Osteen Igbapike is a renowned environmental activist and lawyer for spill impacted communities in Delta and Bayelsa states are of the Niger Delta. He spoke with SHOLA O’NEIL on the recent Amnesty International’s damning report on Shell’s response and management of oil spill in the region.
What is your reaction to the last week’s Amnesty International report on Shell and Pollution in the Niger Delta?
God bless Amnesty International for being the conscience of the oil industry. Amnesty International has preached this sermon times without number to IOCs and their collaborators in government offices. There is nothing new in that report; it merely has restated what Amnesty International has been saying over the years that these oil companies are responsible for all the environmental woes in the Niger Delta due to negligence and sharp practices. When these facts are becoming clearer by the day SPDC in particular has been struggling to convince the world that the environmental woes are as a result of oil thieves. Amnesty’s position is a further affirmation of what we, as host communities, victims and sufferers of countless known and unknown, resolved and unresolved pollution cases arising from SPDC’s negligence and ailing facilities have been saying all these years. I am happy that Governor Uduaghan has added his voice to our clamour.
Unfortunately, this report, like others before it, does not have the teeth of a court judgment. Shell knows this and continues with impunity in defiling our environment. The United Nation’s Environmental Programme Report on Ogoni is a case in point. SPDC and the Federal Government have refused to implement that report till date. Let UNEP, Amnesty International and other environmental rights agencies say whatever they want, Shell will not change its posture and attitude towards pollution and oil spills because the regulatory agencies and the government lack the political and technical will to enforce the laws.
Do you see the report as an indictment on NOSDRA and similar organs?
Not just NOSDRA, but all Ministry and government agencies jostling for the plum environmental watchdog turf. So an indictment is an understatement. Indictment is just a euphemism of the “cosy relationship” between these IOCs and their watchdogs, the so-called regulators. This is complicated by the fact that the Federal Government is the most senior JV partner in all oil businesses in Nigeria.
This explains why the problem with spill response and environmental management is systemic and institutional. Our popular cliché of ‘Nigerian Factor’ further helps to complicate our woes as Niger Deltans.
Now let me explain. Before the creation of NOSDRA in 2006, the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), an offshoot of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, was in charge of spills, environmental management and regulating the so-called IOCs beside the Petroleum Act, 1969. DPR created EGASPIN in 1992 and reviewed it in 2002 as the sole document for oil industry best practice in spills and environmental management amongst others. This document first was not law, second the cosy relationship between the IOCs and the sole regulator DPR blighted the proper implementation of EGASPIN and it suffered from internal inconsistencies.
Our economy being oil-driven and oil business managed by the Ministry of Petroleum Resources resulted in a conflict of interest because the Federal Government, as senior JV partner, pays the larger share.
But you see Nigeria is not the only country with oil-driven economy. The Middle East is. The Arabs created ministry for environment. Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Environment ought to serve the same purpose but the Ministry of Petroleum Resource refuse to let go through DPR and worsen things.
The Bonga oil spill is reputed to be one the biggest in the country, similar to the Gulf of Mexico BP debacle, how do we compare in terms of handling?
The response and management of the BP spill in the US will tell what is wrong with our system here. What Obama did in the Deepwater Horizon incident was to sever Federal Agencies that hitherto issued permits for offshore drilling and handed that power over to a Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. According to him the relationship between the Federal Agencies and the oil companies was too cosy. In Nigeria, our environmental watchdogs are Abuja, not in Niger Delta where we have the environmental issues, they are in the same cosy relationship without any consequence and it is business as usual.
From 2006 NOSDRA became, by law, the lead agency in oil spill response and environmental management in Nigeria. Sadly, now apart from NOSDRA, other Government agencies are juggling to have dealings with IOCs for no other purpose but to line their pockets without any proper legal/regulatory or at best conflicting legal framework. DPR has refused to let go. NIMASA is taking a fair share of the role of NOSDRA because its leadership is incompetent with little or no technical knowledge. This is further worsened by the fact that corruption has eaten the fabric of what the agency is supposed to achieve. So they just remain in Abuja receive allocation from the Federal Government, pay staff salaries and remain docile.
So, the Bonga spill occurred NOSDRA did not know what do when NIMASA was kicking. NOSDRA suddenly woke from its slumber to slam ‘N5b administrative penalty’ whatever that means on SPDC and SPDC said they won’t pay and didn’t. The type of penalty speaks volume of the kind of leadership in NOSDRA because there is no basis for it either in law or morals. Sadly, incompetent persons are placed in sensitive positions to check the activities and recklessness of Shell and other IOCs as it affects the environment, a very important component in the wellbeing and quality of life of the people of the Niger Delta.
I will further explain the malaise in handling the Bonga spill. The then Minister of Environment, Mrs Hadiza Ibrahim Mailafia, after an over-flight of the spill area, gave a thumbs-up to Shell – a polluter of that magnitude! She did not go down there to see what happened. She and Peter Idabor the DG of NOSDRA did an over flight in a chopper provided by SPDC. They did not get down to the communities. They saw the Bonga spill from the prism of SPDC and went back to Abuja with praises for SPDC.
These environmental watchdogs are so detached from the people in fact they do not care about the people they appointed to protect. The masters attitude is replicated in all zonal offices as the Zonal Directors take instructions from Abuja on what to and what not to do and everybody plays to the gallery and fall over themselves to get involved and be in the thick of the action without thought for the people of the impacted communities.
On the Bonga Oil spill Procedural steps and regulations on spill management were not followed. As a result, the agency relied on figure provided by Shell, which by its own estimate, was about 40,000 barrels of crude oil spilled into the environment. Yet, nothing was done about it.
You sound like you doubt the 40,000barrels figure?
That is what Amnesty International is saying. Shell consistently underreport and manipulate spill figures to escape damage and liability. As I speak there have series of spills from the Forcados Terminal from the Crude Loading Platform of SPDC called the Single Point Mooring. SPDC has started the abracadabra with NOSDRA. I had to report to the Honourable Commissioner for Environment to help since NOSDRA is comatose for obvious reasons. These spills occurred on the 3/1/2012, 30/9/2013 and 5/11/2013. The polluted communities were never taken along on the constitution of the Joint Investigation Team and the JIV for deliberate reasons.
Some top officials of NOSDRA and other regulators are very corrupt and incompetent people who ought not to be there.
That is a serious allegation…
Not allegation, but fact. Let me explain to you. The law provides that if there is a spill, NOSDRA constitutes JIV comprising the agency, the polluter and the polluted (impacted communities). Not just that, but they are to do that within 48 – 72 hours to ascertain the cause and extent of the spill. To establish the extent of pollution, NOSDRA should get an ESI (environment sensitive index) of the area before the spill. It would then match the ESI to the area during the spill to get the extent and what to do during and after the spill. But up till this moment, with all the resources and allocations, NOSDRA does not have that invaluable document.
That is the incompetence. Now let me tell you about the corruption in NOSDRA. I have used this analogy before, I will use it again. In a situation where security agency arrests a thief and relies on the suspect to provide and fuel vehicles to convey him to court, also provides the courtroom, logistics, pay the hotel bills and feed the officers and give them pocket money to buy groundnut, gala and even GSM phones and recharge card, how do you expect the case to go? That is the situation we find NOSDRA in. Shell provides helicopter and the pilot, boats and driver and cars to take them on JIV. If the site is outside their area, the company also provides hotel accommodation, feeding and ‘logistics’.
Now the situation is so bad that other agencies have seen pollution as a good hunting ground. NESDRA, states and federal ministries of environment and even NIMASA have joined because they want a piece of the polluters’ cake at the expense of the environment.
Do you think the Federal Government is committed to fighting environmental pollution?
No, it is not. You expect President Goodluck Jonathan, who is closest to Oloibiri, among Nigerian leaders, to understand the plight of the people, but he is not because the economy is oil driven. Nobody, not even a president who is victim of oil pollution, wants to upset the apple cart.
The problem is when you have a government that is involved in the oil business with a JV stake of over 50 per cent and the government appoints regulators and fund them! You should wonder how there can be fair play and justice and how the agencies, which funding come from the oil business can be above board.
What then is the way forward?
Government should hands off oil business. It should stop funding the various agencies and ask them to generate their own fund. There is the polluter pay principle, which stipulates penalty for pollution. The agencies are not bothered about enforcing them because whether they do or not, they still get their allocations from government coffers.
Then, duplicity of regulatory agencies is a drain on public fund. They should all be collapsed into one efficient body with powers to enforce laws and impose appropriate penalties. Government should stop creating unnecessary position and portfolios simply to settle political interests.
How has the judiciary fared in the quest of justice in oil spill cases?
I have been involved in dozens of court cases over pollution and I can tell you that even the legendary patience of the biblical Job is not enough to wait. You see many people who can afford it are now taking their cases against IOCs outside the country because it is difficult to get justice here. Shell and others have been severally sued outside the shores of Nigeria.
Again, even justice is affected by the environment. I have said before that Nigeria’s economy is oil driven and the government cannot tolerate anything that interferes with its daily bread. The government has its interest and influence.
Then there is also the justice-for-sale syndrome. The honourable Chief Justice of Nigeria, Aloma Mukhtar, said there is black market justice, it also affects environment cases. Some judges are easily influenced to chase technicality at the expense of justice.
This is very frustrating for the victims of these pollutions and it has led some communities and their leaders to endorse illegal bunkering, which is a crime that should be condemned no matter the circumstance. They do this to get their own pound of flesh from a system that has made environmental justice so difficult and far-fetched.
