Amnesty International says Niger Delta is human rights tragedy

The prolonged crisis in the Niger Delta will not cease until the federal government brings to an end years of human rights and environmental abuse in the area, an International Human Rights group, Amnesty International, said in a report released on Tuesday in Abuja.

The report, signed by the group's Head of Business and Human Rights, Audrey Gaughran, also criticised Nigeria's handling of the crisis, saying the government gave no adequate regulation to oil companies, thereby allowing pollution and chaos that has resulted in a "human rights tragedy" in the area.

"The Nigerian government desperately wants to see an end to the conflict in the Niger Delta," Mr. Gaughran said.

"But the poverty and conflict that continues to scar the Niger Delta will not be resolved until underlying causes - including decades of environmental damage - and impunity for abuses of the environment and human rights ends, and until the Nigerian government garners sufficient political will and the means to deal with the oil company activities that cause widespread damage to human rights."

He said the problems of the region have chiefly been that of an area supplying the wealth of a nation, but languishing in poverty, while pollution that deprives many of their livelihoods goes under-reported and unaccounted for by the authorities and the multinationals.

"The Niger Delta provides a stark example of the lack of accountability of a government to its people and of multinational companies' almost total lack of accountability when it comes to the impact of their operations on human rights." Mr. Gaughran, also a co-author of a major new report, Petroleum, Pollution and Poverty in the Niger Delta, said.

The report scrutinises oil spills, gas flaring, waste disposal and other environmental impacts of the oil industry that have made the area one of the most polluted globally.

Poor remedial efforts

"The Nigerian government is aware of the risks that oil-related pollution poses for human rights, but has failed to take measures to ensure those rights are not harmed.

Despite the widespread pollution of the Niger Delta's land, rivers and creeks - and the many complaints from people living in the region - we could find almost no government data on the impact on humans of any aspect of oil pollution in the Niger Delta."

The group blamed the government for failing to regulate the activities of the oil companies, allowing the opportunity for the multinationals to commit acts that negate the global principles of human rights.

Worse still, according to the organisation, the same perpetrators of the crime - oil majors - are entrusted by the government with the responsibility of remedying such abuses.

Amnesty International said in all the communities it visited during its studies, the creeks, ponds or rivers had been damaged by oil spills or other oil-related pollution - often more than once.