Human Ecosystems: Okoroba-Nembe
land and of its fresh-water supply. To be fair to Shell, the company did supply water pipes to connect a government borehole to standpipes. However, as it usual in such cases, the water pipes were supplied by an unqualified contractor, they were substandard and within a year they had corroded to uselessness.
To add to the woes of the Okoroba people the Agip pipeline running from Brass through swamp-forest west of the village broke in 1995. Crude oil was allowed to spew out for nine months creating severe ecological damage until pressure from human rights and environmental groups forced the Italian oil company to face its responsibilities and repair the damage.
Anyway, to get back to the problem of the slot: by the beginning of 1996 Okoroba farmers had made the best out of a bad job by digging drainage channels through the slot spoil, this enabling the flooded farm-land behind to be used again. Also crops were planted on top of it of the spoil. The crops included tree-crops such as coconuts, oil palms and plantains, raffia-palms, guava trees and a local timber species known as Abura, in addition to pineapples and cassava. Then Shell's contractor, Willbros (the company alleged to be implicated in the murder of a farmer at Biara in 1993) arrived in May 1996 (barge UB68) to dredge the slot. In the process, Willbros blocked up the new drainage channels which the farmers had dug, and destroyed a number of the new farms.
When local farmers complained, the Willbros contractors referred back to Shell in Port Harcourt who sent out their claims agents, Global Inspectors Ltd (Plot 144, Trans Amadi Industrial Layout, Port Harcourt). The agents told the farmers that Shell did not have to pay any compensation because compensation had already been paid, and (apparently) Shell owned the land. Nonetheless the agents were able to pay some compensation but the amounts paid, according to ERA records of signed documents seen in the village, were infinitesimal. For instance one woman farmer received K1200 (US$15) for a hundred plantains. Another farmer received N25 (US$0.50) for five young hybrid oil palms, which would not even cover the cost of buying new seedlings. Using valuation techniques approved by the British Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors a single three year old hybrid coconut palm cannot be worth less than about N1500 in 1996, and yet Okoroba farmers were offered only N12.
To add insult to injury and to express their contempt for the people of Okoroba, Shell asked five of the Chiefs to visit the Shell office in Port Harcourt in early May. The chiefs were asked to be in Port Harcourt on a Friday, but when they arrived they were told that the meeting had been postponed to Monday, and in fact the meeting did not take place until late on the Tuesday. In other words the Chiefs had to hang around Port Harcourt over the weekend because it was impossible to travel back to Okoroba and to return to Port Harcourt by Monday. At the meeting the Chiefs were merely berated for making their complaints about Shell public and when they asked for expenses for their travel and time in Port Harcourt were told that they would have to make a formal application. One wonders if the Managing Director of Shell in Nigeria faces the same type of problems on his many trips to London.
A Shell statment on Okoroba dredging
There is no doubt that Shell is sensitive about Okoroba having issued a document titled Okoroba Dredging. The entire document is quoted here.
- Original dredging was performed in 1990 in order to enable rig access for the drilling of well, Okoroba-1
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