The Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) has told the Shell Petroleum Exploration company to quit “sloganeering” and clean up Ogoni land as recommended in the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) report.
The group said it disturbed by remarks credited to the new Chief Executive Officer of Shell, Ben Van Beurden, quoted as saying Shell would was set to implement the UNEP assessment of Ogoni land.
It said the company should just go ahead and commence cleaning rather than “sloganeering.” Van Beurden, on a visit to Nigeria, was reported to have disclosed that he would toe a different approach to responding to community demands compared to predecessors.
He said this would be in his response to the criticisms the company received at its Annual General Meeting (AGM) in The Hague late last month for failing to clean up spills in Ogoni land three years after the UNEP recommendation were made.
But in a statement, ERA/FoEN said that Shell’s pledge to clean up the Ogoni environment was part of the company’s charade to buy time while actually doing nothing.
ERA/ FoEN Executive Director, Goodwin Ojo said the remarks by the new helmsman was nothing new.
“The sweet remarks of Shell’s CEO is nothing new. It is the usual rhetoric of systematic delay, feigning compliance while doing nothing to undo the environmental terrorism and ecocide it has wrought in Ogoni land.
“Unless there is hard evidence, Shell cannot be trusted by mere promises. We doubt that Shell will now put on a new garb hence challenge the company to show more transparency and accountability by disclosing the funds it claimed it has set aside for the implementation of the UNEP recommendations.
“Fifty years of baskets of unfulfilled promises makes us circumspect. We suspect that this is another basket full of lies given that the UNEP report was released three years ago and virtually no commitment has been made during this period. All that Shell has done is kicking and screaming against the report,” he said.
He further noted that the “unholy romance” between some top government officials and Shell officials was responsible for the lack lustre approach of the government to compel the company to embarking on clean ups and remediation of the environment.
He also described as a charade the government setting up of the Hydrocarbon Pollution Restoration Project (HYPREP), further labelling it a ploy to not implement the report.
“ERA/FoEN demands an end to this grand deception which has pushed the Ogoni people to the fringes of existence. Shell must promptly comply with the UNEP recommendations. Mere talk is unacceptable.”
Source: BluePrint