YENAGOA, Nigeria, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Nigeria's state oil
company and its joint venture partners have spent $360 million
on cleaning up the Niger Delta oil heartland in the past two
years, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) said
on Monday, but locals said little work had been done.
Nigeria is Africa's biggest crude oil exporter. Oil sales
account for around 90% of its foreign currency earnings but oil
spills in the southern Niger Delta region have caused pollution
and angered locals.
Royal Dutch Shell Plc RDSa.L was forced out of Ogoniland
in 1993 by campaigners led by activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, after they
said the oil company had destroyed their fishing environment.
Saro-Wiwa was later hanged by the military government, prompting
international outrage.
A 2011 United Nations report warned of catastrophic
pollution in soil and water in Ogoniland. It said Shell and
Nigeria's government needed to address the problems.
In 2015 Shell accepted responsibility for operational faults
that caused two spills in 2008.
Shell paid a settlement of 55 million pounds to villagers
and since then has said it has taken steps to improve the
situation in the area, including training youths to start up
businesses and funding community patrols to reduce pollution by
vandals stealing oil.
A cleanup process launched in 2017 followed years of legal
wrangling in the wake of oil spills.
NNPC and its joint venture partners of Shell Petroleum
Development Company (SPDC), Total Exploration and Production of
Nigeria (TEPNG) and Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC) "have
disbursed $360 million towards the Ogoniland clean-up project,"
NNPC Chief Operating Officer for Upstream, Roland Ewubare told
lawmakers during a presentation on Monday.
Ewubare said the $360 million was out of a total $900
million recommended by the United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP). He said NNPC and it partners were ready to fund the
project as prescribed by the UNEP report.
But a number of locals questioned the impact of the
operation.
"What they are touting as a cleanup is substandard,"
Christian Kpandei, a fish farmer whose land was polluted, said
in an interview with Reuters.
Morris Alagoa, of the Environmental Rights Action (ERA)
campaign group, said he had seen little activity since the
operation began.
"I can't say those handling the cleanup have actually
started real work," he said.
But a photograph seen by Reuters taken in the last few weeks
in Bodo, which sits in Ogoniland, showed men wearing overalls
and hard hats beside boats, suggesting some activity.
A spokesman for NNPC said the company and its partners
merely distribute funds, which they have done.