Media Storm - Oil spills in the Niger Delta: Will Shell come clean?

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

Warning: this episode contains mentions of baby loss. Three years ago, we brought you the story of a Nigerian fishing community suing Shell in UK courts over oil spills. This year marks 10 years since their battle began, and the year it finally goes to trial. The Niger Delta is one of the ten most important wetland ecosystems in the world, home to some 31 million people. But the river that sustains so many lives of so many species has become poisoned over decades by oil. Environmental justice is a long and winding road, but communities are standing firm in their bids to hold the world’s most powerful corporations to account. They rely on media coverage to keep their fights in the limelight, yet they often struggle to be seen. Why is that? In this episode, we are joined by Lazarus Tamana, UK president of the Movement For The Survival of The Ogoni People , and Dr Emem Okon, Executive Director of community-led NGO Kebetkache Women Development & Resource Centre. They help us unpick the media’s coverage of the climate crisis - examining undisclosed relationships between news outlets and corporations, a failure to understand national vs. ‘World’ news, and telling choices of media language. Follow Amnesty UK’s ‘No Clean Up, No Justice’, read Dr Emem Okon’s research, with the Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Centre and Both Ends. The episode is hosted and produced by Mathilda Mallinson (⁠@mathildamall⁠) and Helena Wadia (⁠@helenawadia⁠) , with Lily Erwood as Assistant Producer. The music is by ⁠@soundofsamfire⁠ Support us on ⁠Patreon⁠! Follow us on ⁠Instagram⁠, ⁠Bluesky⁠, and ⁠TikTok Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Visit camh.ca to help us forge a better path for mental health care. Hello? Hello. It's been so long since I saw you. Very early, the day after we recorded our live show. Just a few hours since we were at the pub, basically. The ibags are eyebagging, and we are here. It was so exciting to meet some of you in the audience last night.

And also, I want to say, like, I'm sorry that there was no bar at the venue because I feel like most people we didn't get to see. Next time, before we leave the stage, we should say, this pub afterwards. That was my learning. Great learning. Thanks. Also, just as I was thinking, I should really probably go to sleep, given we have to wake up to record this episode.

We got a lovely little notification that we've been nominated for an International Women's Podcast Award for a moment of factual clarity, which I think is very fitting for Media Storm and very flattering. So thank you to the International Women's Podcast Awards. And we're so excited. We'll keep you updated on what happens. Let's get on with today's episode. Back in series two, aka 2022, Media Storm told a story of devastation in the Niger Delta Riviera. The Niger Delta is one of the ten most important wetland ecosystems in the world, home to some 31 million people.

But the river that sustained so many lives of so many species has become poisoned over decades by oil. Oil, they say, spilt from pipelines owned by Shell, the British Oil and Gas Company. Back then, we spoke to people from the Ugali and Bile communities who told us of the devastation oil had wreaked on their homelands. A king, you come here to do business, we'll receive you with wholeheartedness, you destroy everything about us. And then you pay lawyers millions of dollars to save you from taking care of the people. People you have destroyed. A midwife. I cannot count the number of women.

They are delivered children that are just delivered them. So a lot of them are born and died. And a fisherman. Don't give up fair ruling for all advocates of good environment. Victory for the entire Nigerian Delta region. Victory for the Oguni people. To God be the glory. Shell sent us a defense that included

blaming local vandals for pipeline leaks and underlining their investments in the local communities. And a lawyer representing Nigerian activists told us of the constant obstacles and lengthy process of seeking legal justice. When the cases were filed, Shell immediately challenged that the claim should not be heard in the UK courts, that it was a purely Nigerian matter. And it wasn't until last year when the Supreme Court ruled that there was a good, arguable case that Shell's head office in London is legally responsible, that the case could properly start proceeding. Given the plight of the claimants, it's pretty devastating for them that it's been seven years with not much action since the case here was filed.

Ten years after they first filed their claim, 2025 has been a key year. In February, the Agale and Bile v. Shell case began, though it will drag on until late next year. This month, another Niger Delta community faces Shell in court, in the case of Bodo v. Shell. Incidentally, this week is also the week of Shell's annual general meeting. So Amnesty International reached out to us to put media pressure on the company while their shareholders are paying attention. Media stormers assemble. Amnesty tells us Shell is currently attempting to walk away from the Niger Delta

without paying compensation to devastated communities and with, without cleaning up the damage of the oil spills. Pay up, clean up. That's what they want. But Shell, it appears, is not budging. Can an indigenous community from rural Nigeria beat a multinational conglomerate in the UK courts? And when we look at the power gap between those

who profit from environmental damage and those on the front lines who suffer it, does our media bridge the gap or bolster it? The discovery of oil in Nigeria was meant to transform the nation's fortunes. Oil giant Shell is facing allegations over oil spills in the Niger Delta. Welcome back. Well, today could be the warmest start to May on record. Drill for oil. Drill for gas. Fract for gas. They've got their own supply. Go clean up. Go clean up. Justice. Welcome to Media Storm, the news podcast that starts with the people who are normally asked last.

I'm Helena Wadia and I'm Matilda Malinson. This week's Media Storm. Shell on trial. Can communities get climate justice? Welcome to the Media Storm studio. Our first guest is the UK's president of Mossop, movement for the survival of the Agoni people. He has been fighting for justice against Shell for over three decades. He's a member of the Bodo community, who are currently holding Shell accountable in the courts in the UK. Welcome Lazarus Tamara. Thank you so much. much. Good morning. Good morning.

Our second guest is the executive director of Quebec Cache Women Development and Resource Center, a community-led NGO working in Nigeria and the African region to promote women's rights and environmental justice. We're very lucky to have you both with us here in the studio. Thank you for stopping by Dr. M.M. Okon. Thank you. Good morning. Lazarus, I want to go back a little bit to the beginnings of this fight and of this story. Growing up in the Niger Delta, what are the worst oil spills that you remember and how did they impact your community? The worst one I can remember was the one of 1968 when there was a complete blowout. There was oil everywhere.

The streams were completely covered with crude oil. And it was very, very impossible for us to do anything. during that time. We as good people are subsistent farmers and fishermen. That is what we do for our living. We depend on the land and on the seas for our daily bread and for everything that we do. And it's not just your livelihood, right? It's also your culture. It must be really sad as well as really disruptive to see that devastation in your area. Yeah. Our cultural heritage has been completely destroyed as a result of all these pollution. The acid rain suit falling from the sky and these affect all our crops, all our rivers. You know, it is a

complete devastation which we could not handle. Thank you for explaining that to our listeners. Dr. Emin, we're going to turn to you now and we're going to talk about quite a sensitive topic now which involves stillbirth and reproductive health. So just a heads up to our listeners. But when we last covered this topic on Media Storm, we heard from a midwife who described an oil sickness leading to babies being born, deformed and often dead. Now, you've researched this on an academic level.

What do we know about the impact of oil spills on women's reproductive health? Thank you very much for that question. It is very important for the world to know the effects of hydrocarbon on women. Specifically for Kibet Kase, we conducted a research in Uttuabagi community in 2023. Utturbagi community is the host of the first oil wells in Nigeria. Many women are experiencing menstrual disruptions, and many of the young women from the ages of 35 are no longer seeing their mencies, so they are experiencing monopause. I'm not from Otwabagi, but I can also say that of myself, that my monopause started earlier than I expected.

Now, the findings of our research, which included taking the blood samples of women, specifically 80 women, 100% of them, have hydrocarbon in their blood, 8,000 times above the permissible limit of World Health Organization. We also have women who are also having challenges in conceiving. Let me also say I'm very religious. I go to church a lot, and I can also say that a lot of women have prayer points targeting having babies because they cannot conceive. So you have it as a prayer point in church, women praying for the fruit of the womb. There is also the challenge of having miscarriages.

Now, in the African tradition, if a woman. is married and for some years you don't have a baby is a whole lot of issue in the family because the expectations are there. The grandparents want to carry their grandchildren. So there is a lot of pressure on the woman to have a baby. But until we started having these findings from research and discussions on the impact of hydrocarbon, people were blaming the women, of being promiscuous, of having their wombs remove all kinds of suspicions and allegations, some founded allegations. So it's traumatic and it causes confusion misunderstanding conflicts within the family. And people are not linking this to the pollution because we live with pollution.

The air is polluted through the gas flaring and oil, as Lazarus said, is spilled into the river bodies, the streams, the creeks, and there is no access to clean drinking water. So what it means is that the food, they eat, is polluted because the plants, the crops, cassava, maize, kukuyam, are all polluted because the soil is polluted. They drink polluted water, they inhale polluted air. So this, I mean, this affects every part of your life, your livelihood, your culture, your bodies. It is clear that there is a need for justice for this community. And for you, one of the accountable parties is Shell. You are currently fighting Shell in court for justice. But this fight began many, many decades ago.

Lazarus, you have been involved in this fight for some decades. Can you tell us how that fight started and how it has changed in the many, many years since it began? There used to be individual fighting these oil companies on their own. And at some stage, we said no, the entire people, the elders, the chiefs, the women, the youths, every person came together that enough was enough. It was out of that desperation that the movement was born. And since 1990, when we started Mossop, we have been campaigning consistently, taking our case out of Nigeria, to the UN, to the European Union, to everywhere, that people are ready to listen.

Then Amnesty International took over in 1995 before Ken was hanged. He was declared a prisoner of conscience. Will you just tell us who Ken was... Ken Saruwa started Mossop. He was a charismatic leader of the Ugani people. When he saw the discrepancies in the oil exploration by Shell, he started writing about it and raised the issue. The oil company didn't like that.

Nigerian government didn't like that. The mainstay of Nigeria is oil. and Ken was not stopping at anything. He was raising the issue, holding Nigeria and Shell to account. It was a trump up charge that was brought by Shell and the Nigerian government that led to his hanging. Now Shell denies any liability for Sarawuiwa's death, however, they paid out a settlement of £15.5 million.

that avoided them having to give testimony. And Nigeria was actually suspended from the Commonwealth for three years due to the scandal caused by the trial. Do you ever fear for your own safety in the wake of this happening? I wasn't afraid of my life because I know this is what I made up my mind to do. The fact that they were threatening the Uguni people. I said, no, this is something that we need to do and we need to do it to the end.

And Lazarus, you know, when we talk about these oil spills, we talk about them coming from Shell. But Shell blames local vandals for these pipeline spills. So how can we be sure that Shell is responsible? Shell is fully responsible for all these things. When they came into our community around in 1958, it's these pipes that they laid us at that time, most

of those pipes have not been changed. So, they are subject to corrosion. It's equipment failure. We have asked shared, what are your safety nets? How do you protect your pipe? How are you

monitoring the pipes? Even when the trans-Niger Delta pipeline has erupted, they are still pushing oil through that pipeline. So it's just careless operation by these companies. Shell has to an extent engaged with your communities. Yesterday, Shell had its annual general meeting. In MM, you were in attendance. Does the fact that you were at this meeting mean

they are acknowledging the problem? They have not accepted responsibility for the pollution and the devastation. The CEO said they have spent a lot of money on development in Nigeria, but that criminality and sabotage, that has been the language. But the question is, even if they allege that there is sabotage, they should hold their staff responsible. There are security everywhere, there is also intimidation by security and then you still turn around to blame the same community members that have suffered negative impact of your business for over the past seven decades. So Shell should take responsibility. They also said something else that Shell has sold off to Renaissance Energy and that Renaissance Energy is buying both assets and

liability. So it is quite clear that Shell has no plan to address the public health issues that we are experiencing in the Niger Delta as a result of their business all these years. So what they have practically done is that after polluting the land and the people and the waters and everything, they just handed over and now they are moving offshore, where communities will not accuse them or disturb their business, and that is very unfortunate. I actually blame the Nigerian government to allow Shell to do what they are doing. If the regulatory authorities were powerful, most of these things will not happen. Talking about Renaissance, Renizance doesn't have any capacity at all.

They don't have financial. capacity, Shell gave them money to buy themselves out. Do you see this? These are the lengths that Shell is going to in order to avoid compensating your community. Yes, they are just defrauding the people of the Niger Delta. That is the way I put it. Looking to the future, in your opinion, what should Shell do? Or to put it more bluntly, what would justice look like to you? What justice looked like to me, they should be responsible as a corporate entity. There should be financial compensation, which is proportionate to what they have done.

Legal justice, which is the route you're currently taking, this takes a long time, years and years. And time is not necessarily a luxury afforded to communities on the front line of environmental and climate destruction. Do you have faith in the courts and in the legal processes to deliver justice for your community? Oh yes. It was only in London here in 2014, we won a shell. And they were to pay 55 million pounds,

which they reluctantly paid. And they were to clean the environment, which for over five years they have refused to do because they sent in their substandard contractors because share doesn't want to spend money. So because of that, we are at the stage we are now. No remediation has been done and no restoration. That is why we have come back to court to hold them to account.

Let the court compare them to go and clean the environment so that the people can return back to their farms and the fishermen can operate as normal. With Amex Platinum, access to exclusive Amex pre-sale tickets can score you a spot trackside. So being a fan for life turns into the trip of a lifetime.

That's the powerful backing of Amex. Pre-sale tickets for future events subject to availability and varied by race. Turns and conditions apply. Learn more at amex.com. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. A new era of fitness is here. Introducing the new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus, powered by Peloton IQ, built for breakthroughs

with personalized workout plans, real-time insights, and endless ways to move. Lift with confidence, while Peloton IQ counts reps, corrects form, and tracks your progress. Let yourself run, lift, flow, and go. Explore the new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus at OnePeloton.ca. Time now to look at the media's role in creating or obstructing an information environment in which legal climate justice has a chance at succeeding. So starting with the language that the media chooses to use. Six years ago, the Guardian updated their style guide to use the terms

climate crisis or climate emergency rather than climate change in their reporting. They felt that climate change as a term no longer accurately reflected the seriousness of the situation. But by and large, this is something that other news outlets haven't followed the Guardian's example with. The Associated Press did update their style guide to say that the term can be used, but it should be used sparingly.

I wonder if you can weigh into this debate being had within the media industry. Are these just words, or is it a bigger deal than that? How important is language that the media chooses to use when it comes to reporting on climate and environmental matters? I think the term climate emergency and climate crisis adequately explains what we experience in the Niger Delta, particularly flooding.

This is the month of May. Some communities are already preparing to be displaced every year. For about four months or five months, some people have to move from their residents to somewhere else. People move to school buildings or church buildings that are located in Upland. For that period, children are not in school. There are no sustainable solutions till now. So to us, it's a crisis. It's an emergency. We feel that the media are not really giving the picture of what communities are experiencing because they are not directly impacted. They don't feel what other people living there feel. So it's an emergency. It's a crisis. It is something that requires urgent measures to address.

I think that what the guardian have done is something that we need to follow. Financial times, the independent and others, they wouldn't do that because those are pro-business. Particularly, Shell has got a lot of lobbyists that are all over the place. They are preventing them from bringing out those harsh realities of life. in terms of usage of words that will suit the situation appropriately. Climate crisis is a complete disaster for the entire universe. When the disaster comes, when flooding happens, it doesn't restrict to anywhere. When the bushfire is on, they don't say, oh yeah, that is shell house, the bushfire will not destroy it.

It doesn't know any of those things. A good example of that is, you know, the fires recently in L.A. It doesn't matter how rich and famous you are. Those fires will take down your house as well. And Lazarus, you make a really important point about relationships between media and business. The Guardian has quite an unusual funding model that is based largely on donations from readers and on philanthropic donations, actually the same as this podcast, which makes it much less dependent on corporate advertising revenue.

By contrast, there's a really good example, a recent article from The Daily Mail, which I just want to point out to listeners as something that people should look out for. Last week, the Daily Mail reported a news story about Amazon launching a rival website to Chinese companies, Shine and TEMU. Essentially, it reads like a press release,

it only includes a statement from Amazon's UK lead, but it is listed as a news article. And because it doesn't include any direct links to Amazon's service, it can get away with not being flagged as e-commerce. However, as you scroll down the article, it is flooded with advertising. And these ads are generated by Amazon ads, basically Amazon's online ad distribution service. So to put it simply, this news article is bringing in revenue for the Daily Mail from the company Amazon. So what are they not going to include in the report? the whole article fails to include any mention of how Amazon provides such cheap services that are competitive with China

despite wide knowledge of cheap labour, environmental impact and murky supply chains. So I think that that just really illustrates what you're pointing to about how relevant business relationships are in the language the media chooses to use. If you look at our campaigns, like the one we did at Shell headquarters yesterday, I mean, it was a big crowd making a lot of noise, pointing out what Shell has done. Apart from the Guardian, there's no mention of it in any of the brush sheet here. I haven't seen it throughout this morning. I've been scrolling through it.

I have not seen any. This is important because I think we also do want to talk about how important media attention is in legal cases like yours. to help them succeed. And I wonder if there are any positive experiences that you've had with UK or international media in terms of bringing global attention to your stories. BBC War Service used to help quite a lot.

But that has faded away completely. I don't know what has happened. But we need more of those things to come up so that people here in the West will not forget about what the people in the Nigeria that are still going through. They might think that, yes, the whole thing has been resolved. I was speaking outside the Royal Court of Justice the other day. And this lady said, I thought that this thing has been resolved.

I said, no, it has not been. There have been no more changes. So that kind of a thing, the press should assist us to constantly remind The population that these companies have not shifted an inch from their original position is driving the people of the Niger Delta to extension. And Lazarus, you said that you don't know what happened to the BBC World Service. Well, it was only earlier this year that the World Service announced that it would cut 130 jobs as part of a plan to save around £6 million in the next financial year. So that's what's happened. I wanted to briefly also share experience.

I was interviewed by the BBC Focus on Africa. I think that was in December. And then before we came on this trip, Anna Mende felt to reach out. And somebody said they had interviewed me in December, so they have no intentions of covering this. So that is not encouraging. Is it that there is media fatigue? Is the media buying into shells' narrative of criminality and sabotage in the Niger Delta?

It's good you brought this up. Let me use this forum to appeal to the international media that they should not give up on the Niger Delta. We still need them to put pressure on the big corporations and the federal government of Nigeria to address all the issues and the challenges. and the challenges that the Niger Delta has experienced as a result of the oil economy. You asked there, is this because people have fatigue with what is happening in the Niger Delta? And I think one of the issues is that we see it as something that is happening in the Niger Delta. And so the media will allocate it a small number of articles based on the fact that it is a foreign and international world news story.

But while most readers of the BBC or the Guardian or whatever are not on the front lines in the 9th, Delta, they are consumers of shell. This is a UK story. Almost all of us consume shell oil in some capacity in our lives. And there's this massive, massive disconnect between like climate stories on the front line and UK domestic stories. You know, there was an article this week in The Telegraph about how, oh, the net zero transition here, it's leading only to job losses. There's a real problem with like the loss of jobs in the net zero transition. Actually, this story was based off a protest staged by climate activists and trade

unionists together saying let's have a responsible transition that like takes workers into account. But the article gives no context about what net zero is for, about the climate crisis that is motivating this transition. It acts as if this is happening in a vacuum

and the government is just for some stupid reason trying to like sacrifice all the jobs in our economy. This is context. This is vital context you know. And it's always missing from domestic stories. I think that there is just a massive disconnect. How connected our stories about UK consumerism, UK economy, UK industrialism and what is happening in your communities and other communities around the world on the front lines of this crisis?

Yeah, I think what you have said also explained what came out at the AGM yesterday because there was emphasis by the CEO on demands from the conjure. The demand is still there for energy from fossil fuel production, so we cannot cut down on fossil fuel production. That came out strongly, and it was like it became a response to a good percentage of the questions that were asked. Now I understand better. People here in the UK and Europe, when we talk about the Niger data, they say, oh, it's far away, 6,000 miles away. and all right, okay, until it comes to them. When it comes to them, that is the time they will now realize,

oh, what these people were saying 30 years ago is now reality. That is how life appears to be, unfortunately. But if we see something that is not going right, like indigenous people are crying all the time that their environment has been destroyed. They cannot live the way they used to live before and is caused by all these fossil fuel companies

and extractive companies that are on their land. I don't see how we can detach ourselves from those realities. We should embrace them and see how we can create some solution to the problems. When I go back, I live in border myself in the midst of all this crisis and I see the pollution every day. But you have to relay it to others for them to understand that this is the reality on the ground. No, Lazarus, that is an incredible point because the thing is nobody is safe from the climate crisis. People may think, okay, it's happening to those further afield right now,

but it will happen to you. It will come to you in this country. It is here already, and it's a very good point that we need to stop that cognitive dissonance. We have to wrap up now, but I just want to say a huge thank you to both of you for joining us here in the studio. We want to ask both of you. Let's start with Dr. M.M. What can people listening do to get involved? Yeah, share the story.

Influence the people who have the decision-making powers. Those listening could have connections with directors in Shell. They need to be made to understand the significance of their decisions, of their actions, of their business. They cannot always prioritize profits over the people. Another support is from the media angle that has come out here strongly. It is also important to link with the media in Nigeria. They also need to up their game. If there is that connection between the local media and the international media, it will make the case stronger.

Dr. Amam Okun, thank you for your input. And Lazarus, is there anything that people listening can do to get involved? Yes, we were in Parliament just on Monday. There was a report that we compiled for the past three years. Members of Parliament are very, very key people in all these things that we are doing. That's one. Two, people can assist Amnesty International so that Amnesty can now assist the communities who are struggling to get their feet.

Those kind of help will go a great deal to assist all of us who are campaigning. We also have a direct call to action for our listeners from Amnesty UK. They have a campaign called No Cleanup, No Justice. We will include a link to the page in the show notes where you can sign up to stay on top of any calls to action. And for anyone interested in reading Dr. M. M. Okun's incredible research about the impact of oil spills on women's health and reproductive health,

we will also include a link to that research in the show notes. Thank you so much. Thank you. Now, the Nigerian company that is at the centre of this unfolding trial has of course been owned by Shell for the majority of its existence. But as mentioned in that episode, it has recently been, passed to the Renaissance African Energy Company, or RAEC. So we'll read their lawyer's defence that has been laid out in the early stages of this

trial. Lawyers for the RAEC said the oil company paid out £55 million in compensation to the Bodo community a decade ago, as was discussed by Lazarus in this episode. They also said at this time an arrangement called the Bodo Mediation Initiative or BMI was set up. He called their clean-up efforts, remarkably successful, and said, The defendant's position is that the BMI is far advanced in completing the cleanup and remediation of the 2008 Bodo oil spills in accordance with and in satisfaction of the applicable Nigerian law standards as approved by the Nigerian regulators.

Levels of oil contamination in the Bodo cleanup area have been drastically reduced and the regulator has recently certified that they are now below the limits required under Nigerian law. The statement called sabotage and theft endemic problems in the Niger Delta and continued, not only would a mandatory injunction for further cleanup be wasteful and cut across the approvals granted by the Nigerian regulators, but the cleanup proposed by the claimants would in fact do more harm than good to the Bodo environment. Thank you for listening. Next week we're bringing you our live show where we debated the most honest.

unhinged headlines of 2025. Can you guess what they were? If you want to support MediaStorm, you can do so on Patreon for less than a cup of coffee a month. The link is in the show notes and a special shout out to everyone in our Patreon community. We appreciate you so much. And if you enjoyed this episode, please send it to someone. Word of mouth is still the best way to grow a podcast. So please do tell your friends and leave us a five-star rating and a review.

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