Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) has allocated N600,000 (approx. US$3,000) to each of 15,500 indigenous peoples of Bodo, in the Gokana Local Government Area of Rivers State, as a monetary compensation for its excessive oil spills in the past years. These oil spills have had a damaging effect on the Ogoni environment. The compensation was decided after six years of legal battle.
Extracts from related article
In 2010, Shell agreed on out-of-court settlement in a case brought against it by the people of Bodo community over the excessive oil spills from the company’s failed facilities, which had caused a damaging effect on the Ogoni environment and its people.
Disclosing this much during a solidarity visit by a delegation of Friends of the Earth and Environmental Rights Action FoE/ERA led by its Executive Director, Dr Godwin Ojo, the Chairman of Bodo Council of Chiefs, Mene Sylvester Kogbara, said Bodo people had already started to use the money to “develop themselves.”