Human Ecosystems: Botam-Tai District
17.10 ADDENDUM: SHELL IN OGONI
This book is supposed to be a technical guide to the human ecology of the Niger Delta and the current pressing human ecological issues which the local people, politicians and commercial interests have to face. It is not an emotional or political diatribe but an objective presentation of the facts. However it is utterly impossible for anyone to visit Ogoni without becoming painfully aware of the tragedy which has visited the land as a result of the arrogant and ignorant activities of the oil industry in the land.
In its 1994 report on a visit to Ogoni ERA wrote: the frustration (of the local people) expressed itself in a mass movement called the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People - MOSOP. MOSOP and its charismatic leader, Ken Saro-Wiwa, is seen as the prime focus of hope in many people's lives and the one positive thing in a modern society that is careless of them: the people whom we met were proud to belong to the movement and the MOSOP Ogoni anthem was often sung. But despite their many problems and partly due to the influence of MOSOP we were convinced that Botem-Tai and Ogoni society is well disciplined and self organised.
Since then many dramatic events have taken place in Ogoni which will be well known to the readers of this book. It is not the place of the book to judge these events which will be better judged in the light of historical perspective. However we have no doubt that the people of Ogoni have suffered a significant injustice as a result of the exploitation of oil in their land. Worse still, the Ogoni case is typical of the poor treatment that local people throughout the Lowland Equatorial Monsoon ecozone of the Niger Delta have suffered because of the carelessness and inhumanity of the oil industry.
On the 8th of May Shell International issued a press release describing a plan for action for a return to Ogoni. As is usual with Shell, the statements made in the release bore no relation to the reality in the field. The Press Release, like many others before and since, emanated from the Shell wallpaper factory in Waterloo Road, London. The factory serves the company's inward looking philosophy nicely. A philosophy which papers over the social, economic and environmental problems which face the people of Ogoni and of the whole Niger Delta. Problems which have been caused by a Nigerian oil industry dominated by Shell.
As a final word, we quote in full an unsigned article which appeared in England in November 1996, which the reader may like to read in order to gauge how some parts of the international community views the Ogoni issue.
Shell is a wealthy and internationally influential transnational company which is, by its very nature, more powerful than some governments because it is richer. Thus, the company is bound to accept that it has a moral duty to understand, to sympathise with and to support the people amongst whom it operates, who are, whether Shell likes it or not, its hosts. The interests of what Shell staff tend to call "These People" are paramount, especially in a world where oil extraction is more likely, rather than less, to inconvenience (to say the least) local people. This is not a moral platitude but a political fact, and if Shell cannot realise that it must face its problems with more imagination than with public relations wallpaper then the company will continue to face problems.
Moreover, if Shell ever wants to be able to be taken seriously by the people of Ogoni and by the other peoples of the Niger Delta it must face up to its past record in the region. The cupboards must be opened and the skeletons exposed207
