On Tuesday, May 19, the Environmental Defenders Network (EDEN) joined the people of Bodo in Rivers State to embark on a protest against the destruction caused by the operations of Shell in their community. 

The protest was intended to draw the attention of the global shareholders of Shell to the effects of the legacy oil spills on the environment and people of Bodo. Shell held its Annual General Meeting AGM in London yesterday to enable shareholders to review its operations and set an agenda for the future.

Unfortunately as the oil giant meets to discuss profits and it’s future,it’s operations have impoverished the people of Bodo and portends grave danger to the future of the community.

Shell commenced operations in Bodo over sixty years ago, mining crude oil in millions of barrels and taking home millions of dollars in profit from the sale of crude oil from Bodo oil wells. Profits made from Shells operations in Bodo have been used to improve the standard of living for people of Britain, the Netherlands and other European countries where it’s shareholders live. 

For the Bodo environment and its people what they have got is the destruction of their environment and sources of livelihood. This has occasioned grinding poverty and a dislocation of their social structures. Environmental degradation have in turn caused widespread diseases and death.

Around 2012 the findings of a study into the impact of the operations of Shell commissioned by the United Nations Environment Program UNEP was published. That document is known today as the UNEP report on Ogoniland. It established verified relationships between the operations of Shell and environmental degradation, as well as health hazards and socio economic disruptions. It made far reaching recommendations for the cleaning the land, waters and air in order to make life a bit more bearable for the Ogoni people. 

One alarming disclosure of that report was the discovery of the presence of benzene in the underground water in parts of Ogoniland nine hundred times above WHO standards. Emergency distribution of portable water was recommended throughout Ogoniland.

 This was to be followed with a comprehensive health audit of the people. On the other hand two major oil spills from ruptured pipelines operated by Shell destroyed the mangrove forests and the entire ecosystem of the Bodo creek in 2008. Shell was taken to court but they settled out of court agreeing to clean up the mess ,pay compensation,and restore the environment. This has been shabbily implemented given rise to fresh litigation.

It is against the backdrop of the foregoing that the people of Bodo embarked on a protest on the day of Shell s AGM. 

According to Sebastian Kpalap, EDEN head of Port Harcourt office, It is the informed position of EDEN Shell havs failed to clean up the spills in Bodo. It is also evident that there is a high death rate in Bodo which could be linked to the destruction wrought on the environment by the operations of Shell. We therefore stand in solidarity with the people of Bodo to demand for a thorough cleanup of the environment and the urgent commissioning of a comprehensive health audit of the people. 

EDEN Executive Director, Chima Williams said that “The fact that an emergency measure like provision of portable water has taken more than a decade to deliver speaks volumes of the failure of Shell to take responsibility for the harm it has done to the people.