[size=14pt]Ogoni: Blame Shell? No! Irresponsible governments [/size]
Monday, 08 August 2011 00:00 Phillip Isakpa

The chicken came home to roost last Thursday on the doorsteps of the Nigerian state. If you were ever in any need of evidence about how Nigerian governments, both military and democratic, have betrayed the Nigerian people over the years (and they are still betraying the Nigerian people, by the way), it all came out that very day.

The outcome of a 14-month study by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) of the oil rich Ogoniland, the land of the late writer and environmental campaigner, Ken Saro Wiwa, provided clear evidence of how the Nigerian State for over 50 years let its citizens in Ogoniland down by looking the other way, lining the pockets of its officials, while allowing the international oil company, Shell, to behave without any respect for environmental corporate governance, the people of the land and Nigeria and Nigerians in general.

What were the outcomes of the study? Well, it turned out that for over 50 years, the oil company, which ordinarily should be a tenant and be made to observe clearly stated, laid down principles of ethical and environmental behaviours, got away with murder, recklessly polluting the land through oil spills that were not attended to because, as usual, the cost would have eaten into profits; but more importantly, because the government policemen and women, who should have done something about this behavior, chose to let the citizens down!

[b]The study’s outcomes are bound to raise a lot of questions. In many countries where politicians care and work for their citizens, there would have been an uproar at the national and state houses of assemblies by now. Last Friday, when I began putting this piece together, it was only the picture of President Goodluck Jonathan in the papers smiling, while receiving the report of such an indicting study that confronted me.

Our distinguished and honourable members of the National Assembly, currently luxuriating on holiday, will never consider this a weighty matter to reconvene in an emergency session to deliberate upon. The ranking senators and representatives, including those who are supposed to be representing the Niger Delta region where the devastation has occurred, are not issuing statements from their constituency offices or from their holiday resorts! They are probably in the Caribbean, in the United States and around Europe showing off why they are called the most expensive National Assembly in the world![/b]

If there is ever going to be uproar, it would be an from those who see this as an opportunity to nail the international oil companies (IOCs). That group will comprise civil society and government officials. The latter, of course, would see ‘business’ in this and therefore use it as an opportunity to harass the IOCs into paying up and further lining their pockets. The other group, civil society, who may be seeking to nail IOCs, would do well to hold fire, because while IOCs such as Shell, Chevron, Mobil, Agip and their other co-drivers who are guilty know the word, in the pollution and the degradation of human life in their various areas of operation, the primary responsibility for this guilt is the Nigerian state and its various apparatuses of governance which have failed and continue to fail the Nigerian people in this matter.

[size=14pt]A fundamental question to ask is how did Shell, a company which would be very afraid to carry on business in Europe or America in the same way it does in Nigeria, go on for over 50 years degrading the Nigerian environment through both accidental and deliberate spillage, and consequently causing possible deaths of Nigerians, without being called to question? Whose responsibility, indeed, is it to call the company to question? As a business and a company involved in the business of oil exploration, the board of the company looks at the bottom line, with a responsibility to shareholders who want to see profits made from wherever the company operates. It is bound, where the law exists, to follow laid down principles set out for it to operate in the countries where it has operations. And it is bound by the rules of corporate governance, which will require it to ensure health and safety, to carry out strict environmental impact assessments, and be guided by a strong moral obligation to the people in the areas it operates.[/size]

For IOCs, it is very easy to follow these principles when they land in Europe and America to do business. The reason is that the standards set in those places are high. They are not only high, but are followed to the letters of the law and penalty for infringement is severe. British Petroleum (BP) is still smarting from the massive punishments from its oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in the United States. The United States Congress got involved, the White House got involved, and the American people got involved.

Congress and the White House got involved not for their own sakes alone as politicians, but on behalf of the American people, especially those whose lives and businesses had been severely damaged by the action of the oil company. There were no chiefs, no politicians and no presidency officials going behind closed doors to hold meetings and submit foreign accounts for backhand payments to be made. And that is exactly the crux of the matter. Who should pay? And what should the nature of the payment be?

This is a matter of national interest requiring a national debate. It immediately calls for a national judicial commission of inquiry, one that helps us come to terms with how we came to this. We are talking about an environmental disaster to which the state has closed its eyes for more than 50 years. How and why did this happen? Who are those who turned their backs on Nigerian citizens while a company such as Shell looked after only its interest and that of its shareholders while operating in Ogoniland (and other places in the Niger Delta)? Are we going to allow this to pass like we have always done and not ask the hard questions of government officials, present and past, about what had driven their actions?

Should nobody in government, now and in the past, be answerable for this? If those who should take this up further: the National and State Houses of Assembly, the governors of states concerned, the Presidency led by the man who had no shoes as a boy, who saw all the devastations on the environment-fail to take this further, should we not find them complicit in this matter?

In the European Union (EU), there are minimum standards for everything produced in the member countries. There are also minimum standards of behaviour by corporate organisations. When goods are imported they must meet minimum acceptable standards before they can go into those countries. Those standards are set by government officials who work to protect their citizens and they work hard not to compromise them, not even when Shell is involved, not when Microsoft and Bill Gates are involved, not anybody, not any company. Politicians and government officials answer to the people when there is any sign of a compromise. The difference between them and us is that politicians compromise, look away and let their people down!

http://www.businessdayonline.com/NG/index.php/analysis/columnists/25657-ogoni-blame-shell-no-irresponsible-governments

It is encouraging that GEJ has asked the UN to extend its study to cover the rest of the Niger Delta.
Hopefully, many like me who turned on taps as kids, only for a vile smelling liquid to issue out, would see some justice. Yes, we had to bath in tap water that had oil slicks, cook and drink the awful thing; just to line the pockets of some thieving fool of a Head of State in Dodan Barracks, Lagos.

^fuking rediculous, it makes me so mad to hear stuff like that. & all the money was wasted

Both are to be blamed. Shikena.

Demdem:

Both are to be blamed. Shikena.

Yes, but past govts sold out on the Nigerians people and allowed Shell run amock with Nigerian lives for profit. Do you know our army actually used to be conveyed to their killing fields in Shell helicopters? Or that sometimes Shell helicopters were used as platforms to shoot at the people? Shell also ordered the killing of Saro Wiwa (they have payed compensation in an out of court settlement).
No country treats its people in that manner, like cockroaches, even worse than commodities. IMHO, all past leaders and petroleum ministers need to be lined up and shot.