Reuters) – Hundreds of villagers in the Ogoni area of Nigeria’s oil producing Niger Delta staged a protest against Shell on Monday after a rights group accused the firm of trying to resume operations without local consent.
Royal Dutch Shell abandoned its oilfields in Ogoniland 15 years ago because of popular protests over pollution and a lack of development, but the area is still criss-crossed by pipelines.
Local rights group the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), whose former leader Ken Saro-Wiwa was hanged by the then-military government in 1995, has accused the firm of trying to resume production without Ogoni agreement.
Demonstrators with placards bearing slogans such as “No to bloody oil business” and “Shell leave our lands” marched peacefully to a pipeline hub near the village of K-Dere and later dispersed without incident, witnesses said.
Protesters in the area attacked the pipeline — which feeds Shell’s Bonny export terminal — twice in May last year, forcing the company to halt up to 170,000 barrels per day.
Shell’s Nigerian arm SPDC said it had not returned to Ogoniland to resume oil or gas production but rather to secure wells which had been dormant since it left the area in 1993.
“The permission for SPDC to commence the programme of securing wells in Ogoniland was given in the aftermath of a pipeline fire at K-Dere in early April 2006,” the company said in a statement.
“SPDC wishes to emphasise that the exercise to secure manifolds, wellheads and damaged pipelines is in the interest of safety of people and the environment, and does not in any way amount to a resumption of oil production in Ogoniland.”
Ever since Saro-Wiwa’s execution, which reflected badly on Shell in the eyes of many environmental and human rights activists around the world, the company has been trying to mend ties with MOSOP and with the broader Ogoni community.
But a government-sponsored peace process has failed to quell protests and discontent in the area.
“The moves that SPDC has made in the last couple of days are incontrovertible steps in resuming oil production,” MOSOP spokesman Bari-ara Kpalap said in a statement last week.
“Shell has for three years stated it is not interested in resuming oil operations without the consent of the Ogoni people. Yet today, despite a failing peace process we are seeing specific steps being taken by force to resume oil operations.”
Such disputes between communities and oil companies are common in the impoverished Niger Delta. MOSOP said the attacks last May were staged by local youths angry with Shell over what they said were unfulfilled promises of jobs and benefits.