Country ... Nigeria
Oil Industry Pollution

AJE ... UN slams Shell over Nigeria oil pollution ... Report says it will cost up to $1bn and take 30 years to clean up damage done by oil giant in Niger Delta.

Burgess COMMENTARY
I have been around the Niger Delta since the 1970s, first as a US based corporate manager with responsibility for the building of a shrimp fishing operation in the area, and later as a consultant for various development organizations, including the World Bank, IFC, UNDP, IFAD, UNHCR and UNIDO.

The behavior of international corporate organizations in Africa has been abysmal ... in my view substantially worse than the old colonial companies that operated before independence. Bottom line, the big multinational companies seem to be willing to do anything in the name of more profit expecially if what they do is not easily observed by media, especially international media.
Peter Burgess

UN slams Shell over Nigeria oil pollution Report says it will cost up to $1bn and take 30 years to clean up damage done by oil giant in Niger Delta.

A UN report says it will cost up to $1bn and take 30 years to clean up the damage done by decades of drilling by Shell.

Oil exploration in Nigeria's south for several decades has had a debilitating effect on the environment of the region.

Shell, the Anglo-Dutch oil company, has been accused of serious failures in its handling of the pollution in the Niger Delta and shirking its responsibility.

Activists have demanded that Shell's licence be revoked for the environmental disaster.

But with 90 per cent of the government's revenue coming from petroleum exports, oil companies seem to have clear political leverage over the issue.

Al Jazeera's Yvonne Ndege reports from southern Nigeria.

Source: Al Jazeera