TODAY
January 31, 2021
Following Friday’s ruling by a Dutch court that found Shell liable of polluting the farmlands of four farmers in the Niger Delta region, Artisanal Fishermen Association of Nigeria (ARFAN) has advised the oil firm to promptly comply with the judgement and compensate the farmers.
The association also hailed the ruling and urged Shell to remediate the polluted environment as ordered by the Dutch appeal court.
A court in the Netherlands on Friday ordered the Nigerian subsidiary of Shell, to pay compensation over the 2008 oil spills in Oruma, Bayelsa, Goi in Rivers and Ikot Ada Udo, in Akwa Ibom.
The Artisan Fishermen Association of Nigeria (ARFAN) is seeking the intervention of the Nigerian government in getting Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company to pay a fine of $3.6 billion levied on it by an industry regulator for a spill in Bonga oilfield in 2011
Samuel Ayade, coordinator of the fishermen group, made the demand in Yenagoa on Friday, saying fishermen had been grappling with severe difficulties in fishing in polluted waters since a leak during a transfer of oil into a tanker at the Bonga offshore field operated by Shell in 2011, causing 40,000 barrels of oil to spill into the waters.
The settlement of the fine has been outstanding for over eight years now, with a Shell spokesperson saying in 2012 that everything was done to forestall damage to the environment and there was no justification for the penalty in the first place.
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Daniels Igoni, Yenagoa
The Artisan Fishermen Association of Nigeria has called on the Federal Government to prevail on Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company to pay the $3.6bn fine imposed on it by an industry regulator over the 2011 Bonga oilfield spill incident.
The Coordinator, ARFAN, Niger Delta chapter, Samuel Ayadi, who made the call in an interview in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, on Friday, said fishermen had suffered untold hardship fishing at the nation’s territorial waters since 2011 when an equipment failure from the Bonga offshore field operated by SNEPCo discharged some 40,000 barrels of crude into the waters.