The leak of documents from Shell reveal its deep financial ties to human rights abusers.
Shell spent at least $383 million on security in Nigeria between 2007 and 2009, or a substantial 40% of the company’s billion-dollar global security spending, according to internal financial data leaked to oil watchdog Platform. Shell’s leaked data is analysed in a new Platform briefing, Dirty Work: Shell’s security spending in Nigeria and beyond.
The briefing, as reported in the Guardian and Data Blog, reveals the extent of Shell’s financial support for Nigerian government forces and other armed groups during a period of intense conflict in the Niger Delta. It follows Platform’s 2011 report, Counting the Cost, which showed how Shell’s reliance on government forces in Nigeria and its routine payments to armed militant groups had exacerbated human rights abuses. Amongst this report’s findings, contracts implicated Shell in the funding of militants; funding that helped to perpetuate ongoing conflict in the Delta region. The new briefing confirms the vast scale of Shell’s security expenditure and its devastating consequences.