Shell agrees to pay Nigerian rights victims $15.5m

ROYAL Dutch Shell has agreed to a $15.5 million (€11m) settlement to end a lawsuit alleging that the oil giant was complicit in the executions of activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and other civilians by Nigeria’s former military regime.

Shell, which continues to operate in Nigeria, said it agreed to settle the lawsuit in hopes of aiding the “process of reconciliation”.

But Europe’s largest oil company acknowledged no wrongdoing in the 1995 hanging deaths of six people, including poet Saro-Wiwa. “This gesture also acknowledges that, even though Shell had no part in the violence that took place, the plaintiffs and others have suffered,” Malcolm Brinded, Shell’s executive director of exploration and production, said in a statement.

The lawsuit in US District Court in New York claimed Shell colluded with the country’s former military government to silence environmental and human rights activists in the Ogoni region. The oil-rich district sits in the southern part of Nigeria and covers about 1,000 square kilometres (about 400 sq m). Shell started operating there in 1958. The primary complaint against Shell focused on activities by the company’s subsidiary, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited. The lawsuit said in the 1990s, Shell officials helped furnish Nigerian police with weapons, participated in security sweeps of the area, and hired government troops that shot at villagers protesting the construction of a pipeline.

The plaintiffs also say Shell helped the government capture and hang Saro-Wiwa, John Kpuinen, Saturday Doobee, Felix Nuate, Daniel Gbokoo and Dr Barinem Kiobel on November 10, 1995.

Saro-Wiwa, leader of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People, led rallies against Shell. He blamed the company for myriad oil spills and gas fires in the Ogoni region.

“I think he would be happy with this,” Saro-Wiwa’s 40-year-old son, Ken Saro-Wiwa Jr, said in a telephone interview from London. Though Shell denied any wrongdoing, “the fact that they would have to settle is a victory for us”.

Besides compensating the families, the money from Shell will pay for years of legal fees. And a large chunk of the settlement – roughly a third – will create a trust that will invest in social programmes in the country, including educational endowments, agricultural development, support for small enterprise and adult literacy programs.

Altogether, the settlement will have a negligible effect on Shell’s shareholders, amounting to less than one-hundredth of a percent of Shell’s annual revenue.

Shell has consistently maintained it never advocated violence and that it lobbied Nigerian officials to grant Saro-Wiwa clemency.

Critics say Shell did so because of the bad publicity the case had generated.