Today 35 Nigerian Villages banded together and sued the Royal Dutch Shell PLC (Shell Oil Company in the U.S.) in a British Court, claiming that the company's poor and slow response after two oil spills in 2008 destroyed the environment and their livelihoods. Shell is the biggest oil company in Nigeria- a nation that is completely dependent on oil revenue to sustain even the most meager of lifestyles.
The company denied the lawsuit, claiming that the damage to the environment and economy is a result of thieves who routinely tap the pipelines.
The lawsuit seeks for Shell to clean the delta, both the river and the marshland, of the 35 villages in the town of Bodo. The suit claims that the company allowed 23.5 million gallons (560,000 barrels of oil) to spill for weeks before finally responding to the crisis. Shell claims that only 4,000 barrels of oil were leaked.
It wouldn't be completely surprising if it turned out that Shell in fact did leak that much oil- many foreign companies are taking advantage of the poor, underdeveloped countries in Africa. However, it could be possible that both sides are exaggerating; Nigeria is rampant with corruption. While it's true that thieves drill into pipelines and sell the crude oil on the black market, the villagers could be looking for money out of this situation. There's probably error on both parts- Shell should have definitely helped out the villages much sooner and responded to the spill much more efficiently. Some environmentalists say that as much as 550 million gallons of oil have been spilled during more than 50 years of production (one Exxon Valdez disaster per year). It's unfortunate that Nigerians rely solely on oil for means, but without adequate resources and organized government, it's near impossible for the people to do anything else.
