Over 100 Nigerian and international civil society organisations have called on the Federal Government to take urgent measures to clean up decades of oil pollution caused by multinational oil companies, insisting that the companies, not Nigerian taxpayers, must bear the cost.
The coalition issued the demand in a statement following the recent collapse of TotalEnergies’ $860 million sale of its shares in the Renaissance Africa Energy Company Joint Venture to Chappal Energies, a development that has raised fresh questions about President Bola Tinubu’s decision to override the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC)’s initial advice on similar divestments.
The statement is jointly signed by 106 Nigerian and international civil society groups, including the Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA Resource Centre), Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), Health of Mother Earth Foundation, Oxfam, Global Rights, War on Want, among others.
According to reports, NUPRC cancelled the approval for the TotalEnergies-Chappal deal after the buyer failed to raise the required funds and fulfil financial obligations, including regulatory fees and provisions for environmental rehabilitation. The commission confirmed that TotalEnergies also did not meet its obligations regarding future liabilities.
“We welcome NUPRC’s enforcement of the regulations it is mandated to enforce but regret that it has taken months for the decision to enter the public domain. The Nigerian public has a right to be informed of such developments as and when they occur,” the groups said.
They questioned why the now-collapsed deal had received ministerial consent in the first place, warning that such approvals without due diligence expose Nigeria to environmental and financial risks.
The coalition further linked the development to President Tinubu’s controversial decision to overrule NUPRC’s earlier objections to the sale of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) to Renaissance Africa Energy. NUPRC had reportedly raised concerns about Renaissance’s technical and financial capacity to take responsibility for SPDC’s legacy pollution liabilities, estimated to run into tens of billions of dollars.
“With the collapse of the Total-Chappal deal, the Shell-Renaissance transaction must be reviewed. If NUPRC’s concerns were well-founded, there is a huge risk that the Nigerian people will end up paying for SPDC’s environmental mess,” the organisation stated.
The groups called for an independent review of the Shell-Renaissance divestment deal, the immediate release of the Environmental Evaluation Studies (EES) for each sale, and the publication of the S&P assessment reportedly commissioned by NUPRC.
Reaffirming their commitment to environmental justice, the organisations invoked the memory of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni-9, urging the government to act decisively against abusive corporate practices by oil multinationals.
“Democracy is not a spectator sport. It rests on the active involvement of citizens. We call on civil society groups and parliamentarians to ensure that the legacy of pollution caused by international oil companies is immediately cleaned up to international standards and that the companies, not Nigerians, pay the price,” they urged.’
