Nigeria: UN to Exonerate Shell From Pollution in Niger Delta

23 August 2010

Lagos — A three-year probe by the United Nations will almost entirely acquit Royal Dutch Shell for 40 years of oil contamination in the Niger Delta, eliciting rage among communities who have long campaigned to force the multinational to clean up its spills and pay compensation.

The $10m investigation by the UN environment programme (UNEP), paid for by Shell, will say that only 10 per cent of oil pollution in Ogoniland has been caused by equipment failures and company negligence, and concludes that the rest has come from local people illegally stealing oil and sabotaging company pipelines, the Guardian of London reported yesterday.

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