Stakeholders from the oil-bearing communities in Bayelsa State have called on the international oil companies, especially Shell, to clean their polluted environment, which they caused before divesting entirely, regretting that the host communities are getting less than what they are supposed to get from oil exploration.

Comprising host community representatives, traditional rulers, civil society organisations, youth leaders, women groups, researchers, academics, legal experts, government officials, and media practitioners, the stakeholders spoke at the weekend in Yenegoa during a one-day community town hall engagement on oil divestment and transition accountability in the Niger Delta.

Organised by the Human and Environmental Development Agenda, with the theme: “Strengthening Transparency, Environmental Responsibility and Community Participation in Oil Asset Divestment,” with support from TI (AUSTRALIA) and Natural Resource Governance Institute NRGI), the stakeholders wholly admitted that there is a need for the polluted environment to be kept healthy and safe for those living now and for future generations.

In a communique at the end of the one-day town hall meeting, the stakeholders admitted that the host communities were even receiving less than what they are giving to the nation.

They also revealed that Bayelsa State is the heartland of Nigeria’s oil production; the communities are oil-bearing, not oil-producing, the oil lies in their land, but they hold neither the capacity nor the proportionate benefit of its extraction.

The Communique reads: “2011 Shell/SPDC Annual Report confirms that Shell lent Renaissance $2.5 billion to purchase Shell’s own divested assets, raising fundamental questions about Renaissance’s financial capacity to address pre-existing environmental liabilities.

“We discovered that divestment had taken place in our communities, and we noticed that the new operator wore a different coloured uniform from the old one. No formal notification, handover communication, or community engagement preceded or accompanied the transfer of assets on pur land.

“Shell’s own 2024 Annual Report (page 43) confirms that Shell lent Renaissance approximately $2.5 billion USD to purchase Shell’s divested Niger Delta assets. A seller financing its buyer raises serious, unanswered questions about Renaissance’s independent financial capacity to fund environmental remediation and community obligations.

“Indigenous Nigerian operators who have taken over divested IOC assets are proving more difficult to hold accountable than the IOCs themselves. They are less accessible, less resourced, and less subject to international reputational pressure.

“Five years after the passage of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), most communities in Bayelsa State have not received their first HCDT allocation. Some communities do not belong to any HCDT at all. The Federal Minister of Environment was not aware that an indigenous operator was lifting oil in at least one community without a proper EIA.

“The 2011 Bonga Oil Spill, in which Shell admitted releasing over 40 million barrels of crude oil into the Atlantic Ocean, subsequently sank with heavy metals, continues to devastate the fisheries and livelihoods of five Niger Delta states and beyond.

“No adequate accountability or remediation has occurred. Research by the Kebetkache Women’s Development Initiative found hydrocarbon concentrations in the blood of women in the Otabagi community far exceeding the WHO-recommended limits. Beyond the initial EIA, environmental audits and post-impact audits are equally required and equally unknown to most communities.

“This suite of critical legal tools is almost entirely unknown to host communities across Bayelsa State. Women and persons with disabilities are disproportionately affected by environmental degradation from oil operations, yet they remain structurally excluded from Host Community Development Trust governance and benefit distribution.”

“HCDT governance suffers from a fundamental transparency and accountability deficit: Oil companies manipulate the operational cost figures on which the 3% HCDT contribution is calculated, and communities have no means of independently verifying the metrics or the amounts. This arrangement effectively rewards default and punishes communities twice.

“HEDA should lead a coordinated, multi-community legal campaign using the Bonga 2011 oil spill, where Shell admitted releasing over 40 million barrels sunk with heavy metals, as a priority accountability case. Cross-state collaboration across the five affected Niger Delta states should be pursued, including engagement with international environmental justice organisations.

“Every host community in Bayelsa State should develop and file a Community Environmental Charter, following the model pioneered by La Suku Gbene Regent Chief Zion D. Kiente, establishing legally anchored community environmental standards that operators must satisfy as a condition of operating on community land. All charters must be aligned with the PIA 2021.”

Moving forward, the stakeholders advised that mandatory public disclosure of all operational cost calculations is non-negotiable, adding that “there is serious concern that NUPRC’s current framework creates a perverse incentive: If IOCs default on paying HCDT funds to communities, those funds are redirected to NUPRC rather than held for the communities. NUPRC must publicly clarify and correct this framework immediately.

“Under the EIA Act (No. 86 of 1992), all major oil and gas projects must conduct Environmental Impact Assessments, publicly displayed at the Ministry of Environment for 21 days during which communities have the legal right to challenge them.”

The stakeholders also recommended that there must be a conscious, deliberate effort to ensure women and persons with disabilities are recognised, included, and represented in HCDT structures as a matter of right.

They called on the Federal Government of Nigeria to urgently investigate and publicly account for the Shell-Renaissance $2.5 billion loan transaction and publish the full terms of all divestment agreements, including explicit confirmation of which environmental liabilities, compensation obligations, and court cases have been formally transferred to Renaissance.

They, however, commended Bayelsa State Government for its initiative in commissioning and producing the Bayelsa State Environmental Report, which they said is a strategic and significant document that demonstrates a genuine commitment to environmental accountability.