Ogoni people in Rivers State might be taking actions against the oil giant, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) over some pipeline, belonging to the company, that have devastated communities in the area.
President of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), Ledum Mitee, who spoke with Sunday Tribune via the telephone on Saturday said his people might consider taking some actions.
Meanwhile, the SPDC has declared a force majeure on Bonny Light lifting for the months of May and June as a result of the pipeline incident affecting its Trans-Niger Delta pipeline, which led to the fire outbreak that wreaked havoc on Ogoni some communities.
Mitee told Sunday Tribune that preliminary reports on the fire outbreak indicated that the oil company had failed to do enough in containing the situation, resulting in major damages to the people’s livelihood.
He accused the com-pany of employing discri-minatory policies against host communities in Nigeria, recalling that when a similar situation occurred recently in the United States of America, there were prompt response and containment efforts.
“They are about bringing a report; as it is, I am currently in Abuja and I told them to do a report and send it to me by email. We think that the pollution should be promptly and timely contained. We have all seen what happened in the US recently. When it happened, regardless of its cost, the first consideration should be the containment and I am afraid that from what I heard, the preliminary report is that it has affected a large area of farmland and very little has been done to contain it.
“These are some of the things we have consistently complained about and in which we have asserted some form of environmental reasons because the oil companies are international organisations that operate both here and in the US. The spills are almost the same, so the way they contained it, there is a way we insist it should be contained here regardless of the cost”, he said.
On allegation that the spill and fire might have been caused by suspected oil thieves, Mitee said though it was not unlikely, he would not comment on a matter in which he had no proof, adding that oil thieves and pipeline vandals had always acted with the assistance of other bene-ficiaries of such situations from within and outside the oil company.
“Well, I am not in a position to ascertain what has happened. As you know, the question of vandalisation of oil pipelines is a crime punishable with death under our laws and it is therefore very difficult, especially for me as a lawyer to take on such assertions when I don’t have any proof.
“Be that as it may, we have never said that there are no oil thieves and bunkerers in the area, but when all these happen, who are the beneficiaries? Our experience shows that those who will get the contract to do a so-called clean up as well as remediation, also have links with those who vandalise the pipelines”, he said.
When asked whether MOSOP would likely take actions against SPDC for the damages done, he said “it is something that is not ruled out, but we clearly would do that on the prompting from the working in conjunction with those directly affected. This is again a challenge to the so called United Nations Environmental Programme on the roles they are playing here”.