FOREX WORLD TREND

An international human rights agency, Amnesty International, has released a 141-page report condemning the activities of oil companies in Nigeria's Delta region.

According to the report released on Tuesday, June 30; "the oil industry in the Niger Delta of Nigeria has brought impoverishment, conflict, human rights abuses and despair to the majority of the people in the oil-producing area.

"Pollution and environmental damage caused by the oil industry have resulted in violations of the rights to health and a healthy environment, the right to an adequate standard of living (including the right to food and water) and the right to gain a living through work for hundreds of thousands of people."

The report, Petroleum, Pollution and Poverty in the Niger Delta, also highlighted how the Nigerian government is failing to hold oil companies to account for the pollution they have caused.

"Oil companies have been exploiting Nigeria's weak regulatory system for too long.

"They do not adequately prevent environmental damage and they frequently fail to properly address the devastating impact that their bad practice has on people's lives."

The report also stated that the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) describes the region as suffering from "administrative neglect, crumbling social infrastructure and services, high unemployment, social deprivation, abject poverty, filth and squalor, and endemic conflict."

This poverty, and its contrast with the wealth generated by oil, has become one of the world's starkest and most disturbing examples of the "resource curse".

"Oil has generated an estimated US$600 billion since the 1960s. Despite this, many people in the oil-producing areas have to drink, cook with and wash in polluted water, and eat fish contaminated with oil and other toxins.

"More than 60 per cent of people in the region depend on the natural environment for their livelihood. Yet, pollution by the oil industry is destroying the vital resource on which they depend."


Impact of the pollution

The report stated that oil pollution kills fish, food sources and fish larvae, and damages the ability of fish to reproduce; causing both immediate damage and long-term harm to fish stocks and the oil pollution also damages fishing equipment. Oil spills and waste dumping have also seriously damaged agricultural land. And long-term effects include; damage to soil fertility and agricultural productivity, which in some cases can last for decades.

"In numerous cases, these long-term effects have undermined a family's only source of livelihood. The destruction of livelihoods and the lack of accountability and redress have led people to steal oil and vandalize oil infrastructure in an attempt to gain compensation or clean-up contracts."

Armed militant groups are increasingly demanding greater control of resources in the region, and engage in large-scale theft of oil and kidnapping for ransom of oil workers.

Reacting to the recent military onslaught in the region, the report stated that "government reprisals against militancy and violence frequently involve excessive force, and communities are subjected to violence and collective punishment, deepening anger and resentment."

On the major oil companies operating in the Niger delta, the report particularly pointed out Shell and condemned its activities. The report stated that "the oil industry in the Niger Delta involves both the government of Nigeria and subsidiaries of multinational companies."

Going by the reports and investigations by Amnesty international, Shell Petroleum Development Company, the main operator offshore is the major culprit in regions where oil spills, waste dumping, and gas flaring are notorious and endemic.

"The scale of pollution and environmental damage has never been properly assessed. The figures that exist vary depending on sources, but hundreds of spills occur each year," stated the report.

The report also quoted a UNDP report that more than 6,800 spills were recorded between 1976 and 2001 and also, according to the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency, some 2,000 sites require treatment because of oil-related pollution. "The real total may be higher," added the report.

Condemning the regulatory system in the region, the reports states that Nigeria has laws and regulations that require companies to comply with internationally recognized standards of "good oil field practice", and laws and regulations to protect the environment but these laws and regulations are poorly enforced.

The government agencies responsible for enforcement are ineffective and, in some cases, compromised by conflicts of interest.

"The people of the Niger Delta have seen their human rights undermined by oil companies that their government cannot - or will not - hold to account.

"They have been systematically denied access to information about how oil exploration and production will affect them, and they are repeatedly denied access to justice."

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