Environmental Rights Action, Friends of the Earth Nigeria, ERA/FoEN, has declared that the international oil companies, IOCs, selling off their assets were not actually divesting, but only moving offshore to shield their activities from Nigerians.

Furthermore, the rights group added, even as the IOCs move offshore, they must leave the environment the way they met it.

Chima Williams, the Executive Director of ERA/FoEN, made these points at a meeting on “Time for a Legislative Pathway on IOC Divestment in the Niger Delta”.

He made the clarification while responding to a question on why ERA/FoEN is particularly against the IOCs divestment exercise, as some will say it is better that the oil companies leave since there is nothing in terms of development in the communities to show for over five decades of oil extraction.

According to Chima, “Divestment simply means selling off property to run away. But leaving is not the solution.

“If the IOCs can say ‘What have we done wrong? What can we do before leaving?’ then we are good. With the problems they have created, they cannot just leave.

“They have destroyed the environment, set brothers against each other, shortchanged the governments, and many other negative things.

“So we investigated this divestment and discovered that these IOCs are not leaving Nigeria. They are just moving offshore to shield their activities from Nigerians.”

Asked about the situation on the ground, the ERA ED spoke, among others, on the effect of gas flaring.

He said: “In areas, it is perpetual daylight. The people are denied their right to darkness at night. Under the ambience of darkness, people think, medicines work and the body rests.

“Also, their eyes are always red with constant exposure to CO2 and when the flaring is horizontal, nothing grows for metres around the flare.

“Painfully, people in the Niger Delta wade through oil spills to go in search of daily bread.”

Therefore, Chima Williams said, these atrocities must be addressed before any IOC leaves its area of operation for offshore facilities.

He noted that the Nigerian firms buying the IOCs’ assets cannot address the problems divestment is leaving behind.

… also in the North

Also speaking at the meeting was Tijanii Abdulkareem, the Executive Director of the Socio-Economic Research and Development Centre.

He buttressed the point that whether crude oil in Bauchi, Lagos or Anambra, the negatives in Nigeria far outweigh the positives.

Asked if he anticipates the kinds of conflicts happening in the Niger Delta in the North, he said they were already asking if crude oil was not a curse.

He said Bauchi and Gombe border communities were already having issues.

“So, before the environmental impact, the social impact is already manifesting,” he added.

Also, Abdulkareem wondered why local firms think they are immune from the liabilities of divesting IOCs.

Vanguard News