Mkpoikana Udoma
Port Harcourt — Civil society organisations in the Niger Delta have rejected claims by Norges Bank, which in a report blamed oil spills in the region largely on theft and sabotage, saying the report does not reflect the true situation on ground.
The CSOs have also advocated the expunging of Section 257 of the Petroleum Industry Act, PIA, which places the responsibility to protect oil facilities on host communities, instead of the operators and the government.
These were the resolutions reached by the CSOs at a meeting to reflect on Ken Saro Wiwa’s struggles for environmental justice in the Niger Delta, convened by the Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice, ANEEJ, in Port-Harcourt, Rivers State.
The nine-point resolutions contained in a communique issued at the end of the meeting, charged the Federal government to disapprove the planned onshore divestment of Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC, until environmental concerns and livelihood loss created in the Niger Delta are tackled.
The communique, signed by the Programme Manager, ANEEJ, Innocent Edemhanria, and representatives of the various CSOs at the meeting, resolved to launch a campaign for the government and oil companies to commence environmental audit and cleanup of all polluted sites in the Niger Delta.
Edemhanria decried the weak regulatory framework in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector, where regulators depend on the facilities and data from oil and gas operators, to do their job.
The resolution read: “Rejected the position by the Norges Bank Investment Management in its responsible investment report where it blamed oil spills in the Niger Delta largely on theft and sabotage.
“Strongly advocated the expunging of Section 257 of the Petroleum Industry Act that wrongly places the responsibility to protect oil facilities on host communities instead of the operators and the government and called for a review of this and other obnoxious sections of the Act.
“Commended the Dutch healthcare pension fund, PFZW for selling almost all its holdings in fossil fuel companies, including in oil majors Shell, BP and TotalEnergies for lack of a credible climate strategy, and encouraged other investors to follow the example of the pension fund.”
The CSOs also urged the National Assembly to hold a public hearing to discuss the planned divestment by Shell and oil other companies from onshore in the Niger Delta.
They called on political actors in the Niger Delta to play a key role in the global climate change discourse such as the COP processes, and urged researchers to do further investigations and research into the ecosystem and public health challenges in the region.
“We called on the Nigerian government to disapprove the divestment plan and sale of its onshore facility by Shell until community concerns are addressed and the company addresses the environmental challenges and livelihood loss it created in the Niger Delta.
“We enjoined the federal government and the regulators to adopt a national framework on responsible divestment that will guide oil companies’ divestment to align it with environmental restoration and climate mitigation.
“We call on the Nigerian government to monster the political will to adequately fund the regulatory agencies in the oil and gas sector to increase the effectiveness and independence of such agencies,” the communique further read.
