Bassey said sabotage had been ruled out in many instances of oil pollution in the Niger Delta.<\/p>\n

\u201cSaying the spill was caused by sabotage was a formula for escaping responsibility, which has to be debunked,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Oil on the creek water\u2019s surface near an illegal refinery in Ogoniland, outside Port Harcourt, in Nigeria\u2019s Delta region [File: Sunday Alamba\/AP]<\/figure>\n

Too little, too late?<\/h2>\n

Despite the ruling, Dooh\u00a0lamented the damage done \u2013 he said oil leaks in Goi had ruined his fish farm and destroyed his father\u2019s bakery.<\/p>\n

Like many others, he has been forced to move with his family to a nearby town to escape the contamination.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been very difficult and hectic for me to cope,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The successful plaintiffs are now waiting to see how much compensation they will receive.<\/p>\n

Dooh said he hopes to use the funds to restore his damaged land and businesses, as well as building a school.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I reinvest [in my village], it will give me the opportunity of creating job opportunities for the people.\u201d<\/p>\n

But for Oguru the compensation will likely come too late.<\/p>\n

He said Shell had destroyed all of the land he used for his fish farms. \u201cThe loss [caused by the spill] has given me a very bad setback that has affected my means of livelihood \u2013 farming and fishing,\u201d Oguru said.<\/p>\n

In 2018, he started developing eye problems and became blind in 2020. His age and health problems will likely prevent him from using the compensation to restore his land.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am stranded.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lagos, Nigeria \u2013 It has taken 13 years for Fidelis Oguru to get the victory that he and a group of other farmers in Nigeria\u2019s oil-rich Niger Delta region so badly wanted. On Friday, the Court of Appeal in The Hague ruled that Shell\u2019s Nigerian subsidiary, the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC), was…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spotlight_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44580\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}