"A child is silhouetted against a gas flare Nigeria's southwest delta: 80% of the country's oil wealth goes to 1% of its population." Caption: Guardian UK; Photograph: Reuters/Corbis

Today, March 9, marked the deadline for Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) Candidate countries to complete “validation” by reporting to the EITI secretariat in Oslo. Nigeria is one of 20 countries that failed to complete validation of its efforts to comply with the EITI. In 2008, a total of 22 EITI Candidate countries were given the March 9, 2010 deadline.

Nigeria was the first country to give domestic legal force to the EITI when it passed national legislation in May 2007. Nigeria became an EITI Candidate country in September 2007 and was given until today to complete validation, a necessary step for progressing from an EITI Candidate country to an EITI Compliant country. Validation provides an independent assessment of progress achieved and identifies measures needed to strengthen the EITI process.

Nigeria submitted a draft validation report but nonetheless failed to meet the deadline. If faced with “exceptional and unforeseeable circumstances,” EITI Candidate countries can request an extension from the EITI Board, which will meet in mid-April to consider these requests.

If a Candidate country does complete validation (or request an extension) by March 9, 2010, it will be delisted.

To become an EITI Candidate country, Nigeria had to meet the four requisite sign-up indicators: the government issued an unequivocal public statement of its intention to implement EITI, committed to work with civil society and companies on EITI implementation, appointed a senior individual to lead on EITI implementation, and published and made widely available a detailed work plan with measurable targets, a timeline, and an assessment of capacity constraints.

In 2006, a report was published identifying several weaknesses pertaining to the management of oil revenues and governance in the oil and gas sector, based on set of audits conducted from 1999-2004. This report led to the creation of remediation action plan, as well as to the release in 2009 of a second report that reviewed 2005 activities. The 2009 report ”showed financial discrepancies and outstanding payments totaling over US$5bn for oil and gas revenues generated by the sector in 2005″ and ”identified unprecedented financial discrepancies, mispaid taxes, and system inefficiencies [including  o]ver US$ 800 million of unresolved differences between what companies said that they paid…and what the governments said it received were identified.” A report covering activities from 2006-2008 has been commissioned.

Read more about the EITI in general and the EITI in Nigeria.

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Ms. Okon, the Executive Director of Kebetkache Women Development & Resource Centre, uses her passion for mobilizing and empowering women to promote human rights, democratic principles, and social justice in the Niger Delta. Ms. Okon helps women to develop their leadership potentials and project their voices in Nigerian political, social, and cultural spheres.

Based in the Niger Delta, where women face particular adverse impacts of violence—both in terms of violence against women and in the effects of violent conflict on economic and social livelihoods—Ms. Okon advocates for peace and capacity-building, with and for the women of the Niger Delta.

Much of Ms. Okon’s work stems from the challenges that women in the Niger Delta face living in the shadow of oil companies’ operations, where resulting gas flaring and oil spills afflict harm on the people and the environment.

Read this profile on Emem Okon in the National Catholic Reporter as part of its series, Women: Birthing Justice, Birthing Hope:

http://ncronline.org/news/women/first-hand-account-organizing-women-nigeria.

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According to Presidential spokesman Olusegun Adeniyi, although Mr. Yar’Adua’s health has improved, “while the president completes his recuperation, Vice President Jonathan will continue to oversee the affairs of state.”

Nigeria’s parliament voted to officially recognize Mr. Jonathan as Acting President on February 10, 2010. That vote specified that Mr. Jonathan would cede power to Mr. Yar’Adua once he was medically fit to resume leading the country.

Mr. Yar’Adua has not made any public appearances since he left Nigeria on November 23, 2009, and he has not spoken in public since a BBC radio interview from a hospital bed on January 13, 2009. (That BBC interview served as the president’s official communication that he was not well enough to rule–the basis for the legislatures’ recognition of Mr. Jonathan as Acting President.)

In response to the news of Yar’Adua’s return, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Johnnie Carson welcomed him back but expressed concern about Nigeria’s future:

“Recent reports … continue to suggest that President Yar’Adua’s health remains fragile and that he may still be unable to fulfill the demands of his office….We hope that President Yar’Adua’s return to Nigeria is not an effort by his senior advisers to upset Nigeria’s stability and create renewed uncertainty in the democratic process.”

Read more in the New York Times, NPR and BBC.

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Photo credit: Pius Utomi Ekpei/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Yesterday marked 78 days since Umaru Yar’Adua left Nigeria for medical treatment in Saudi Arabia without officially transferring his presidential powers.

Yesterday also marked the Nigerian legislature’s official recognition of Mr. Goodluck Jonathan transition from Vice President to Acting President of Nigeria.

Mr. Goodluck Jonathan, 52, who is from the Niger Delta, governed Bayelsa state from December 2005 to May 2007 and is a member of the ruling People’s Democratic Party. In Nigeria, the ruling party alternates leadership between the North and the South, making the transition of power to Mr. Jonathan a moment of promise for the Niger Delta.

However, Mr. Jonathan’s position is far from secure.

Since Mr. Yar’Adua’s departure in December and a federal court’s handing of power to Mr. Jonathan as Acting President in January, some challenged Mr. Jonathan’s authority, arguing that the President had not followed official procedures requiring a formal statement transferring his power. Both houses of Nigeria’s legislature voted yesterday to accept the broadcast of the President’s statement to this effect (in a January 12 interview with the BBC) as sufficient notification to satisfy the constitutional requirement.

Whether Mr. Yar’Adua’s supporters, among others, will accept this statement as legally binding remains in question. As Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka told CNN, the ruling party has acted slowly to address the president’s absence because “certain elements within the ruling party love this hiatus, they love the headlessness of government because they can proceed to loot and create their own little empires while the president is away.”

Watch CNN International’s Christian Amanpour interview with Mr. Soyinka and Nigeria’s Attorney General, followed by a 3-minute video clip from the film Sweet Crude (featuring interviews with Oronto Douglas and Michael Watts):

For further reading, see articles from these media outlets:

BBC

Sahara Reporters

New York Times

Next

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If you didn’t already know, Nigeria is renowned for its film scene. Every Thursday in February, the Smithsonian features Nigerian movies as part of the Nollywood Film Festival.

Chevron is a key sponsor of the event. Chevron’s track record in Nigeria of human rights and environmental abuse makes it a bad choice for a sponsor.

When JINN phoned the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art Corporate Membership office to express concern about Chevron’s sponsoring of the event and to ask about the criteria for evaluating prospective sponsors, the Smithsonian replied that it could not divulge its criteria; that they are aware of Chevron’s track record in Nigeria, but that they did not concern themselves with the political ramifications of what their funders do, since the Smithsonian’s objective is to fund art.

JINN, Rainforest Action Network (RAN), and Global Exhange created a postcard (see photos above and below). At each Thursday event, RAN will distribute, collect, and deliver postcards to the Smithsonian.

If you are in DC–or know people in DC–JINN encourages you to attend the festival to support Nigerian filmmakers, but be sure to let the Smithsonian know that you disapprove of Chevron as the sponsor for this event.

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Justice in Nigeria Now is excited to announce a new partnership with Sweet Crude, an acclaimed documentary that captures the realities of the Niger Delta. Directing attention to a region devastated by oil, Sweet Crude movingly portrays the strength, beauty, and resilience of communities in the Niger Delta while unpacking myths about the region, particularly by exposing actual distortions in reporting by international media. JINN joins Sweet Crude as the official activist partner of the film team, enabling engaged viewers to take action in theaters and beyond.

At the screenings, viewers will find JINN ready to provide them with ways to call for much-needed constructive action and attention to the Niger Delta. Examples include urging Secretary of State Clinton to support international mediation and peace talks in the Niger Delta, and asking  senators to support legislation requiring transparency in oil companies’ payments to foreign governments.

JINN and Sweet Crude’s common goals of respect for human rights and environmental justice, along with our common objectives of peace talks and corporate accountability in the Niger Delta, make us—alongside our friends on the ground in Nigeria—natural partners in working toward a peaceful resolution to decades of injustice in the Niger Delta.

Check back here to find out when and where you can Sweet Crude in the coming months.

[Photo Credit: Kendra E. Thornbury for Sweet Crude]

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[Hint: Barely any of it makes it back to people living in oil-producing communities.]

JINN is working alongside Oxfam and other fellow members of the Publish What You Pay Coalition to promote transparency in oil companies’ revenue.

Take Action: You can help by telling Congress to open the books by supporting the Energy Security Through Transparency Act, which would require companies in extractive industries to disclose payments they make to foreign governments.

That measure of transparency will help people living in resource-cursed communities to hold their governments accountable.

Take a moment to tell your senators to support this vital piece of legislation.

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"SHELL, COME TO TERMS WITH NIGERIA" Photo Credit: Radio Netherlands Worldwide

On December 30, 2009 a civil court judge in the Hague ruled that Royal Dutch Shell can be sued in the Netherlands—its corporate headquarters—for pollution it caused in Nigeria.

Four Nigerian villagers and Friends of the Earth Netherlands (Milieudefensie) brought the claim, forcing Shell to face up to charges of environmental and social damage it has caused in the oil-rich Niger Delta. Estimated damage from pipeline spills and gas flaring caused by the oil industry as a whole amounts to up to $20 billion, according to a variety of independent organizations. Royal Dutch Shell is the largest oil company operating in Nigeria.

The case charges Shell with environmental degradation arising from its oil operations in the village of Oruma, where a high-pressure wellhead spewing oil and gas ran uncontained for 12 days, polluting land and drinking water in nearby communities, with “clean-up”—comprised of dumping toxic waste into pits and burning them—beginning four months later. Shell also faces claims for damage in Goi, where in 2005, Shell’s Trans-Niger pipeline caught fire and destroyed farmland and homes and polluted fisheries, with the mess remaining for 33 months, as well as for an enforcement action of a court order against Shell to stop the illegal practice of gas flaring, which the federal high court of Nigeria declared a violation of human rights in 2005.

The first substantive hearing, which pertains to the Oruma oil spill, is slated to begin in the Hague Civil Court tentatively in spring 2010.

Royal Dutch Shell continues to deny responsibility for, and contest jurisdiction abroad over, its actions in Nigeria.

Read more here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/dec/30/shell-oruma-alleged-pollution-claim

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8434736.stm

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Mayor Gayle McLaughlin

Richmond, CA – On Tuesday December 15, 2009, the Richmond City Council voted unanimously in favor of a resolution urging the U.S. Senate to pass a bill that would require oil companies to disclose payments to foreign governments as part of a larger movement to increase corporate accountability across borders. Councilmember Nathaniel Bates was absent.  A similar resolution was unanimously approved by the Oakland City Council and with one abstention in the Berkeley City Council in October.

The Energy Security Through Transparency Act (ESTT) Act was introduced by Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) in September and if passed would effect oil companies in Nigeria as well as the rest of the world.

“Here in Richmond, we see the links between human rights and corporate accountability issues in our city as the same struggle as those that are demanding a right to their livelihood in Nigeria.  Oil companies need to take responsibility where ever oil in produced and refined,” stated Richmond resident Jovanka Beckles who spoke at the meeting.

The Richmond resolution also calls on the State Department to support diplomatic peace talks in the Delta to negotiate a way forward to address the root causes of the current crisis—environmental destruction – particularly gas flaring - and lack of investment in the oil producing region. The city’s call contrasts with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s pledge in August to explore further U.S. military assistance to the government of Nigeria. The resolution along with the passage of the resolution in Oakland and Berkeley marks a new level of support to pressure the United States to adopt a foreign policy that promotes constructive change through dialog in alignment with the American values of democratic civic engagement, and freedom of speech and the press.

The resolution was co-sponsored by Councilmembers Jeff Ritterman and Tom Butt and was introduced to the Council by Mayor Gayle McLaughlin who worked with Bay Area-based Justice In Nigeria Now to draft the resolution.

“I was tortured and imprisoned by the Nigerian military for my peaceful protests against Shell Oil’s destruction of our land.  I believe that Richmond’s support sends a strong message that communities in the U.S are concerned about the human rights abuses and environmental damage associated with oil extraction.  I do not want to see my people continue to go through what I went through,” stated Suanu Kingston Bere, a Nigerian activist who also spoke at the City Council meeting.

Fifty years of oil exploitation in the Niger Delta has produced over $700 billion in oil revenues shared between the Nigerian government and oil giants like Chevron, Exxon Mobil and Shell. Nigeria is a key supplier of oil to the United States, to which it exports over 40% of its supply. Despite the immense wealth gained from oil in the Niger Delta, the quality of life for local residents has deteriorated. Oil companies have polluted the water villagers drink and the fish population that serves as their primary source of protein has been decimated. Little oil wealth is re-invested in communities from which it is extracted, most lack electricity, and access to education or healthcare facilities.

“Oil companies in Nigeria have had long a relationship with the notoriously corrupt and historically brutal Nigerian government where rampant corruption, fraudulent elections and violent suppression of peaceful protests are the norm in the Delta.  The proposed ESTT Act in the Senate is an important step toward holding oil companies accountable for their collusion with the Nigerian government, which protects their profits while killing and injuring innocent local people and destroying the Delta’s fragile environment” stated Nigerian writer and activist Omoyele Sowore.

Sowore has also visited the city of Richmond and met with local activists who were working to hold Chevron accountable in their city.

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