Court finds Shell Nigeria guilty
A Dutch court has rejected a bid by Nigerian farmers to hold
Shell’s parent company responsible for oil damage to their villages, saying
that only the Anglo-Dutch oil giant’s Nigerian subsidiary was partly
responsible.
On Jan. 29, the court dismissed four out of five allegations
against the company but ordered it to pay compensation to one Nigerian farmer.
The landmark case against the Anglo-Dutch firm was brought
by four Nigerian farmers, a fisherman and Friends of the Earth.
The level of damages in the case will be established at a
later hearing.
The case is linked to spills in Goi, Ogoniland and Oruma in
Bayelsa State and a third in Ikot Ada Udo, Akwa Ibom State. The farmers had
alleged that oil spills had poisoned their fish ponds and farmland from leaking
pipelines.
The judge said Shell Nigeria should have done more to
prevent sabotage. The Delta’s clean water and fertile farmland used to produce
an abundance of food and a good living for residents. Since oil has poisoned the
land and water, people look in vain for jobs with the oil companies and, now
impoverished, sometimes siphon oil from the ubiquitous above-ground pipelines.
The only victorious plaintiff, Friday Akpan, told AFP by
telephone from Port Harcourt in the Niger Delta: “I am happy about the ruling …
The pollution damaged my farmland, so their saying that I won in the case is
not a surprise because it is true.”
Akpan, a fish farmer with 12 children, said oil pollution
caused his fish to die and that people were scared away by the “smell of dead
fish.”
Both sides claimed victory in a case that pressure groups
had hoped would set a precedent for global corporate responsibility.
