Abstract
Abstract
In April 2010, global citizens were engrossed with media headlines about the British Petroleum (BP) Deep Horizon oil spill (hereinafter BP spill) that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico. The BP spill flowed for three months, and it was estimated that 4.9 million barrels of crude oil had been released into the waters,1 exceeding the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. One has to now ponder, who was engrossed in headlines that have described countless amounts of oil spills that have occurred in Nigeria's Niger Delta over the last five decades?
In the 1970s, Niger Delta spillage amounted to more than four times that of the Exxon Valdez tragedy.2 In 2004, the United States Central Intelligence Agency reported that the Niger Delta had suffered the equivalent of ten Exxon Valdez spills.3 Additionally, more oil is spilled from the Niger Delta's network of terminals, pipes, pumping stations, and oil platforms every year than has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico,4 and Royal Dutch Shell (Shell) has been a major contributing factor.
In addition to it's oil spills, excessive toxic waste dumping, and high rates of gas flaring, Shell employs sub-standard oil spillage and pollution techniques in Nigeria, far beyond any other country where it operates. Although this environmental degradation has been occurring for fifty years without clean-up, Shell was extremely helpful in offering its services and vessels to combat the BP spill. Sadly, Shell has not shown the same compassion and concern in the Niger Delta, a “Land of Blacks.”
I. Introduction: The Problem
In the early 1980s, Reverend Benjamin Chavis, Jr., former Executive Director of the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice,9 coined the term “environmental racism.”10 He described it as:
Racial discrimination in environmental policy-making and enforcement of regulations and laws; the deliberate targeting of communities of color for toxic-waste facilities; the official sanctioning of the presence of life-threatening poisons and pollutants in communities of color; and the history of excluding people of color from leadership in the environmental movement.11
Despite this description, when scholars analyze global environmental racism, they often overly consider how increased globalization of the world's economy has placed special strains on eco-systems in many poor communities and nations,12 which obscure the role of race in environmental inequality. Race-based discrimination is an equally important factor that describes why a “Lands of Blacks,” such as Nigeria's Niger Delta, systematically receive disproportionate and greater environmental harms, while white oil-producing countries systematically obtain better environmental protection.13
A. Problem defined
As of January 2011, Nigeria had an estimated 37.2 billion barrels of proven oil reserves,14 with the majority found along the Niger River Delta.15 The Niger Delta is one of the world's largest wetlands16 and has the third largest mangrove forest in the world.17 It contains other ecological zones, such as its sandy coastal ridge barriers, sacred ancestral lands, and freshwater swamp forests.18 Yet, the Niger Delta's rich and scenic ecosystems have been destroyed because of oil exploration, drilling, and extraction.
Oil production also contributes to air pollution in the form of gas flaring.19 Flaring is the cheapest way to dispose of natural gas Nigeria is not equipped to use,20 resulting in toxic smoke,21 atmospheric warming, and acid rain formation.22 In Nigeria's oil-producing areas, doctors have reported higher rates of cancer, children with asthma,23 bronchitis, skin rashes, and stomach viruses.24 Although the extent of public health damage attributable to gas flaring is uncertain, one cannot overlook the relationship between the two.25
Nigeria used to have navigable streams, which were sources of sustenance for more than ten million people.26 However, during oil extraction, oil spills occur, causing heavy metals, pungent hydrocarbons, and toxic composites27 to enter into Nigerian rivers, creeks, and drinking water.28 Hence, water-related infectious illnesses, including cholera, dysentery, typhoid, and malaria, become more common.29 In addition, fish are contaminated with mercury and water animals die,30 which greatly affects fishermen's sources of revenue.31 Land also becomes polluted, placing subsistence farmers at risk for food insecurity,32 ultimately causing rural workers to become jobless.
B. Problem cause
1. The Dutch in West Africa Again: Environmental colonialism
[Africans] threw off colonialism [and] one day[,] they will throw off eco-colonialism in the management of their wildlife and other aspects of the environment.33
There is a common denominator among Nigeria's degraded ecological zones, deteriorating public health, polluted waters, and destroyed farmlands; it is Royal Dutch Shell (Shell) and its subsidiaries. Shell Corporation operates in over 90 countries,34 but the Niger Delta withstands the worst of oil explorations and drillings, far beyond any other country.35
During the Transatlantic Slave Trade, the Dutch West India Company was originally the most successful and most profitable of slave traders.36 It was most engaged in transporting slaves from West Africa to other European colonies and shipped the most slaves to America.37 Centuries later, another Dutch company became the first oil company to begin drilling in West Africa's oil rich land, Nigeria.38 This successful and profitable corporation is the second largest oil company in the world.39 Similar to its predecessor, much of Shell's commodity is also shipped to America.40 In the 1600s, the Dutch West India Company exploited West Africans to gain profit and open trade in North and South America.41 Likewise, Shell has been exploiting Nigeria's crude oil and its environment to obtain profit,42 causing Niger Delta residents to bear more environmental risks.
In addition to Nigeria, Shell has heavily affected other lands of blacks. In April 2010, Shell chose to divest its fuel businesses in twenty-one African countries.43 Because Shell failed to pay its local workers, protests occurred throughout the continent.44 Shell's disinvestment “[fed] white consciences outside Africa, not [B]lack bellies within it.”45 Its abrupt exit caused black workers to feel the most direct adverse impact.46 Although Shell divested its fuel businesses, it continued to focus on oil production and exploration,47 allowing high-skilled white foreign workers to continue their work, leaving no jobs for the local black population.48
Based on Shell's lack of methodological and technical oil procedures in “Lands of Blacks,” it seems as if Shell's risk-benefit analysis is highly disportionate compared to “Lands of Whites.” Although Shell's cost-benefit analysis may characteristically require placement of toxic composites near poor people, as their land is already cheap and will not lose as much value as land that is currently expensive,49 Shell's racially prejudiced model is also founded upon the methodical depreciation of communities and bionetworks in black and dark-skinned countries of the Global South.
Shell has outdated equipment and substandard techniques in “Land of Poor Blacks,” but not “Land of Wealthy Whites”
As much as 546 million gallons of oil have spilled into the Niger Delta over the last five decades.50 Although Shell is not liable for all oil spills, its U.S.-based subsidiary is the biggest western oil company in Nigeria, accounting for half of the country's oil operations.51 Hence, Shell has a major role when one explains why the Niger Delta has a disproportionate amount of oil spills.
Shell operates in over 90 countries,52 but the Niger Delta endures the most oil spills,53 accounting for forty percent of spills worldwide between 1982 and 1992.54 It is impractical to know how much oil is spilled each year, as Shell has reported erroneous information55 and some spills go unreported.56 Yet, according to government figures, there were more than 7,000 spills between 1970 and 2000, and there are 2,000 official major spillage sites.57 Shell admitted to spilling 14,000 tons of oil in 200958 and acknowledged it was not doing enough to clean up spills in Nigeria.59
Shell's pipelines
A tremendous amount of oil is spilled from the Niger Delta's network of pipelines, terminals, pumping stations, and oil platforms every year.60 The life span of a pipeline is fifteen years.61 However, in the Niger Delta, Shell's pipes are about forty years old,62 making them vulnerable to corrosion and leakage.63
We are sharing our front lawns and our backyards with oil installations, pipes, and flares. High-pressure pipelines that carry crude oil criss-cross in front of people's houses and right through schoolyards. You have to step over them to enter your house. Where do you see oil pipelines like that anywhere else in the world? In Europe and America[,] they are buried, but in Ogoniland, and in all parts of the Niger Delta, all pipes are above ground.64
Even though Nigeria's Ogoni ethnic group asserts that Shell's pipelines run alongside their houses and schools,65 Shell alleges that positioning of pipelines is constantly reviewed, especially when communities have expanded onto land nearby its pipelines.66 Conversely, the Ogoni argue that pipes are never re-routed and its people are not consulted regarding pipe-laying.67 This is extremely different from Shell's practices in the United Kingdom, as Shell's pipeline from Cheshire to Scotland included seventeen different environmental surveys prior to pipe-laying.68 Furthermore, Shell asserted:
A painstakingly detailed [e]nvironmental [i]mpact [a]ssessment covered every meter of the route, and each hedge, wall[,] and fence [were] catalogued and ultimately replaced or rebuilt exactly as it had been before Shell arrived. Elaborate measures were taken to avoid lasting disfiguration[,] and the route was diverted in several places to accommodate environmental concerns.69
According to Shell Pipeline Company LP, there are several reasons why pipelines are buried: the pipeline is better protected from corrosion and natural elements, less obtrusive to the landscape, and prevents interference with surface traffic.70 In the U.S., Shell's pipes lie deeply beneath forests, farms, and other rural areas, as others lie buried under cities and towns.71 In January 2009, in Europe, Shell used new NAM technology to drill new pipes at a depth of between 1,950 to 3,000 feet underground72 for redevelopment of the Schoonebeek Oil Field, the largest onshore oil field in North-Western Europe.73 Yet, Shell's pipes in the Niger Delta are aboveground.
Because Black people inhabit Nigeria, it endures the worst of Shell's oil spills. In their oil-producing areas, pipelines are not re-routed or underground; but instead, the pipes are interwoven throughout Niger Delta communities.74 Furthermore, the pipes are as old as the oil explorations,75 causing this “Land of Blacks” to bear greater health and environmental burdens than white oil-producing nations.
Shell's prevention technology
In August 2002, Shell employed a Niger Delta fisherman to become a local security employee, paying him fifty dollars per month.76 In addition to several others, this fisherman patrolled the pipelines, looking for oil spills or saboteurs.77 This human surveillance is the high-technology that Shell employs in the Niger Delta.”78 However, in the U.S., Shell's employees monitor the pipelines electronically, around the clock.79 Operators, working in sophisticated central control rooms, use computer-aided systems to remotely control and monitor flow rates, pressures, and characteristics of fluids in the pipeline.80 If they detect a drop in pressure, they immediately shut down the line to isolate the emergency and minimize the leak.81 Smart pigs, devices that are inserted into and travel throughout the length of a pipeline,82 are used periodically to collect data on the pipes' physical condition.83 Moreover, Shell uses helicopters and twin-engine planes routinely to do flyovers along the pipelines, looking for excavation activity or ground discoloration that could indicate a leak.84
In Canada, Shell has a high objective of “no spills,”85 as it established a prevention plan to proactively stop oil spills before they occurred.86 The plan has included “state-of-the art equipment, training and experience of response personnel, a comprehensive assessment of all applicable countermeasures, and identification and preparation of specific response strategies and tactics.”87
In December 2010, Shell contracted with FMC Technologies, Inc. in Norway for the manufacture and supply of subsea production equipment for the Ormen Lange Development Project in the North Sea.88 The contract award had a value of approximately $95 million in revenue and was scheduled to commence in the second quarter of 2011.89 Also in Norway, Shell entered into a Joint Industry Project with Electromagnetic Geoservices ASA to plan and design the next generation of 3D EM equipment, significant exploration technology.90
In the Arctic, Shell used standby response vessels and detection technology that gave early warning of a possible leak, including sophisticated sensors that immediately alerted specialists in operation centers.91 Additionally, Shell employed mechanical barriers, such as blowout preventers to seal off the wells. If those measures failed, Shell could drill a relief well that could pump cement or heavy mud into the original well to cut off the oil flow.92
There are many surveillance systems currently on the market.93 However, while the wealthy, white countries receive the bulk of expensive technological devices,94 Shell has nevertheless found it less expensive to employ “illiterate people with nothing in their heads about pollution and no knowledge of how to deal with an issue that is deeply scientific”95 in the Niger Delta.
Shell's response plans
In Nigeria, the village people do common forms of spill clean-ups.96 This method incorporates “young children using shovels, scooping oil into the ground, burning it, and covering it with sand.”97 Conversely, in January 2008, when a small amount of oil spilled at Shell's Draugen Field in the Norwegian Sea,98 Shell's spokesman said, “helicopters and boats were in the area assessing the situation and the company would investigate the accident and replace the damaged pipe the next day.”99
In July 2009, crude oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico from a Shell-operated pipeline,100 about thirty miles from Louisiana's coastline.101 Shell rushed to the scene on the same day, shut down the pipeline, and two skimming vessels had cleaned up about 1,500 gallons of oil and water mixture.102 Additionally, chemicals were dropped from airplanes to disperse some of the oil.103 Correspondingly to Shell's Draugen Field spill, Shell's personnel stated “divers would inspect the source of the leak when they arrived on the scene late [that same day], and planning of repairs could begin as soon as [the next day].”104
Shell's reactive plans are much different in the Niger Delta because white oil-producers see faster action and better results. For example, in November 2002, it took Shell officials a total of five days before workers could commence work on ruptured pipelines in Maroka, located in the Lagos region.105 Shell's personnel were accused of claiming the land as belonging to Shell and pressuring residents to vacate the land.106 In order to contain the spill, Shell workers were seen digging out the pipelines and pumping crude oil into metal barrels.107
In addition to the inferior plans in Nigeria, Shell has done the same in other “Lands of Blacks.” In Namibia, in order to absorb oil, Shell donated response trailers to the Department of Emergency Services.108 The trailers were fully equipped with “overalls, gloves, empty barrels, and a special blanket.”109 While white countries receive million dollar techniques, Namibia's trailers have been valued at approximately $23,000.110 Yet again, because African residents do not have the “right complexion” for protection,111 Shell continues to respond slowly and with substandard techniques.
Shell's gas flaring in the Niger Delta
While Shell and its shareholders count their profits[,] all we can count are the early graves that their toxic gas flares keep sending our people. It is morally wrong for Shell to continue with gas flaring despite a [court] ruling that has ordered them to cease it. Shell continues not only to waste Nigeria's natural resources in this way, but is criminally wasting the lives of…people in our communities who cannot avoid the impacts of gas flaring.112
Nigeria is the world's ninth-largest natural gas reserve.113 According to the World Bank, gas flared in Nigeria is equivalent to the total annual power generation in sub-Saharan Africa.114 It flares the second largest volume of gas of any producer,115 accounting for 12.5 percent of the world's total gas flare.116 Through flaring, about $2.5 billion in government revenues is lost annually, and $72 billion was lost for the period of 1970–2006.117
Shell Petroleum Development Company is the oldest and largest oil and gas producer in Nigeria, and the pioneer in gas utilization of the country.118 For more than two decades, the company has continued to burn methane gas into the atmosphere.119 The gas flares, some of which have been burning constantly since the 1960s, are visible from space.120 In a country where approximately 81 million people do not have access to electricity,121 satellite images show the flares burning more brightly than the lights of Nigeria's biggest city, Lagos.122 Shell officials are at odds when explaining their continued flaring at a time when climate change has become a global issue.123 While Shell has invested millions in the technology to extract oil, it has not invested in technology to develop a major and inter-connecting network of gas pipelines.124
Although it has been reported that flaring most likely causes terminal illnesses,125 Shell has argued, “There is no evidence to support this,” as it relied on a 1995 World Bank report.126 The report illogically concluded that any negative effects of flaring were confined to the immediate vicinity of the flare, and would have little or no impact on the health of the local population.127 According to Shell, its flares were originally located away from homes,128 but economic opportunities caused communities to grow around some areas of its operations.129 Shell maintains that once this happens, gas flares are relocated away from populous area.130 However, similarly to the allegations of pipeline relocation, the Ogoni argues that Shell has never relocated a gas flare, which is sometimes located next door to Ogoni homes, burning twenty-four hours a day.131
In 1969, oil companies were ordered to put in place facilities that would utilize associated gas within five years of their commencement of operations.132 Nonetheless, corporations continued to assert their inability to meet the specific deadlines.133 Almost forty years later, a Federal High Court sitting in Benin ordered Shell to stop gas flaring in a Niger Delta community, stating, “Gas flaring is a gross violation of the constitutionally-guaranteed rights to life and dignity, which include the right to a clean poison-free, pollution-free healthy environment.”134 However, Shell disobeyed the court order135 and continued its flaring.
Nigeria has flared about 75 percent of the gas it has produced,136 compared to Great Britain's 4.3 percent, the U.S.’ 0.6 percent, and the Netherlands' zero percent rates.137 Shell operates in these countries also,138 but their rates do not compare to the rates in Nigeria.139 Once again, this “Land of Blacks” receives environmental hazards that are inequitably distributed.
II. Alternative Causal Explanations and Externalities
A. Global socio-economic discrimination: Developed countries need rehab for their oil addictions
Developing nations have possessed natural resources, while developed countries have had financial resources, skill, knowledge, and technology.140 Some scholars believe Africa's oil and gas producers exemplify the “resource curse.”141 Other scholars, such as Stanford University's Terry Lynn Karl, explained this trend as oil's “paradox of plenty.”142 She stated:
Countries that are dependent on petroleum reserves for their livelihood are among the most economically troubled and/or the most conflict-ridden in the world. These nations have unusually high poverty rates compared with countries dependent on the export of agricultural products. Their infant mortality, malnutrition, and life expectancy at birth is worse than in non-oil/mineral dependent countries of the same income level. Their health care and their school enrollment tend to be less than in their non-resource rich counterparts. This is oil's “paradox of plenty.”143
World citizens live in a global economy where there is an unquenchable want for resources.144 In the industrial world, some levels of consumption have been essential and desirable to sustain human life, but nearly every economic undertaking has contributed to destroying valuable natural resources.145 Most of the world's environmental degradation has been ascribed to the world's wealthiest, industrialized nations.146
In the 2006 State of the Union Address, former U.S. President George W. Bush stated, “Here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil.” 147 Americans have consumed at a rate four times greater than what the earth can sustainably supply.148 The U.S. has remained the largest consumer of oil in the world, consuming more than twenty million barrels of oil per day.149
The U.S., Japan, and Germany import far more than half of their energy.150 These wealthy nations, along with France, have only made up twenty percent of the world's population, but have consumed 80 percent of the world's fossil fuel.151 In addition to developed countries' oil dependency, their toxic waste dumping has come at the expense of economic and social development152 and environmental degradation of habitats and living spaces for many of the world's peoples.153 In 1991, a memo by the World Bank's chief economist, Lawrence Summers, stated:
Shouldn't the World Bank be encouraging more migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs [less developed countries]? Health-impairing pollution should be done in the country with the lowest cost, which will also be the country with the lowest wages. I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that.154
Not only is Summer's view on toxic dumping based on class, it is also racist, as the populations of most poor nations are primarily non-European peoples of color,155 such as Sub-Saharan Africa, which is the poorest region in the world.156 It contains most of the least developed countries,157 but comprises much of the world's surface and natural resources.158 This has been a major source of conflict as oil corporations and developed countries see the region as an obstruction to progress economically.159
B. Lenient laws
This is environmental racism. What we are asking for is that oil companies…meet the same standards in Nigeria that they do operating in their own countries.160
In Nigeria, there are approximately forty-six legal instruments that regulate the petroleum industry.161 However, these laws are ineffective and are mere placebos that have been enacted to appease Nigerian citizens.162 The laws have been enacted for the positive psychological effect it has on citizen's conscience.163 However, like placebos, these laws are inactive and are simply given to pacify or assure people that the government is practicing “good governance.”164
Unlike Nigeria, its white oil-producing counterparts have enacted strict environmental guidelines for the oil industry. In 2007, Shell violated Russian laws when it was constructing its Sakhalin II pipeline, so Shell had to suspend the construction once again.165 In May 2010, Shell was under pressure from U.S. federal regulators to prove that its plan to drill in Alaska's arctic waters would not result in an oil disaster like the 2010 British Petroleum spill.166 Because of a ruling in January 2011, which revoked Shell's federal clean-air permits, Shell had to abandon its plans.167 In 2010, Australia's federal environment minister approved Shell's prelude floating liquefied natural gas facility, but with strict conditions.168 The minister stated, “Shell must develop an oil spill contingency plan, a greenhouse gas strategy, and an environmental performance report, which must be made publicly available.”169 Additionally, Shell was required to put in place measures to reduce light pollution, address noise impacts, manage introduced marine pests, and minimize waste.170
Dissimilar to its white counterparts, the Nigerian economy has been heavily dependent on the oil sector, which according to the World Bank, has accounted for over 95 percent of export earnings and about 85 percent of government revenues.171 The Nigerian government typically has held a 60 percent share of the joint venture interest with the transnational oil companies.172 It fears that the enforcement of austere environmental laws will reduce government proceeds and cause oil corporations to leave Nigeria if there is decreased profits.173 These fears exist in other “Lands of Blacks” too.
For instance, Tanzania has never had a comprehensive environmental law with mandatory requirements for environmental impact assessment.174 It fears that putting foreign investors through rigorous and public scrutiny of their projects on environmental grounds may scare them away; thus depriving the economy of the badly needed foreign direct investment.175 Therefore, to promote economic growth for black domestic elites, public environmental resources are often sacrificed or allowed to be degraded.176
C. Internal colonialism at the hands of the Nigerian government and ethnic majority groups
Throughout the 1950s, while Nigeria's independence drew near, ethnic minority groups expressed their fear to the British government that their wellbeing would be thrust aside by three ethnic majorities: the Hausa, Yoruba, and Ibo.177 Indeed, as independence happened, ethnic minorities, specifically in the Niger Delta, were marginalized and struggled with internal colonialism.178
In 1967, the Nigerian-Biafran War occurred, and the southeastern region seceded from Nigeria as the Republic of Biafra.179 This civil war began with a continuing armed struggle between the regional powers and ethnic groups.180 By the start of this war, Nigeria had become a major oil-producer with 152 million barrels per annum being extracted from the Eastern region.181 As a result, the secession had a huge effect on the oil industry, since most of the oil production occurred in the southeast region of the Niger Delta, which extended into the Bight of Biafra.182 Consequently, the federal government sought to restore the region.183
In light of the war, the Ogoni people endured starvation, extreme psychological distress, and forced migrations.184 About 30,000 Ogonis were killed as a result of the civil war.185 Environmentalist Ken Saro-Wiwa's, founder of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP), thoughts regarding the war was,
The Ogoni live in a nation which is determined to exterminate them…Ogoni lives mean nothing whatsoever to Nigeria, and…the murderous country would be pleased to see Ogoni territory rid of all its inhabitants so that its oil resources can fall into Nigerian hands.186
During the first oil boom of the 1970s, Ogoniland's fifty-six wells totaled approximately fifteen percent of Nigeria's oil production,187 and 60 percent of oil production originated from Rivers State, Niger Delta.188 However, in 1975, when the Murtala Muhummad-Olusegun Obasanjo administration seized power, they commenced a plan to change the revenue allocation formula, which historically had been divided equally amongst the states and the federal government.189 After General Obasanjo's military government gave its power to President Shehu Shagari, the states only received two percent of the revenue.190 Although Rivers State's petroleum was the basis for Nigeria's fiscal system, it was given a mere five percent of the allotment,191 but approximately half of the profits were given to the Kano, other northern states, and the Ibo heartland states.192
The Land Use Act: An abrogation of communal property
The Ogoni and other Niger Delta minorities proclaimed that the government coerced them in giving their land to oil companies and that only small compensation was given.193 Their argument is supported by the 1978 Nigerian Land Use Decree Act,194 which was passed allegedly due to the rising complexity experienced by private and government institutions in obtaining land for development.195 The land was held in trust and administered through the government's authority for the use and supposed benefit of all Nigerians.196
The effects of the act have included possession of land by private developers for economic, industrial, and agricultural development.197 The act has arguably intensified the stress on land and has increased the risk of lasting soil and environmental degradation.198 The peculiar effect on the Niger Delta has led many to believe the act was made specifically to rob indigenous inhabitants of their right to participate actively in the oil business.199
Individual ownership is a strange concept to Nigerian indigenous societies; they are familiar with “communal land ownership.”200 In Amodu v. Secretary of Southern Nigeria, High Court Judge Viscount Halden said,
The notion of individual ownership is quite foreign to native ideas. All the members of the community, village, or family have an equal right to the land, but in every case the Chief or Headman of the community or village, or head of the family, has charge of the land, and…is sometimes called the owner. He is to some extent in the position of a trustee and as such holds the land for the use of the community or family.201
Because the government excluded the traditional leaders and families from negotiating with oil corporations202 and continued to deteriorate ethnic minorities' environment, social, and economic systems,203 minority groups soon understood that environmental justice movements and demonstrations could only combat the unjust and discriminatory treatment.
Saro-Wiwa's Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), which was founded to fight environmental injustices amongst the Ogoni people, was one of these environmental movements.204 In January 1993, 300,000 people came together to protest and order Shell to disappear from Ogoniland.205 Shell, troubled that their profits would decrease, met with the Nigerian High Commission about ways to stop Saro-Wiwa and MOSOP.206 Eventually, in 1995, Shell obtained help from the Nigerian military and hung Saro-Wiwa and eight others,207 causing uproar worldwide for Shell's and the government's “give us oil or give them death” mentality.
D. Corruption
Shell is everywhere. They have an eye and an ear in every ministry of Nigeria. They have people on the payroll in every community, which is why they get away with everything. They are more powerful than the Nigerian government.208
Since 1995, Transparency International has published an annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), which ranks countries according to the degree to which corruption is perceived to exist among public officials and politicians.209 On a score of zero to ten, a lower score means “highly corrupt.”210 In 2010, Nigeria was graded a 2.4 out of ten.211
Corruption and mismanagement swallow about forty percent of Nigeria's $20 billion annual oil income.212 Industry sources say that at least 100,000 barrels of national oil exports are stolen every day in Nigeria.213 Local government officials in the wealthiest oil-producing states have squandered rising revenues that could provide basic health and education services214 to the 70 percent of the six million Niger Delta residents who live off less than a dollar per day.215 Instead, the proceeds benefit corrupt leaders and Nigerian majority elites only.
III. Recommendations and Proposed Alternatives: “How can Nigerians Win?”
A. Social alternatives: Modeling other indigenous societies
The systematic destruction of indigenous peoples' land and sacred sites all have their roots in racial oppression, economic exploitation, devaluation of human life, and corporate greed.216 Moreover, available land used for agriculture has been decreasing due to drought, overgrazing, and soil corrosion, with consequential desertification in Africa and other areas.217 Hence, it would behoove Niger Delta residents to model other indigenous societies, and use the solutions they have employed to keep their environments free from degradation and devastation.
1. Community land trusts
A community land trust (CLT) is a private non-profit corporation created to acquire and hold land for the benefit of a community.218 The Institute for Community Economics (ICE) uses CLTs to meet the needs of residents who are vulnerable to prevailing markets and helps communities gain control over local land use.219 A CLT, under its lease agreement, includes a land-use proposal that marks out certain areas to be kept “forever wild,” for wetland protection or other environmental purposes.220
ICE, like other CLT organizations, opens membership to any individual in an area or region.221 Open membership helps to serve the whole community, while highlighting the productive utilization of the land.222 Furthermore, this structure helps to provide access to vulnerable groups, such as farmers.223
Southern American Conservation Land Trusts and American Farmers' Farmland Trusts
“Because most governments fail to recognize that ecosystems across the world are on their way to extinction, conservation land trusts sustain these sacred and vital land masses.”224 The goal of the South American Conservation Land Trust (hereinafter South American) is to promote the conservation and natural processes of South American indigenous lands.225 American Farmers' Farmland Trusts (hereinafter American Farmers) protect precious resources, such as farm and ranch lands.226 These lands are vital to communities and countries because they contribute food supply, improve water and air quality, protect wildlife and wetlands, and control flooding.227
Native Americans: Community land trusts
In 1999, the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case of Amoco Production Co. v. Southern Ute Indian Tribe.228 Here, the Southern Ute Tribe sued Amoco and other private parties who removed coal-bed methane gas out of lands, where the tribe had ownership rights.229 The case represents the battle between powerful oil and gas corporations and a disadvantaged Indian tribe.230 Here, the Indian nation turned to CLTs as an “agent for positive change.”231
Because ecological zones are vital to Nigeria's environment, it too should mimic South American in creating conservation land trusts to save and protect its biodiversity.232 Furthermore, Nigeria's unemployed farmers and fishermen are forced to buy their food because their lands are being destroyed.233 Thus, the American Farmers is a paradigm that the Nigerian agricultural workforce should implement in order to conserve and keep their agricultural lands and waters as pristine as possible,234 so they can earn much needed salaries and revenue.
2. Community-based trust funds
A trust is an arrangement in law, by which legal ownership of an asset is transferred to a trustee who becomes responsible for managing the asset for the benefit of beneficiaries.235 In the 1990s, in Utah's Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians Reservation, Private Fuel Storage (PFS) wanted to deposit 40,000 tons of commercial high-level radioactive and nuclear waste.236 Eventually, without awareness or consent of the tribal general council, the tribal chair signed a lease agreement with PFS for an unrevealed sum of money.237 Besides bringing an environmental justice suit, the tribe also filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, alleging that it violated its trust responsibility to the tribe by quickly approving an illegitimate lease agreement between the tribal chair and PFS.238
CLTs are usually private entities and typically have no direct connection to the government.239 However, because of the trust doctrine and Native American-U.S. relations,240 the Department of Interior currently manages about 56 million acres of Indian trust land.241 Additionally, it manages about $3.5 billion in Indian trust funds.242
Oil trust funds are institutions in which the trust assets consist of oil revenues placed under the control of a board of trustees for the benefit of residents of an oil-producing area.243 With the mismanagement of public properties, including natural resources, trust funds have been vital to oil-producing nations.244
All of the profits from oil are paid into an escrow account in a foreign bank,245 and the government cannot use the money without the board's approval.246 Trust funds can be utilized to achieve a range of goals, such as community development, conservation of natural resources, and environmental protection.247 Because of corruption in Nigeria, a community-based trust fund is a model that Nigeria should follow248 in order to keep the oil revenue within the oil-producing communities and to benefit ethnic minorities.
3. Civic participation
In Kettleman City, California, a waste management company desired to build a toxic waste incinerator in a 95 percent Latino community.249 Unable to speak English, the community had a difficult time protesting against this hazard, and fought to get the environmental impact report translated into Spanish.250 The community, along with its lawyer, had meetings in residents' homes and started a letter writing campaign.251 Residents inquired about the incinerator's location, shared their individual health problems, and their major concerns.252 Ultimately, the court considered the community's high involvement in the case and overturned the county's approval of building the incinerator.253
Much like the Latino community, civil participation is vital, especially to oil-producing areas.254 Often, these communities cannot rely on foreigners to help educate them, so they must begin within their own communities.255 For example, in 1999, Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FOE) hosted the “Oilwatch African Conference and General Assembly.”256 The conference included workshops and seminars regarding environmental security.257 Furthermore, the ERA set up community resource centers (CRCs), which contained meeting rooms and a small communal library.258 The goal of the CRCs was “to mobilize local action for economic, educational, and environmental security, as well as sustainable development and peaceful co-existence.”259
In December 2005, the Center for Environment, Human Rights, and Development (CEHRD) started a program entitled “Training of Rural Conservationists to Carry Out Re-Vegetation of Mangrove Forest in a Crude Oil Polluted Swamp in Bara-Nwezor Village, Bodo-City, Ogoni, Rivers State, Nigeria.”260 The program included a two-day participatory training workshop.261 Pre-workshop conferences were made with village leaders, the deputy paramount rule of Bodo, Council of Chiefs, youth groups, and women organizations.262 In these workshops, CEHRD explained project steps that would lead to the restoration of Nigeria's mangroves.263 Additionally, realistic demonstrations and a question and answer period were included.264 The spokesperson of Bodo Council of Chiefs stated, “The project was invaluable, [and the] technique would go a long way in assisting the community people in restoring back their lost mangrove ecosystems.265
Civic participation groups aid residents to solve their own issues and understand their own opportunities through self-development and mutual support. They teach and educate participants to establish and instruct groups to take action by themselves. As a result, Nigerian civil society should increase these groups and programs.
4. Disseminating distance learning techniques
The crucial moments in human awareness take place when new energy regimes come together with new communication transformations.266 The shortcoming of oral communication has been that it does not reach all global citizens.267 However, script, print, and electronic radio broadcasting have expanded the scope and extent of global citizens' social interaction.268 In all parts of the world, environmental education has been done by mass media.269 Nonetheless, in many developing nations, environmental awareness campaigns have remained pointless,270 but they are important to produce positive transformations.271
The Nigerian print and mass media play a momentous position in enlightening the community about environmental problems.272 For example, the ERA/FOE publishes the Niger Delta ALERT, a monthly electronic and hard copy newspaper that keeps the communities knowledgeable on environmental issues.273 However, illiteracy, low education, and electricity are major problems in Nigeria,274 especially in rural communities, so oral folklores should be utilized. Although some scholars believe oral traditions come with many shortcomings,275 this fact depends on your audience.276 Because Nigeria's rural communities make up about 80 percent of the country,277 advocacy groups should also include indigenous cultural methods, such as plays, music, storytelling, and puppetry to educate the public on environmental issues.278 Additionally, given that electrical power is a major problem, awareness messages should be played on the radio since it can be powered by cheap dry cell batteries,279 instead of television.280 These new methods will aid Nigeria in educating both their rural and urban communities respectively.
IV. Conclusion
Although Nigeria possesses one of a kind crude oil that is highly desired, it still has excessive poverty, authoritarianism, human rights abuses, civil wars, corruption, and extreme environmental degradation.281 As a result, scholars argue that Nigeria has been destabilized by the very thing that was supposed to strengthen it—oil.282 Nonetheless, it is not oil that caused this damage; rather, it is the environmentally racist practices of transnational oil corporations.
Oil corporations have become catalysts for human-made environmental deterioration and harm to humans in Nigeria.283 One of the main corporations is Royal Dutch Shell. It, along with its subsidiaries, has practiced extreme environmental injustices in Nigeria's Niger Delta region. It is known that corporations' focus is making a profit, but the environment and people should not be expendable for this to occur. Furthermore, Shell seeks to make high earnings in all 90 countries it operates, but the Niger Delta receives disproportionate and greater environmental harms compared to its white oil-producing counterparts.
In the African context, environmental justice is defined as “the equitable distribution of environmental amenities, the rectification and retribution of environmental abuses, the restoration of nature, and the fair exchange of resources.”284 Not only under the U.S. environmental justice definition, but the African context also proves that Shell's activities are environmentally unjust. In the Niger Delta, oil is spilled from the network of terminals, pipes, pumping stations, and oil platforms regularly. Shell does not rectify or give retribution to the residents who suffer from its oil practices. Instead, Shell is relieved from liability by claiming that militants, who sabotage and blow up pipelines, cause spills.285
In Nigeria, oil companies can function without making sufficient stipulations for anti-pollution and oil spillage measures.286 Shell has unsullied records of conformity with environmental laws in white countries.287 Conversely, its immaculate record does not continue with black and dark-skinned poor nations.288 In addition to the Nigerian government promulgating stricter environmental regulations, Shell must also initiate corporate responsibility by aiming for the same high standards in all countries where it operates.289
It is a known fact that oil spills will occur during extraction. However, Shell does not attempt to restore the Niger Delta's biodiversity back to its original, pristine appearance. Instead, spills are not cleaned up for long periods, and when there are attempts for clean-up, substandard techniques are used. Conversely, in white oil-producing nations, Shell enacts proactive and fast reactive plans with the best and most expensive technology. The fact that “children in America possess toys with more machine intelligence than an oil pipeline in Nigeria says much about the contradictory manner in which market forces value technologies and the benefits they do and do not bring.”290
Because of the Nigerian Land Use Decree Act, all lands in Nigeria are nationalized, which obliterates “communal land ownership.”291 As a result, the government and ethnic majorities only benefit from oil revenue. This is not a fair exchange of resources and liability lies with the government. It must use the oil profits to benefit rural-oil producing areas' health and social services, education, electricity, and environment and water resources.292
The BP oil spill made world citizens more sensitive to environmental degradation, so Nigerians should capitalize on this sensitivity and mitigate these unjust influences. Residents should look to other indigenous societies to formulate plans to reduce the direct causes of Shell's oil explorations. Community land trusts will conserve and keep lands and waters uncontaminated. Trust funds will protect against mismanagement of oil revenue, which shield against government corruption. Civil participation and indigenous environmental awareness programs will teach and educate civil society on how to address their own issues from within their own villages, instead of using foreigners.293 These proposed solutions as a whole will aid the Niger Delta in protecting itself from environmental degradation and devastation performed by Shell Corporation.
Footnotes
1
Joel Achenbach & David A. Fahrenthoid, Oil Spill Dumped 4.9 Million Barrels into Gulf of Mexico,
2
3
Emeka Duruigbo, Managing Oil Revenues for Socio-Economic Development in Nigeria: The Case for Community-Based Trust Funds, 30
4
John Vidal, Nigeria's Agony Dwarfs the Gulf Oil Spill. The U.S. and Europe Ignore It,
5
See generally
6
See generally id.
7
8
9
10
Musa Keenheel, Lowering the Bar: The Need for New Legislation and Liberalization of Current Laws to Combat Environmental Racism, 20
11
12
See Robert Doyle Bullard, Poverty, Pollution, and Environmental Racism: Strategies for Building Healthy and Sustainable Communities,
13
14
15
Id.
16
Tom O'Neill, Nigerian Oil, National Geographic, Jan. 2007, <
17
18
Ibibia Worika, Deprivation, Despoliation and Destitution: Whither Environment and Human Rights in Nigeria's Niger Delta?, 8
19
Tunde Obadina, Harnessing Abundant Gas Reserves,
20
21
Andrew Walker, Nigeria's Gas Profits ‘Up In Smoke’,
22
23
Walker, supra note 21.
24
Obadina, supra note 19.
25
See generally id.
26
27
See generally
28
Ambrose O.O. Ekpu, Environmental Impact of Oil on Water, 24
29
30
Ekpu, supra note 28, at 63. See also
31
See generally Adam Nossiter, Far From Gulf, A Spill Scourge 5 Decades Old,
32
33
34
Shell Corporation, Shell at a Glance, <
35
Patrick D. Okonmah, The “Judicial” Murder of Nine Environmental and Human Rights Activists in Nigeria and the Implications for the Enjoyment of Human Rights in Nigeria, 7
36
Melissa B. McLean, Slavery: Africa, Europe, and Jamaica (Fall 2009) (unpublished, University of Vermont)(on file with Professor Alfred Snider), available at <
37
Id.
38
Hassan Tai Ejibunu, Oil Resources and Violence in Rivers State of Nigeria: Implications and the Way Forward (May 2008) (unpublished M.A. thesis, European University Center for Peace Studies) (on file with European University), available at <
39
Id.
40
Background Note: Nigeria,
41
Carmela Karnoutsos, Dutch West India Company, 1621-1664,
42
Michael Adams et al., The Politics and Political Implications of Oil and Gas Exploration in Africa: An Analysis of American Oil Corporations in Nigeria, 7
43
Shell Oil Company Leaves of Cape Verde and 20 Other African Countries,
44
See generally John Donovan, Shell, We Are Africans, Not Slaves,
45
Disinvestment From South Africa,
46
Murray Rothbard, Making Economic Sense,
47
Shell Oil Company Leaves of Cape Verde and 20 Other African Countries, supra note 43.
48
Id. See also Kerstin Moesinger & Amy Maglio, ICE Case Studies,
49
50
Nossiter, supra note 31.
51
Project Underground, The Flames of Shell: Oil, Nigeria, & the Ogoni,
52
Shell Corporation, About Shell, <
53
See Okonmah, supra note 35, at 401.
54
55
Tom Mackey & Geert Ritsema, Shell Accused Over Misleading Figures On Nigeria Oil Spills,
56
Charles Malize, Nigeria: Dealing With Oil Spills In Niger Delta,
57
Vidal, supra note 4.
58
Id. But see Environmental Challenges,
59
Chika Amanze Nwachuku, Nigeria Oil Spill- We've Failed, Says Shell,
60
Vidal, supra note 4.
61
62
Vidal, supra note 4.
63
E.O Omonisini, A.O Eludoyin, & A.T Salami, Towards Efficient Disaster Management in Oil Pipeline Corridors: Examples from Nigeria,
64
Norm Dixon, Stop Environmental Racism in Nigeria: Boycott Shell,
65
Id.
66
Andrew Rowell, Ken Saro-Wiwa's Closing Statement to the Nigerian Military Appointed Tribunal,
67
Id.
68
Id.
69
Rowell, supra note 66.
70
Frequently Asked Questions,
71
Pipelines In Your Community,
72
73
Id.
74
See Dixon, supra note 64.
75
See Omonisini, Eludoyin, & Salami, supra note 63.
76
G. Pascal Zachary, Oil Pipelines With Low Tech-Or No Tech- Surveillance Technologies Are Another Example of Digital Divide,
77
Id.
78
See id.
79
Shell Sets The Pace In Promoting Pipeline Safety,
80
How Pipelines Work,
81
Shell Sets The Pace In Promoting Pipeline Safety, supra note 79.
82
About Pigs,
83
Shell Sets The Pace In Promoting Pipeline Safety, supra note 79.
84
Id.
85
86
Environment,
87
Environment,
88
Norway: FMC Technologies Bags $95 Million Subsea Systems Order for Shell's North Sea Project,
89
Id.
90
Norway: EMGS, Shell Join Forces to Revolutionize 3D EM Technology,
91
92
Id.
93
Zachary, supra note 76.
94
See How Pipelines Work, supra note 100. See also Norway: FMC Technologies Bags $95 Million Subsea Systems Order for Shell's North Sea Project, supra note 88. Compare Zachary, supra note 76.
95
Ogoni: Oil Pollution Still Blights Niger Delta,
96
Id.
97
Id.
98
Aasa Christine Stoltz & Anthony Barker, Shell Reports Small Spill at Norway Draugen Field,
99
Id.
100
Bruce Nichols & Joshua Schneyer, Shell Works to Fix Gulf of Mexico Pipeline Leak,
101
Bruce Nichols & Joshua Schneyer, Shell Works to Fix Gulf of Mexico Pipeline Leak,
102
Id.
103
Id.
104
Id.
105
Adetokunba Abiola, Shell's Ruptured Pipeline Causes Panic in Niger Delta,
106
Id.
107
Id.
108
Kristiina Juutinen, Shell Donates Clean-Up Trailer to City,
109
Id.
110
Id.
111
112
Shell Fails to Obey Court Order to Stop Nigeria Flaring, Again,
113
Lizzie Williams,
114
Obadina, supra note 19.
115
Walker, supra note 21.
116
Williams, supra note 113.
117
118
119
Hugo Odiogor, Shell, Chevron Tackle Gas Flaring Climate Change,
120
Daniel Howden, Visible from Space, Deadly on Earth: The Gas Flares of Nigeria,
121
122
Howden, supra note 120.
123
Id.
124
See generally
125
Obadina, supra note 19.
126
See generally
127
Id.
128
Id.
129
Id.
130
Rowell, supra note 66.
131
Id.
132
133
Id.
134
Id.
135
Shell Fails to Obey Court Order to Stop Nigeria Flaring, supra note 112.
136
S.O. Aghalino, Corporate Response to Environmental Deterioration in the Oil Bearing Area of the Niger Delta, Nigeria, 1984-2002, 11
137
138
The Shell Global Page,
139
See
140
Parag Bijukchhe, Publications Common But Differentiated Responsibility,
141
Emeka Duruigbo, The World Bank, Multinational Oil Corporations, and the Resource Curse in Africa, 26
142
Id. at 6.
143
Id. at 6–7.
144
Environmental Racism Global,
145
Bradley A. Harsch, Consumerism and Environmental Policy: Moving Past Consumer Culture, 26 Ecology L. Q. 543, 547 (1999).
146
Id. at 548.
147
148
Andy Coghlan, Consumerism Is 'Eating The Future,'
149
The World's Top Consumers and Producers of Oil,
150
151
Id.
152
See generally id.
153
Deborah M. Robinson, Environmental Racism: Old Wine in a New Bottle,
154
155
156
See
157
Id. at 130.
158
Ravinder Rena, Dealing with Africa's Resource Course,
159
Environmental Racism Global, supra note 144.
160
Howden, supra note 122.
161
Omokaro, supra note 29, at 17.
162
Omokaro, supra note 29, at 17.
163
See id.
164
See id. See also Ekpu, supra note 28, at 79-90 (explaining that many oil pollution laws “usually appear only as incidental provisions in the statutes and regulations”).
165
Dmitry Lisitsyn, Petr Hlobil, & Paul de Clerck, Sakhalin II Pipeline Construction Suspended Again by Authorities, Catalogue of Violations Mounting,
166
Elizabeth Bluemink, Shell Tweaks Arctic Oil Spill Safeguards,
167
Julie Cart, Shell Oil Company Nixes Drilling in Alaskan Arctic for 2011,
168
Australia: Shell Gets Federal Environmental Approval for Prelude FLNG,
169
Id.
170
Australia: Shell Gets Federal Environmental Approval for Prelude FLNG, supra note 193.
171
Nigeria Energy Data, Statistics, and Analysis: Oil, Gas, Electricity, Coal,
172
Alison Lindsay Shinsato, Increasing the Accountability of Transnational Corporations for Environmental Harms: The Petroleum Industry in Nigeria, 4
173
Id.
174
Part I: EIA in Tanzania's Environmental Law and Policy,
175
Id.
176
Edward D. McCutcheon, Think Globally: (En) Act Locally: Promoting Effective National Environmental Regulatory Infrastructures in Developing Nations, 31
177
Michael Watts, The Sinister Political Life of Community 8 (University of California, Berekely, Working Paper No. 3, 2004), available at <
178
Watts, supra note 177, at 15.
179
Ann Genova, Nigeria's Biafran War: State, Oil Companies, and Confusion (2006)(unpublished Ph.D dissertation, University of Texas at Austin)(on file with Department of History, University of Texas at Austin).
180
Id.
181
Chioma Oruh, Remembering Biafra: A Literary Review,
182
Genova, supra note 179.
183
Id.
184
Sanya Osha, Birth of the Ogoni Protest Movement 13, (Centre for Civil Society, University of Kwazulu-Natal, Research Report No. 33, 2005), available at <
185
Id. at 14 (“This was ten percent of the then population”). Id.
186
Id.
187
Watts, supra note 177, at 16.
188
Watts, supra note 177, at 16.
189
Osha, supra note 184, at 14.
190
Id.
191
Watts, supra note 177, at 16.
192
Id.
193
Emeka Emmanuel Okafor, Dynamics of Niger Delta Struggles and the State Responses, 2
194
195
Rhuks Temitope Ako, Nigeria's Land Use Act: An Anti-Thesis to Environmental Justice, 53
196
197
N.O. Adedipe et. al., Rural Communal Tenure Regimes and Private Landownership in Western Nigeria, SUSTAINABLE
198
Id.
199
Ako, supra note 195, at 289.
200
Duruigbo, Managing Oil Revenues, supra note 3, at 172.
201
Id.
202
Ako, supra note 195, at 297–98.
203
See generally id.
204
Wendy Irvine, Human Rights, Environmental Racism: The Nigerian Executions and the Case for the Ogoni, 4
205
Oronto Douglas, Assassins in Foreign Lands,
206
Id.
207
Id.
208
Stephanie Dearing, Wikileaks: Royal Dutch Shell Infiltrated Nigerian Government,
209
See generally About Us,
210
Corruption Perceptions Index 2010 Results,
211
Id.
212
Corruption Costs Nigeria 40 Percent of Oil Wealth,
213
Id.
214
Nigeria: Corruption and Misuse Rob Nigerians of Rights,
215
Angilee Shah, Bright Lights, Hard Lives,
216
Bullard, Poverty, Pollution, and Environmental Racism, supra note 12.
217
218
Deborah Groban Olson, Fair Exchange: Providing Citizens With Equity Managed by a Community Trust, in Return for Government Subsidies or Tax Breaks to Businesses, 15
219
Id.
220
S
221
Id.
222
S
223
Id.
224
Id.
225
Vision and Values,
226
See Farmland Protection,
227
See id.
228
Federico Cheever, Borrowing the Land: Cultures of Ownership in the Western Landscape, 83
229
Id.
230
Id.
231
Id. at 1047.
232
See generally
233
See generally Omokaro, supra note 29.
234
See Farmland Protection, supra note 226.
235
Id. at 168.
236
Environmental Racism, Tribal Sovereignty, and Nuclear Waste,
237
Id.
238
Environmental Racism, supra note 236.
239
Olson, supra note 218, at 336.
240
241
American Indian Land Trust Lawsuit Settled,
242
Id.
243
Duruigbo, The World Bank, supra note 141, at 35.
244
Id. at 36.
245
Id. at 37–38.
246
Id. at 38.
247
Duruigbo, Managing Oil Revenues, supra note 3, at 171.
248
Duruigbo, The World Bank, supra note 141, at 38.
249
250
Id.
251
Id.
252
Id.
253
Id.
254
See generally id. at 435 (“Empowerment is also a process which enables individuals to participate effectively in collective efforts to solve common problems”). Id.
255
See generally id. at 436 (“Rather than solving a problem for a community, the empowerment model calls upon attorneys to help community members solve their own problems”). Id.
256
257
Id.
258
Id.
259
260
Foluke Ogunleye, Environmental Sustainability in Nigeria: The “Awareness” Imperative, 31
261
Id.
262
Ogunleye, supra note 260, at 46.
263
Id.
264
Id.
265
Id.
266
Jeremy Rifkin, The Empathetic Civilization: Rethinking Human Nature in the Biosphere Era,
267
Id.
268
Id.
269
Ogunleye, supra note 260, at 44.
270
Id. at 41.
271
Id. at 42.
272
Id.
273
274
Nigeria: Low Enrollment, High Drop Out Rates Lower Adult Literacy,
275
Rifkin, supra note 266.
276
Ogunleye, supra note 260.
277
Toluwa Olusegun, Maternal Mortality, A Rural Community's Example, IPS, Sept. 2, 2009, <
278
Ogunleye, supra note 260.
279
Id.
280
Id.
281
Duruigbo, The World Bank, supra note 141, at 2.
282
O'Neill, supra note 16.
283
Shinsato, supra note 172, at 186.
284
Ako, supra note 195, at 292.
285
See generally Ireland On-Line: Shell Misses Target for Cutting Oil Spills, Shell Co., May 9, 2006, <
286
Okonmah, supra note 35, at 401–02. See also, Petroleum Act, supra note 186 (In 1988, the Nigerian government passed the Federal Environmental Protection Agency Act (FEPA), which has the responsibility to establish environmental criteria, guidelines, and standards for the protection of the “nation's air and interstate waters as may be necessary to protect the health and welfare of the population from environmental degradation.” Id. Section 20 prohibits the “discharge [of] such harmful quantities of any hazardous substance into the air or upon the land and the waters of Nigeria”). Id. See Ekpu, supra note 28, at 84 (There is a penalty of 500,000 naira [$3,355.70] where the offense is committed by a corporate organization, and an extra charge of 1,000 naira [$6.71] for every day the offense keeps going. Id. Besides criminal penalties, the owner or operator from which the excretion transpired is also liable for the expenses of removal, restoration, or replacement of natural resources destroyed as a result of the excretion. Id. In spite of this, the operator is free from this extra liability if he or she can establish that the excretion resulted exclusively from a natural disaster, by an act of war, or by sabotage). Id.
287
Eedee Ogoni, Social & Environmental Injustice in Nigeria's Niger Delta Region,
288
Id.
289
See generally Benjamin R. Barber, Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole 293–94 (W.W. Norton & Co. 2007) (explaining that “corporate responsibility” is a strategy in which the producers wear civic caps while captaining their corporate vessels, steering corporations away from palpable abuses and profiteering self-interest of the Enron variety toward responsible choices that is advantageous to society, in addition to the shareholders). Id.
290
Zachary, supra note 76.
291
292
Duruigbo, Managing Oil Revenues, supra note 3, at 172.
293
Id.