Malabu scandal, new chapter of exploitation exposed – Group

The Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) has said the Malabu oil scandal and the admittance by Shell of knowingly participating in the huge OPL 245 scandal opens a new chapter in the understanding of exploitation without responsibility in the Nigerian oil sector.

The director of the ecological group, Nnimmo Bassey, who disclosed this in a statement, said getting the truth about deals, extent of oil pollution and sundry human rights issues in Nigeria have always been a hide-and-seek game.

He noted that the multinational oil company only admitted wrongdoing when boxed into a corner

“HOMEF recalls that over the years as questions were raised on the Malibu oil case, Shell stuck to the claim that its payments on the deal were only to the Nigerian government. With the revelation that such claims were false, the searchlight now turns squarely on the Nigerian government.

“The world waits to see what sanctions the Nigerian government will impose on Shell and all accomplices in this scandal,’’ he added.

Shell had last Tuesday said it was aware that some of the payments it made to Nigeria for rights to the oil fields in the 2011 deal would go to a company close to a former Nigerian oil minister, Dan Etete.

“This development validates our conviction that the petroleum sector in Nigeria is extremely opaque and that the Nigerian people and the environment are perpetual victims while corporations and officers holding positions of public trust flourish in graft and wickedness,” Comrade Che Ibegwura, a veteran Niger Delta activist and community organiser, said.