Growing up in southern Nigeria during the 1970s, Bubaraye Dakolo would easily catch 20 kilograms of fish within minutes. These days, a fisherman casts nets all night, only to bring back just about three kilograms.
Now Dakolo, the monarch of Ekpetiama, a kingdom in the southern coastal state of Bayelsa, a custodian of peace and tradition and a former soldier, has risen to be one of the country’s prominent environmental crusaders.
When Shell announced earlier this year it was divesting its onshore assets without first addressing decades-long oil pollution, he decided silence was not an option for a royal.
He sued one of the world’s oil giants to force it to clean up and restore the environmental health of his kingdom.
Farming and fishing communities in the Niger Delta, the heartland of Nigeria’s crude production, have borne the brunt of pollution.
A four-year-long investigation by the Bayelsa State Oil and Environmental Commission — an panel of international experts and prominent figures — concluded in 2023 that it will cost $12 billion to clean up Bayelsa state.
Bayelsa is where oil was first discovered in Africa in the 1950s, and where companies, including Shell, have operated for decades.
“We have international-level reports showing that they are culpable, there are other documents showing that they are culpable. And then of course, I have a lot of evidence in my mouth that they are culpable. And I’m going to say it,” Dakolo told AFP in an interview in Nigeria’s commercial hub of Lagos.
He recalls walking to school “on naked petroleum pipelines” that criss-cross his kingdom of 1.5 million people to avoid walking along busy tarred main roads.
As kids they also played, climbing the pipelines, pretending to be acrobats, he wrote in his autobiography.
“I was born into seeing this calamity”. At the time “it didn’t strike me like atrocities”, said the 60-year-old tall and slender king dressed in his multi-coloured ceremonial robes.
– ‘Ping-pong objections’ –
Author of five books including a recently published one collating evidence of the “atrocities” committed in the Niger Delta by oil firms, Dakolo said his father’s work at a refinery gave him a front row view of oil production operations.
Oil companies generally say they operate according to the sector’s environmental best practices and blame most spills on sabotage and oil thieves tapping into pipelines.
But Dakolo’s suit against Shell is due for pre-trial hearing on Wednesday.
It seeks to halt the transfer of Shell assets to a Nigerian company, Renaissance, pending an agreement to fund environmental cleanup, decommissioning of obsolete infrastructure and community compensation.
“They must come and restore the environment to its pristine tranquility. They have to. You cannot just come and destroy the place, make all the money, and leave us empty. No!
“Let’s have back our environment.”
He said studies show there are carcinogenic hydrocarbons “in our blood, in lethal amounts. So we are actually living dead”.
Dakolo said life expectancy in his kingdom is low at 40 years compared to an average 54 in the Niger Delta region.
He is challenging what he called Shell’s “surreptitious exit” and seeking to force it to fund the $12-billion clean up — considered one of the largest corporate environmental liabilities in history.
In court he is seeking $2-billion in community compensation for his kingdom which he considers “not enough. What is the value of a human life?”.
Shell told AFP that Renaissaince is handling the litigation. AFP did not get a response to its query from Renaissance. But Dakolo, who insists he is suing Shell, said, according to his lawyers, Shell is expected to raise preliminary objections during the sitting on Wednesday.
“They were on my land for about six decades, destroyed the land and disappeared without due process. They should account for all their bad acts.
“All of these ping-pong preliminary objections are part of their strategy of just trying to wear you out”.
He is determined to fight on.
“If you are a traditional leader or ruler and you are not an environmental advocate, then you are not doing part of your work. You owe yourself, your people and nature and the world to protect the environment with all of your being,” he said.
Nigeria, Africa’s leading oil producer, wants to attract more foreign investment since President Bola Tinubu came to office in 2023 with a raft of reforms.
Last week Shell announced a $2 billion investment in a new offshore gas project in Nigeria.
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