A broad-based coalition of civil society organisations comprising people of the Niger Delta region, environmental activists, representatives of host oil and gas communities, human rights groups, students, youths, artisans, and media practitioners, on Monday, held a rally at the office of the British oil and gas company, Shell PLC, Marina, in Lagos.
The CSOs were asking that Shell should stop oil and gas extraction in Nigeria, and urged investors to stop funding Shell’s operations, owing to the environmental damage that the company’s operations were allegedly causing to the water, land, and human resources in Nigeria.
They equally called for a limit of global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius pre-industrial level, and demanded, amongst others, an end to carbon emission. They equally called for a people-centred transition from fossil fuel to clean energy in Nigeria as well as the clean-up of the Ogoni land and the entire Niger Delta region.
The coalition which was led by the Africa Network for Environmental and Economic Justice had on Sunday, issued a resolution at a people’s Annual General Meeting, a shadow CSOs AGM to Shell’s AGM scheduled for May 24, 2022. The AGM resolutions signed by its leadership, the Convener – Rev. David Ugolor and Co-Chairmen – Legborsi Pyagbara and Taiwo Otitolaye, concluded that:
“Nigerian oil-bearing communities and citizens who are the victims of Shell and other international oil and gas companies have voted an emphatic “NO” to shell’s Energy Transition Strategy.
“The Church of England and other investors should stop lending moral and financial support to shell and should vote against Shell’s energy transition strategy at the May 24, 2022, AGM.
“We call on the investors to immediately embark on a Fact-Finding Mission in collaboration with the civil society actors to ascertain the true situation of Shell’s operations in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria.
“Shell should go back to the drawing board and revise the 2021 energy transition strategy to align with the Paris Agreement of limiting the increase in the average global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
“Given the inherent dangers of any further investment to the attainment of net-zero target poses, Shell should immediately commence a process of winding down the process of further exploration of fossil fuel in Nigeria. Increasing investment in oil and gas as evidenced in its current strategy must cease.
“Shell should cut down emission at source rather than targeting nature-based solution.
“Key stakeholders driving the clean-up of Ogoni land should do the needful to remove the impediments to actualising the smooth implementation of the recommendations of the United Nations Environment Programme report.
“We call on Shell’s AGM to commit to a comprehensive cleanup of the entire Niger Delta.”
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