UN whitewashes the ecocide and genocide of Shell in Niger Delta

If BP is insulting and harming the US people and clearly manipulating the US government, go figure what can happen in a much poorer country like Nigeria!

But what about the United Nations? It seems that Royal Dutch Shell, the second largest company of the world and one with a very murky past (specially remembered for its support of the Apartheid regime in South Africa), is also perfectly able to buy its favors.

This is what Black Agenda Report denounced a few days ago: that the study by the UN Environmental Program, paid by Shell, blames locals and the guerrilla for 90% of polution and spills in the Delta Region, once known as Biafra. However it seems that it has backtracked and claims now that no official report is due until next year.

Whatever the case the situation in the Niger Delta, denounced by AI, may be even worse than that of the Gulf of Mexico, at least in many aspects.


The true scope of Niger River Delta pollution is catastrophic, with the equivalent of 9 to 13 million barrels of oil fouling the waterways, farmlands and mangrove forests of Africa's largest wetland. That's at least twice as much oil as escaped in the recent Gulf of Mexico disaster, thus ranking Nigeria and Shell as the number one oil polluters in the world (Glenn Ford at Black Agenda Report).