Amnesty rebuffs shell’s claim on Niger Delta clean up

Amnesty International in collaboration with Centre for Environment, Human Rights and Development (CEHRD) through a report have rebuffed claims made by Shell oil company that it has cleaned up the heavily polluted areas in the Niger Delta region.
The group in a report released yesterday in Abuja documented the failure of the Nigeria government to regulate the oil industry, alleging that the government watch dog, the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) has continued to certify areas that are visibly polluted with crude oil as clean.
Mr Mart Dummett, Business and Human Rights researcher at Amnesty International, said at the launch of the report that: “By inadequately cleaning the pollution from its pipelines and wells, shell is leaving thousands of women, men and children exposed to contaminated land, water and air, in some cases for years or even decades.”
Mart stated that oil spills have a devastating impact on the fields, forests and fisheries that the people rely on for their food and livelihood, adding that, “anyone who visits these spill sites can see and smell for themselves how the pollution has spread across the country.”
Also speaking, Nigeria Amnesty International Country Director, Mohamed K. Ibrahim called on the federal government to look into the matter. “Our report has shown that NOSDRA issued certification that certain sites had been cleaned up, but our researchers went and discovered that nothing had been done in those places. Not just one or two places, there are places that the spill had been there for the past 40years and we discovered that in our findings.”
Mr Okoro Onyekachi Emmanuel, Environmental Rights Campaigner, Centre for Environment, Human Rights and Development lamented that most of fishing ponds and lakes in the Niger Delta are contaminated as a result of the lack of proper cleanup.