Nigeria Ogoniland oil clean-up 'could take 30 years'

Nigeria Ogoniland oil clean-up 'could take 30 years'

Nigeria's Ogoniland region could take 30 years to fully recover from the damage caused by years of oil spills, a United Nations report says.

The long-awaited study says complete restoration could entail the world's "most wide-ranging and long-term oil clean-up".

Communities faced a severe health risk, with some families drinking water with high levels of carcinogens, it said.

On Wednesday, oil giant Shell accepted liability for spills in 2008 and 2009.

The Bodo fishing community has said it will seek hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation.

Nigeria is one of the world's major oil producers.

'900 times recommended levels'
The assessment of Ogoniland, which lies in the Niger delta, said 50 years of oil operations in the region had "penetrated further and deeper than many had supposed".

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Analysis

Peter Okwoche
BBC News
During a visit to a village in Ogoniland in 2007, I went to a small stream that gave people water for all their daily needs. The effects of oil spillage were clear. On the surface of the water there was a thin film of oil. Villages moved it with their hands before scooping water.

Villagers told me no fish had been seen in the stream for more than five years. They told me people had been killed by oil pipes exploding and others had developed health problems after inhaling fumes from burning oil well heads.

When I visited the village again in 2011, oil spillage had worsened. Villagers no longer drank water from the stream. They walked for up to four hours to get water.

Over the past two decades, successive Nigerian governments have failed the people of Ogoniland. I doubt this report will change anything. In the meantime, the voices of secession in Ogoniland will grow louder.

"In at least 10 Ogoni communities where drinking water is contaminated with high levels of hydrocarbons, public health is seriously threatened," the UN Environmental Programme (Unep) said in a statement.

Some areas which appeared unaffected were actually "severely contaminated" underground, Unep said.

In one community, the report says, families were drinking from wells which were contaminated with benzene, a known carcinogen, at 900 times recommended levels.

It said scientists at the site, which lay close to a Nigerian National Petroleum Company pipeline, found oil slicks eight centimetres thick floating on the water.

This was reportedly due to an oil spill more than six years ago, it said.

The report, based on examinations of some 200 locations over 14 months, said Shell had created public health and safety issues by failing to apply its own procedures in the control and maintenance of oilfield infrastructure.

But it also said local people were sabotaging pipelines in order to steal oil.

The report says that restoring the region could cost $1bn (£613bn) and take 25-30 years to complete.

"The environmental restoration of Ogoniland could prove to be the world's most wide-ranging and long term oil clean-up exercise ever undertaken if contaminated drinking water, land, creeks and important ecosystems such as mangroves are to be brought back to full, productive health," Unep said.

'Not attributing blame'
The report, which is regarded as the most detailed study on any area in the oil-rich Niger Delta, was in part paid for by Shell after a request by the Nigerian government.

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Oil in Ogoniland: Troubled History


1958: Oil struck in Ogoniland
1990: Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (Mosop) formed, led by Ken Saro-Wiwa
1993: 300,000 Ogonis protest at neglect by government and Shell
1993: Shell pulls out of Ogoniland after employee is beaten
1994: Four community leaders killed by mob of youths. Mosop leaders, including Ken Saro-Wiwa, arrested
1995: Mr Saro-Wiwa and eight others tried and executed; widespread condemnation of government
2003-2008: International attention switches to armed conflict started by other communities in Niger Delta
2011: Shell accepts liability for two Ogoniland spills
Amnesty International, which has campaigned on the issue, said the report proved Shell was responsible for the pollution.

"This report proves Shell has had a terrible impact in Nigeria, but has got away with denying it for decades, falsely claiming they work to best international standards," said Audrey Gaughran, Amnesty's global issues director, said.

But earlier, Unep spokesman Nick Nuttal told the BBC's Network Africa that the study was not intended to "blame any particular stakeholder operating in Ogoniland".

"What we are indeed really seriously hoping is that this might actually close the chapter in what has often been a sad, tense and sometimes violent story, going back several decades.

"We are hoping that this might build some sense of co-operation between all the various players in this part of the world."

He also stressed that Shell's admission of liability for two spills had nothing to do with the Unep report.

Shell said on Wednesday that it took responsibility for the spills, which took place in 2008 and 2009, and would settle the case under Nigerian law. The Bodo fishing community had alleged that the leaks had ruined their environment and livelihoods.

Ogoni communities have long complained about the damage to their communities, but they say they have mostly been ignored.

The issue was highlighted by the writer Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was executed in 1995 by Nigeria's military government, sparking international condemnation.

The campaign forced Shell to stop pumping oil out of Ogoniland but it continues to operate pipelines in the region and spillages have continued.

From the BBC