CSOs Demand Compensation From Oil Companies For Host Communities Over Pollution

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By; PETER NOSAKHARE, Kaduna

More han 80 civil society organisations (CSOs), and seven leading environmental activists have called on the Federal Government and all governments supporting oil and gas extraction in the Niger Delta to offer noteworthy financing for loss and damages to the people of Niger Delta and host communities.

The CSOs are demanding that investors in fossil fuels should stop lending moral and financial support to companies expanding oil and gas production in defiance of the Paris Agreement.

Executive Director, Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ), David Ugolor, is leading the organisations, which include Publish What You Pay (PWYP), Nigeria Campaign, PWYP International, 350.org, BiPoC Climate Justice Network, Germany, Ogoni Solidarity Forum-Nigeria, Electra Energy Cooperative, Greece, Extinction Rebellion, Germany and Extinction Rebellion, Indonesia, among other.

“We are calling on investors funding Shell and other multi-national oil companies to agree to take part in a fact-finding mission early in 2023 in collaboration with civil society actors, to witness the true impact on communities of oil company operations in the Niger Delta.

“We want investors to stop promoting flawed ‘nature-based solutions’ for ‘offsetting’ carbon emissions, any of which amount to new carbon colonialism.

“Oil companies and their investors should pay communities for the clean-up of land degraded by oil and gas extraction and oil companies must make loss and damage payments to host oil and gas communities.

“Shell and other multinational oil companies have polluted the Niger Delta region and other areas where they extract fossil fuel, leaving the people of the region with little more than sorrow, tears, and blood.

“Around the world, there is clear evidence of irreversible damage to the planet, losing homelands and the people’s livelihood sources, cultures, ecosystems, and more,” he concluded.

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