Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force,
Niger Delta Vigilante groups form
2003
Violence in the Niger Delta town of Warri kills 100 people
2003
Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta
(MEND) hostage-taking makes international news
2006
National government orders oil company operators
to return to the Delta or forfeit rights to operation
2008
Niger Delta Development
Commission (NDDC) formed
2000
Shell settles $15.5 million class action lawsuit
in a US court for environmental destruction
2009
Baraale oil spill
2001
Indigenous-owned oil companies
begin off-shore production
2010
Obasanjo re-elected as president
2003
Year
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
Figure 3.2
Major Niger River Delta oil-related developments, 2000 to 2010
Niger Delta (MEND) went so far as to practice systematic hostage taking
and oil-facility sabotage against Shell and other Western corporations in
the 1990s. Figure 3.2 provides a timeline of major Delta-related events
from 2000 to early 2010. As hostage taking continued from 2006
onward, the families of the executed “Ogoni Nine” sued Shell in 2009
for its alleged complicity in the Nigerian government's actions. The
company settled the suit out of court for $15.5 million (Baldauf 2009).
The decision among the parties not to pursue further action prevented
any potential legal precedent concerning the liability of corporations
in human rights violations. In any case, Shell Oil argued it was not
complicit in the suppression or execution of Ogoni dissidents. The long
saga of petroleum extraction in Nigeria took a new turn in late 2009
and early 2010 when Nigerian-owned companies began producing oil
offshore (Salau 2009).
This hopeful new chapter, which at least potentially could allow
increased native control over local extraction practices, followed a
decade of intense levels of violence and unrest in the Delta, during which
insurgents called increasingly for some form of home rule and just com-
pensation to area residents for the environmental destruction of their
homeland. Several interdependent factors linked to governance appear
to have contributed to the continuing volatility of this situation: virtually
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