Brief background Shell was exploiting the natural reserves of oil and gas from the Nigerian Coastal plains dwelled by an ethnic group of Ogoni. Shell’s Nigerian operation constituted 11-12% of its output and 200 million dollar’s sale of annually. On contrary, Nigeria plummeted economically even 3 decades after independence partly because of political failure that neither could not leverage its competencies and nor reduce its oil dependency. Immature political system ultimately led to Military coup d'état ensuing a totalitarian rule reigning Nigeria brutally and undemocratically. Nigerian state affairs were in shambles. When 110 million Nigerians were victims of the ruthless military regime, ½-million Ogani’s were no exception. Identification of the Key issues 1. Acts of Shell- failure in performing its social responsibilities and insensitive to Human rights and environmental concerns in the location of its operation 2. Failures on part of Political Economy of Nigeria 3. Hypocrisy of Developed World like US and EU Analysis of issues • Acts of Shell Shell was extravagantly extracting the oil and gas from Ogoni for years. Government had always neglected them and so had Shell, thereby leading to a massive protest targeted at both the parties. They were earning a lot by exploiting the islands but giving almost nothing in returns. Their lands were environmentally degraded; soil and ground water rampantly contaminated mostly pertaining to oil leakage emanating from poorly maintained and dilapidated pipelines. Shell reciprocated this agitation by not clearing its spillages; but rather restricting itself from the region and making allegations of sabotage. Repeatedly the people were brutalized for raising grievances, security forces threatened, beat, and jailed members of community for seeking effective compensation for land ruined or livelihood lost. Number of incidents ware fueled by Shell requesting for security force’s intervention. This included arrest, trial and execution of Saro-Wiwa and 8 others at the outset of protests during Shell’s forceful acquisition of crop land for extending pipelines. In fact, Shell was mostly complicit at abuses because they failed to condemn them publicly or to intervene with the Nigerian government so that they didn’t reoccur. Frequently, Shell made no effort to learn what was done in their name by abusive local security forces because most protests emanated from issues such as environmental pollution and corruption pertinent to Oil companies. Despite these abuses and international pressures shell the situation lightly and went ahead with tie-up with the Military Government on its Liquidified Gas Plant deal. Similarly, even the shareholders were not serious on these issues.
dangers in the nuclear plant because the bosses just ignored it. The bosses and workers are not
In the Macondo blowout case, (Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill), leaders within Transocean and British Petroleum (BP) processed a “by any means necessary” mentality as well. The company cultures promoted doing whatever was possible to enhance profits. This oil leak and explosion, resulted in the loss of 11 lives, destroyed beaches and wetlands, and killed multiple wildlife species. The most telling piece of information throughout this case is that the oil spill and explosion could ...
The accident investigation indicated that BP focus on cost-cutting and high production caused the serious deterioration of safety regulations at the refinery. The spill resulted from the company’s fail...
The high demand for the product, proves to be a problem. As the world population constantly increasing, this means demand for energy, petrol, fuels would rise. Taking into account of what people need energy for and how high the demand for it, will show that Shell is not a sustainable business. Machinery needs energy to be able to operate so that it can manufacture people’s needs and wants, things such as phones, electricity, cars, the internet, homes and more. The higher the demand, the more oil Shell has to extract from the reserves, meaning a higher rate in oil reserved depleting, this will lead to Shell losing one of its main source of income. Another reason why Shell is an unsustainable business is that it is also not environmentally sustainable. As with many incidents from Shell spilling oil, and polluting the environment, this shows that Shell is not at all environmentally sustainable. As problems arise to shows that the use of oil, fuels and high-carbon based resources to be converted into energy is damaging the Earth, and with the current demand for these resources, it will lead to the environment gradually degrading and more
The World Bank’s involvement in the Chad-Cameroon Oil Pipeline project was originally intended to make sure that Chad’s oil money was being returned to the civilians and ensure that the pipeline was being constructed in an ecologically friendly way (Horta, Nguiffo, & Djiraibe, n.d.). In 2000, the World Bank stated that the project’s success "will be measured by poverty reduction rather than by barrels of oil produced or millions of dollars received by Chad for oil exports,” (Horta, Nguiffo, & Djiraibe, n.d.). Contrarily to what the public was assured, the civilians have not been helped by the pipeline but have in fact been hurt. The already astonishingly low life expectancy of individuals in Chad has dropped an average of 1.1 years within the
Oil pollution has been a major environmental concern since commercial scale oil extraction began in the Niger Delta in the 1950s and it will be for as long as oil extraction continues. Since the 1950s because of the increasing demand for crude oil and the existence of large oil reserves, the Niger Delta has experienced what can be called an environmental disaster from oil pollution, which resulted in major consequences for the environment and for the indigenous people who depended on the region for their livelihood. A study on Ogoniland, located in the Rivers State of the Niger Delta, revealed that the soil, groundwater, vegetation, surface water and even the air had been contaminated by petroleum hydrocarbons, devastating aquatic and agricultural communities and causing serious health issues for many residents (Environmental Assessment 2011). Many historians, environmentalists, political theorists, and other parties have discussed and explored this disaster, leading to disagreement about who is to be blamed. Two general positions have emerged as a result: the first position, suggests the Nigerian State made the country ripe for such a disaster and that although multinational oil companies (MNOCs) like Shell might have played some role, the state that is primarily responsible for the environmental disaster in the Niger Delta because it is in control of rules, regulations, policies, and revenue. The second position argues that MNOCs themselves, with Shell being used as an example, are primarily responsible for the environmental disaster in the Niger Delta because they are in direct contact with the oil, equipment, and local people. Ultimately, the examination of popular and secondary research and of both positions outlined above l...
of Nigeria. While Nigeria was still under British rule, in 1958, Shell started oil production,
The environmental danger taken by offshore drilling is very straight forward, made clear by oil spills such as the recent BP oil spill and the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 off the shore of Alaska. In the circumstances of the Exxon Valdez spill up to 250,000 sea birds died, over 2,800 sea otters and thousands of other animals], (figures from the BP oil spill are not yet concluded), having had a heavy strike on the regional wildlife and directing to a ban on all offshore drilling in America, until George Bush overturned it in 2008 to this repeal was a misjudgment because two years later there was the Deepwater Horizon spill. In this way, offshore drilling ruins ecosystems and fish supplies which creates a wasteland of a shoreline among southern USA.
Gambrel, Jon. “Nigerian Rebels Seize Seven Oil Workers”. Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved on 21 Nov, 2011 from
If I was the CEO of Wateroil and my company just had the largest oil spill in history, I would tell the investigators right away that it was not an accident. I would feel terrible that it is affecting a lot of people’s lives and businesses. The faster the truth is told about what happened, the faster the issue can be resolved even though there will be consequences. I don’t think I could live with the guilt of knowing how many lives were affected but I didn’t tell the truth just to save my job and company. Corporate greed and corruption is exactly what is taking place in this situation. Corporate greed and corruption is the act of intentionally deceiving, lying, cheating, and stealing in business.
...esult, 1000 civilians died, but majority of the fundamentalist group was taken out. In 2009, Goodluck Jonathan assumed presidency when Umaru Yar’Adu died (BBC News Africa, 2013). In 2011 elections, Goodluck Jonathan took majority of the vote against military opponent, Muhammadu Buhari. Observers have stated this election is the most fair it has ever been in history, but Buhari’s supporters opposed the results. Quickly after, the fundamentalist group, Boko Haram, made resurgence and there were daily attacks in the country. As a result, the Nigerian government declared a state of emergency and dispatched troops. In January 2012, Goodluck Jonathan removed the country’s fuel subsidy to repair the tattered economy, but only caused fuel and food prices to rise. In response to the rise of prices, Nigerians began to protest, which eventually led to reinstating the subsidy.
...ld help improve the economy of the nation. The pocketing of profits by corrupt government officials shows characteristics of patrimonialism, which not only hinders the economy because these profits are the sole source of revenue for the nation, but also harms the democratic stability of the nation and can to some extent cause the regime changes of the nation. The civic conflicts of the nation are not handled by the government and not only do these conflicts drain revenue from the government, but shows the lack of mobilization in the government, possibly due to a lack of taxation, due to the resource curse. These claims show that the resource curse has affected the government and economy of Nigeria greatly as it leads to ineffective and corrupt government with a hindered chance of democratization, with civic conflict that cannot be controlled by the civic government.
To adapt one of Isichei's claims, Nigeria's “confrontation with an alien culture, its conquest, and the experience of an alien rule, created … [crises]” (180). There were many riots and conflicts between the Nigerians and the British, although most of the uprisings were eventually subdued by the military power of the British. Riots were common—from the culturally rooted Yoruba riots in the West and the religious skirmishes with the Muslims and Hausa in the North, to the confrontations with the naturally ‘rich,' yet stubborn Igbo and Delta states. Apart from encompassing all the major ethnic groupings and regions in Nigeria, amazingly these conflicts also covered the three most explicit British inculcations: cultural, religious, and economic.
Nigeria, with its prodigous oil and natural gas reserves, has the potential to be one of the most affluent places on the planet, were it not for the rampant corruption that defines it. Instead, it is the 20th poorest country in the world1. Much like the guanxi of China, Nigeria practices prebendalism—the use of high-level positions to gain personal wealth. In other words, people exchange money for political favors, which of course creates a greedy and corrupt society. The extent of this fraudulency is such that most of Nigeria's oil wealth is sucked up by one per cent of the population, while more than 60% falls below the poverty line. In fact, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has determined that 92% of Nigeria lives on less than one dollar a day2. Meanwhile, it is estimated that in the past 50 years, three to four hundred billion dollars have been stolen by government officials.
Socially Nigeria has been able to trade there wide selection of oils with foreign countries for their products and goods. Giving them the access to these products has helped Nigeria modernize.