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The future of the Niger Delta is bleak and violence which will follow will be much worse than what the country has already experienced, no thanks to the nefarious activities of Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC, in the region. The Platform, a London-based non-governmental organisation monitoring the oil and gas industry, gave the damning verdict in a 75-page report just published.  It said that the Anglo Dutch Shell Petroleum Development Company’s close relationship with the Nigerian military has exposed the company to charges of complicity in the systematic killing and torture of local residents.

Testimonies and contracts seen by Platform also suggest that Shell regularly assists armed militants with lucrative payments. In one case in 2010, according to Platform, Shell allegedly transferred more than $159,000 to a group linked to militia violence.

Also, the report said Shell’s poor community engagement has provided the “catalyst” for major disruption including one incident that shut down a third of Shell’s daily oil production in August 2011. According to the report, “in the absence of proper supervision and control, Shell contractors, including multinationals like Halliburton, Daewoo and Saipem have replicated many Shell’s mistakes,” thereby worsening the situation in the region.

The report said that Shell’s insensitive actions in the Niger Delta also have global implications. “Basic errors have exacerbated violent conflicts in which entire communities have been destroyed. Billions have been lost in revenues to the government and oil companies sending shock waves through the global economy. “These are not new phenomena. In 2003, a leaked internal report denounced Shell for its active involvement in the Delta conflict. Then, as now, Shell pledged to improve. But Platform’s report finds that Shell has not taken the necessary steps to de-militarise its operations in the Delta, resolve long standing grievances and respect the human rights of local communities,” it said. 

One of the communities most affected by Shell’s poor community relations attitude is Rumuekpe in Rivers State. The community is the main artery of Shell’s eastern operations hosting the biggest manifold in the eastern division, a booster station vital for communicating in the swamps and a flowstation processing 10,000 to 15,000 barrels of oil per day. Shell began operations in Rumuekpe in 1956 and the area acts as a gathering point for oil and gas pipelines that criss-cross the area. Approximately 100,000 barrels of oil flow through this point per day, equivalent of about 10 percent of Shell’s daily production.

But between summer 2005 and November 2008, Rumuekpe was torn apart by destructive crisis allegedly engineered by Shell. It is estimated that 60 people, including women and children, were killed in the inter-communal conflict.

Armed gangs fought  relentlessly over access to oil contracts and payments, which Shell allegedly distributed to whichever gang controlled access to its infrastructure. “Thousands of inhabitants of the eight villages in Rumuekpe have been displaced, and homes, schools and churches destroyed in the fighting. A local elder was stunned by the scale of the destruction. “Even in the Nigerian civil war, they did not demolish all the houses in Nigeria like what they did in Rumuekpe. There was not even a standing block,” the report said. It said that those still living in the community are sheltered beneath the ribs of burnt out houses and makeshift tarpaulin tents. Many of them suffer from severe malnutrition, poverty and homelessness. Youth leader, Matthew Chizi, told Platform “it’s like a desert.” 

The 2005 to 2008 Rumuekpe crisis was caused by a multi-layered struggle over land, power and access to oil contracts and payments. Even so, it is possible to identify several ways in which Shell’s routine practices increased the likelihood of conflict. Shell distributed ‘community development’ fund and contracts via Friday Edu, a youth leader, and Shell Community Liasion Officer, CLO. Platform noted that this exclusive arrangement magnified the risk of the mismanagement of resources.

By 2005, Edu’s monopoly over SPDC’s resources sparked a leadership tussle with another youth called S.K Agala. Not only that, Edu further polarised the community when he sided with Shell over a festering land dispute which had pitted local residents against SPDC for over a decade. The dispute concerned the ownership of the land where Shell had built its booster station. According to Platform, when Shell’s community development’ projects were implemented, they served to heighten inequalities between the eight villages in Rumuekpe. Only three villages were provided with water boreholes and electricity. The other five were ignored, breeding tension and mistrust between them. Platform noted that even as factional strifes in Rumuekpe killed dozens of people and destroyed the community and Shell’s infrastructure, SPDC continued with its routine activities.

A Shell manager told Platform that “one good thing about their crisis was that they never, for one day, stopped us from production.” To secure access to its facilities, Shell used practices that exacerbated human rights abuses and became central to the dynamics of the conflict. Platform interviewed ex-gang members from both factions, who set aside their differences to sign a peace accord in 2008. They claim that Shell provided regular funding to both gangs throughout the conflict. In “the heart of the war in 2006, Shell was said to have awarded maintenance contracts relating to its oil wells, the Trans Niger Pipeline, its booster station and flow station to Friday Edu’s gang. After S.K Agala’s counter-raid left Rumuekpe “littered” with corpses, Shell allegedly switched sides and initiated payments to Agala. The company paid whoever controlled access, even if that meant paying known criminal gangs.

Chukwu Azikwe, an ex-gang member with Agala’s faction, told Platform: “What SPDC was doing is that it started funding SK and his group… We were given money to our group and that is the money we were using to buy ammunition, to buy this bullet, and every other thing to eat and to sustain the war.” 

Shell was also accused of using cowboy contractors who also exploit the natives. Multinational subcontractors like Halliburton and Schlumberger conduct “huge” amounts of construction in the Delta for Shell but have low incentives to maintain good relations with village communities. “Hired for short-term, time-sensitive projects and guarded by armed JTF patrols, some contractors have started and finished major works without properly consulting locals or obtaining their consent.

Historically, Shell contractors, like US-based Willbros, have been implicated in military brutality as shown in the shooting of Kkaralol Kogbara, an Ogoni woman who was protesting against the bulldozing of her crops,” Platform said. According to one internal report in 2003, contractors were responsible for 70 percent of the conflicts with local communities that resulted in work stoppages. Shell staff have also alleged that contractors deliberately create conflicts with local communities to claim extensions on their contracts, or other benefits. In one high-profile incident in February 2009, Saipem, a subsidiary of Eni, laid a pipeline across Taylor Creek which blocked the waterway and threatened the livelihoods of local women in Ogboloma. The women occupied the construction site for nine days, forced Saipem to leave and a major Shell project ground to a halt. “As it stands, Shell’s wilful blindness to the consequences of hiring contractors known to abuse human rights does not relieve the company of responsibility. As the international Commission of Jurists state: … “no prudent company would seek to protect itself from legal liability by a don’t ask, don’t tell approach to certain risks… such a strategy will not be rewarded by the law, and instead minimising a company’s chances of legal accountability, will increase the zone of legal risk.”

Platform insists that the onus is on Shell and the government to ensure that contractors properly implement social and environmental policies and adhere to guidelines on security and human rights. But unless these requirements are included as contractual provisions with stringent penalties for breaches, Shell contractors will keep having a negative impact on local communities.

The report also indicted the government of Nigeria and that of foreign countries. For instance, it says: “Shell and other oil corporations have exploited Nigeria’s lax regulatory environment and perpetrated egregious wrongs in a legal vacuum. The Nigerian government and home states such as UK, Netherlands and US are frequently unwilling to hold oil companies accountable. No internationally binding framework on corporate human rights abuses currently exists.”

But this does not mean that companies face no consequences. While the status quo continues, Shell faces rising litigation risks. In the Hague, a case brought by Friends of the Earth and four Nigerian Victims of Shell oil spills is ongoing. More cases are likely to follow in London. There is increasing international recognition by investors, home states and public opinion that businesses must “do no harm.” Whether Shell will meet these expectations and comply with its own business principles depends on pressure from all these stakeholders. It also depends on Shell’s willingness to root out entrenched interests and make structural changes. Shell’s efforts so far, such as human rights training and support for voluntary principles, have been largely cosmetic and have not addressed the structural problems of militarisation and harmful corporate practices, the report said.

In the 1990s, according to the report, Shell actively encouraged and assisted large-scale military attacks against communities and peaceful protesters in the Ogoni region of the Niger Delta. Recently released testimonies from the US lawsuit, Wiwa v Shell have shed further light on the extent of Shell’s collusion with the Nigerian military. According to a key testimony, Shell provided helicopter transport and field allowances to heavily armed soldiers who committed crimes against humanity in the Ogoni village of Kaa in August 1993. In the attack that followed, at least 35 civilians were reportedly killed. A notorious military officer, who led the crackdowns against the Ogoni, was allegedly being paid by Shell and was driven around the Delta in a Shell vehicle. There are indications that since the Ogoni crisis, Shell has been more careful to publicly distance itself from major military operation in the Delta. However, Shell’s operations remain inextricably linked to human rights violations committed by government forces.

The scale of Shell’s infrastructure and security operations in Nigeria is immense. It include over 6,000km of flowlines and pipelines, 90 oil fields, 1000 oil wells, 72 flowstations, 10 gas plants and two major export terminals at Bonny and Forcados. These are guarded by similarly vast network of Mobile Police, MOPOL, known locally as the ‘kill and go,’ and the Joint Task Force, JTF, a combination of the army, navy and police, assigned to guard and patrol oil facilities. Shell also uses private military and security companies, PMSCs, known for their increasingly militarised tactics. Shell maintains a 1,200-strong internal police force, called ‘supernumerary’ or SPY police usually unarmed, but some carry arms on ‘escort duty’ despite a law banning them from bearing firearms.

The report described Nigeria as “over-policed and under-secured,” adding that the security situation in the Delta fits this trend and has deteriorated sharply since the region was put under military occupation in 1998. The Nigerian government, driven to keep oil revenues flowing and working in close partnership with oil multinationals, has heavily militarised the Delta. Shell alone has hired more than 1,300 government forces as armed guards. Platform said that security cost for the oil industry in Nigeria, once negligible, has skyrocketed to approximately $3 billion a year. Compared with the slower tasks of addressing community grievances over poverty, unemployment and environmental damage, hiring government forces appears to be an easier option for oil companies in the short-term. But the cost are often devastating. Shell’s over-reliance on government forces to subject communities to systematic human rights abuses, as seen in the recent killings and torture in Ogoniland demonstrates Shell’s deep involvement in the militarisation of the Delta. It puts the company under constant risk of complicity in fierce government crackdowns.

Government forces depend heavily on Shell for support. “Shell provides (government forces) with such logistics as patrol vans, boats and helicopters” on a regular basis. According to a report in 2006, Shell airstrip have also been used to launch military operations. In Oru Sangama, Shell failed to warn local villagers of an imminent military raid where loss of lives was the probable outcome. The company also paid the soldiers who participated in the attack on the village.

Platform observed that as a strategy, the militarisation of the Delta is deeply flawed and counterproductive. Government forces frequently fail to provide protection and have often created more insecurity. Offshore facilities remain particularly vulnerable despite the presence of Nigerian Navy. High-ranking military officials believe that ‘hard’ force cannot solve the crises. The report quoted one Shell staff who evaluated the effectiveness of the government forces to be a “total disappointment” and “more loyal to hoodlums than the people who they are protecting.” It said that inspite of the poor credentials of Nigerian government forces, the US, UK and Netherlands governments and the oil majors have all supported militarisation of the Delta, often under the rubric of counter-terrorism.

Consequently, Shell and other oil companies depend on government forces which they cannot effectively control. The management of the Nigerian forces is typically dispersed across Shell’s security department, government officials and private security contractors, creating tangled lines of responsibility. An internal report by Chevron found that government forces represent more of a liability than an asset to the company and that Shell’s situation is analogous and its response to the situation has been largely cosmetic, and has not changed the substance of their relationship with the military. Shell provides “human rights training” to the “security staff and police” but this has not succeeded in preventing regular human rights abuses from occurring.

A senior manager in Shell has acknowledged that “despite serious efforts in monitoring and training and supervision, the company’s armed security guards in Nigeria and a number of other developing countries do not comply fully (with company) guidelines. “The failure of both the Nigerian authorities and the oil companies to enforce guidelines and properly address the ill-discipline, impunity and corruption of government forces has led to a legacy of abuses,” it said.

Despite the reductions in attacks by insurgents since the government amnesty programme in 2009, Shell continues to maintain a heavy military presence in the Delta. Locals have faced repression in communities like Otuasega, which has no prior history of militant activity and is in the same local government as President Goodluck Jonathan’s home village. The limited gains of the amnesty could easily be undermined unless ‘security’ is based on respect for human rights, the protection of shared interests and the involvement of all stakeholders.

Between 2009 and 2010, security personnel guarding Shell facilities allegedly carried out extra-judicial killing and torture in Ogoniland. On December 2009, in the community of K-Dere, two heavily armed soldiers guarding a Shell manifold allegedly attacked William Dimkpa Nkoo and his wife, Priscillia Nkoo, a seamstress, using rifle butts and horsewhips. William told the human rights monitor CEHRD, “I even don’t know why they beat us. One of them said I talked like somebody who claims to know so much” and “I deserve to be beaten.” The soldiers also attacked a local farmer, Johnn Badom, damaging his eyesight.

On April 2010, JTF soldiers guarding SPDC Well 4 in Bomu Oil Field in Ogoni, shot dead Bariara Vurasi, a youth leader; in his early twenties who was among the casual worker from B-Dere community hired by Shell for the ‘corking and killing of the well head. When Platform visited Bariara’s family members in B-Dere, they were devastated. A grieving relative held SPDC responsible, and told Platform that “Shell has killed (Bariara).” The family appeared determined to demand justice for Bariara’s killing, the report said.

Perhaps, Shell’s atrocities in the Niger Delta made Platform to emphatically say that with Shell’s present security arrangement, no-one is safe. This report has shown that Shell’s dependence on Nigerian government forces between 2000 and 2010 has had grave consequences. “Shell has paid, housed and supported government forces who have perpetrated gross human rights abuses. Armed soldiers and police guarding Shell facilities have repeatedly attacked, tortured and killed local residents, including the vulnerable.

In some cases, Shell has become complicit in destructive military raids in which soldiers have shown little restraint.” Also, “Shell and its subcontractors hide behind a hard shield of military security that effectively severs the link between company operations and the local community. This perpetuates cycles of grievance, protest and repression, as conflicts go unresolved and corporate security budgets continue to rise.

Unsupervised Shell contractors have replicated the same mistakes as SPDC. Rather than holding sub-contractors like Haliburton, Daewoo and Saipem accountable for their poor performance and human rights abuses, Shell has rewarded them further with lucrative contracts. The report said throughout the worst years of militancy, shell contributed to and re-enforced a culture of violence that claimed thousands of lives; that Shell’s practices are undermining the fragile ‘peace’ in the Delta; the safety and security of local community must be a top priority.

Platform said that Ogoni people have suffered from decades of severe environmental devastation and Shell has a long legacy of pollution in the region. According United Nations Environment Programme, restoring Ogoniland would require the biggest clean up operation in the world, dwarfing BP’s response to Deepwater Horizon, and could take up to three decades to complete.

Under the Nigerian law, Shell is obliged to clean up all oil spills regardless of the cause, but compensation is not available for victims where an oil spill has been caused by sabotage. In order to minimise its liabilities, Shell maintains that 90 percent of the oil spills are due to sabotage. Shell’s oil spill data is strongly contested by environmentalists and the company’s claim are not subject to independent verification. UNEP believes that sabotage-related oil theft became significant in Ogoni in 2007, as frustrated, jobless youths turned to oil theft and refining as a means of livelihood and to protest against the socio-economic neglect of the region. However, many of the oil spills are up to four decades old and pre-date this recent trend. Moreover, Shell’s aging infrastructure and lack of major investment in pipeline maintenance indicate that equipment failure is the cause of the majority of oil spills in the Delta.

While Shell is quick to blame spills on local residents, the company has been slow to take preventive measures to stop sabotage and oil theft from its facilities. Shell engineers have admitted turning a blind eye to oil bunkering “outlet” points, which in some cases are marked on company maps. The report also said that “Pipeline specialist, Dr. Richard Steiner has criticised Shell for falling below international standards by failing to incorporate more robust pipeline designs, leak detection systems and surveillance technology in Nigeria. Other analysts estimate that a relatively modest investment of $100 million could introduce the necessary surveillance and training to address oil bunkering in the Niger Delta.

Like elsewhere in Ogoni, Dere has suffered devastating oil spills that have ruined hectares of land, polluted water and destroyed livelihoods. The severe impact of Shell’s oil spills was recognised by the Federal High Court in 2010, which awarded locals in B-Dere N5.5 billion ($35 million) in damages over a Shell oil spill caused by equipment failure in May 2000. In April 2011, local residents from the neighbouring town of Bodo filed a class action lawsuit at the high Court in London after a double rupture on the Bomu-Bonny pipeline in August 2008, and a leak in February 2009, contaminated Bodo creek, a water source for 69,000 people. Experts estimate that more than 280,000 barrels may have been spilled – a quarter the size of BP’s Gulf of Mexico disaster.

Despite mounting criticism, Shell has shown little sign of improvement. In the early hours of April 2009, Bomu manifold was engulf in flames. The cause, according to a confidential report by a Shell contractor, was “rusty, damaged and (leaking) pipes. SPDC shut down Bomu for two weeks, losing approximately $135 million. Twelve months later, despite ready access to the farmland destroyed by the spill, Shell had only just completed an initial clean-up.

Shell was forced to stop oil production in Ogoni in 1993, when the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, MOSOP, led by writer and activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa, mobilised 300,000 people in a peaceful protest for environmental and social justice. Shell’s response was to encourage and assist the Nigeria military in crimes against humanity and gross human rights violations. On November 10, 1995, Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni activists were hanged by the Nigerian military government after a flawed trial that was condemned as “judicial murder.”

In 2005, 10 years after the executions, Shell returned to Ogoni to secure the 112 oil wells it had abandoned in 1993. By September 2010, Mutiu Sunmonu, managing director, Shell announced that “98 wells had been successfully secured” and praised local authorities for their efforts in securing access. Speaking to the press in the Hague, Shell spokesperson, Wim van d Wiel, promised to leave Ogoni as “nice and tidy as possible” in a gesture of corporate social responsibility.

The reality, according to Platform, has been anything but “nice and tidy.” Shell’s major oil spills, inadequate remediation and close co-operation with the Nigerian military have left a trail of social and environmental devastation in Ogoni. Shell’s routine collaboration with the JTF in Ogoni exposed communities to the risk of attacks and, for victims like Bariara Vurasi , to lethal violence. The report quoted a foreign correspondent as saying that he saw regular convoys of Shell employees escorted by ‘Scorpion Units’ of armed JTF soldiers, who were, as their title suggests, “very aggressive.”

Shell’s presence in Ogoni has exacerbated pre-existing local tensions and risked destabilising the region. To secure access to its abandoned facilities in K-Dere, Shell awarded ‘security contracts’ (sometimes called, ‘surveillance services’) to  criminal gangs, who were previously sponsored by local politicians during the April 2007 elections to commit political violence. According to a senior activist from MOSOP, Shell’s ‘security contracts’ made the gangs “rich overnight.” The gangs allegedly used their newly acquired wealth to rule K-Dere through fear. “They will just kill you,” the activist told Platform, “You dare not come near them” Shell’s activities have pushed Dere further into a climate of fear and intimidation. The resulting clashes have claimed many lives.

Kingsley Kuku, special adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan on Niger Delta Affairs, was recently quoted as saying that the future of the Niger Delta “could be worse than before.” Kuku is pessimistic about the prospects of peace in the Delta region: “any time, any day, it can crumble.”

The report said that Niger Delta is strewn with complex and multi-layered conflicts caused by a number of factors. Corruption at all levels of government has deepened social inequality and incited violent conflict. Poor oversight of the oil industry and decades of corporate exploitation have created a permissive environment for widespread dispossession and daily violations of basic human rights. The lack of accountability means those responsible for abuses have enjoyed impunity. Poverty, political violence, unemployment and proliferation of arms and ‘oil bunkering’ have triggered spiralling insecurity.

The Nigerian government’s failure to protect the human rights of its citizens is a great source of tragedy. “Although the social fabric in the Delta, which includes at least 40 distinct ethnic groups, has deeply been damaged by oil extraction, the situation is not beyond repair. Vibrant community groups exist in abundance and successes such as the Akassa Development Foundation indicate that sustainable partnerships between all stakeholders are possible and provide a model for other communities in the region. The Nigerian government and the oil companies have a basic duty to address the root causes of the crisis and avoid another decade of conflict.

Platform made recommendations that should be implemented by the Nigerian government, SPDC and other oil companies, shareholders of SPDC and governments of home states in the UK, Netherland and US. Among other things, it wants the federal government to respect the human rights of local communities, and in particular respect the rights of women in those communities; immediately implement in full the recommendations of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights made in the Ogoni case of 2002, in compliance with the African charter; take immediate steps to meet Nigeria’s obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the African Charter; show commitment to reforming Nigeria’s political system and resolving issues of revenue allocation, decentralisation, democracy, corruption and local political autonomy; undertake a comprehensive clean up of all oil contaminated sites, provide an efficient, transparent and independently monitored sites, provide an efficient, transparent and independently monitored mechanism to compensate those affected, and remediate the environment.

Platform also recommended that the House of Representatives and the Senate should repeal laws which have failed to protect the rights of local residents against infringement by the oil industry and the Nigerian authorities, including the Land Use Act of 1978, Petroleum Act 1990, the Oil Pipelines Act 1990 and other subsidiary legislation; reject any provision in the Petroleum Industry Bill that undermines the human rights and environmental protection of local communities.

Platform also wants Shell to prioritise the safety and security of all communities, in particular vulnerable groups, over access to oil infrastructure and oil extraction targets; reduce and eliminate dependence on government forces. Where this is not feasible, cease operations in those areas until conflicts are resolved. It said Shell should investigate all credible allegations of unethical conduct and corruption associated with Shell personnel, and promptly take action to terminate the appointment of those implicated, referring them to the Nigerian authorities for prosecution; ensure that all allegations of human rights abuses by security staff and contractors are properly investigated and where investigations are conducted by the Nigerian authorities, monitor the process and press for proper, transparent resolution within a reasonable time frame. It urged Shell to stop hiring private military and security companies that are known to exacerbate conflicts and to keep records of all incidents in which local residents have been killed or injured by government forces and hold the perpetrators accountable and make this information publicly available within a reasonable time frame. It recommended that shareholder investors in Royal Dutch Shell PLC should oppose the planned expansion of Shell’s operations in Nigeria and urge the company to focus on addressing its legacy of environmental and social impacts in the interests of long-term stability in Nigeria. It urged shareholders to call for executive and managerial remuneration to be tied to measurable improvements in environmental and social performance as determined by independent external criteria. It urged Shell to disclose more information on credible allegations of human rights abuse, corruption and potential future liabilities arising from its environmental and social impacts in Nigeria.

The reports wants governments of UK, Netherlands and US, to condemn the excessive use of force and widespread human rights abuses in Niger Delta; exert pressure on the Nigerian government, in public and private, to respect human rights and to pursue non-violent means of resolving the underlying causes of the crisis; end all forms of oil-related military aid and arms procurement sales to Nigeria. It urged them to demand that Shell and