Shell rejects human rights charges

Tension between Shell and local people remains

A Shell oil company official in Nigeria has rejected claims of the company's involvement in human rights abuses carried out during the country's military regime.

Shell's deputy managing director in Nigeria Egbert Imomoh told a government human rights commission that his company bought guns for Nigerian police to defend Shell property and staff.

He said the weapons were needed because of frequent robberies, vandalism and attacks on company employees.

But thousands of Ogoni activists accuse the police of burning villages and attacking civilians seeking compensation for alleged environmental damage by Shell

Imbalance

Appearing at the hearings in the southern city of Port Harcourt, Mr Imomoh said weapons were deemed necessary because of frequent attacks against the company.

Fuel shortages force people to sabotage pipelines

He said he was unaware of any cases in which the weapons were used except to be fired in the air.

Between 1994 and 1995, there were more than 600 cases of robbery, kidnapping, vandalism and other violent incidents committed against the company.

Shell is the largest oil operator in Nigeria, with the oil coming from the Niger Delta providing most of Nigeria's export earnings and government income.

However, local people feel they are getting nothing back and the imbalance is a major source of tension in the region.

Growing discontent

In theory, a percentage of the government's oil revenues are ploughed back into the producing areas, and that percentage has risen in response to growing discontent.

Residents complain that while the money may get as far as the state capital - even the local government headquarters - it stops there, and they never see the benefit.

A village living next to a well producing oil worth many thousands of dollars a year may have no clean water supply, no passable road, no electricity, no clinic or school.

Local anger was most famously mobilised in the Ogoni area by the late Ken Saro-Wiwa, but in all parts of the Delta protesters have blocked access roads, occupied production platforms and, on occasion, sabotaged pipelines.