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Akinluyi vs. Shell: How the oil giant plays the arms and ammunition game

November 3, 2009

Image removed.In the early 1990s, a movement led by a Nigerian writer and environmental and minority rights activist named Ken Saro-Wiwa began to take place.  Saro-Wiwa brought the plight of the Ogoni people in the Niger Delta to international attention through his nonviolent approach, which included protests that drew hundreds of thousands of discontent marchers. Saro-Wiwa fought vigorously against environmental and human rights abuses in the Niger Delta being carried out by the Nigeria Police under the military government of General Sani Abacha.  Included in Saro-Wiwa’s campaign was a struggle for corporate accountability.


 He insisted that multinationals such as Shell be brought to justice for their practices of gas flaring and rampant oil spills, destroying villages and vast swaths of mangrove forest for pipelines, poisoning fisheries and crops, and displacing many thousands of Ogoni.

After four Ogoni elders were killed at a protest, Saro-Wiwa was arrested on bogus accusations of complicity to murder. He was tried in a military tribunal, rather than a standard civil court trial, and sentenced to death and hanged even before the appeal period had elapsed.  The judicial proceedings were widely condemned as illegitimate, and many Saro-Wiwa and Ogoni supporters worldwide accused Shell of paying for the capital punishment sentence.  On November 10, 1995 Saro-Wiwa was hanged along with eight other Ogoni leaders.
This was the political climate of the time, and by 1993, Shell had begun to feel the heat of Saro-Wiwa’s non-violent campaign.  That same year the military government annulled Nigeria’s freest elections, and consequently the opportunity for a civilian government.  Political upheaval in oil-rich areas was coming to a head.  In response, the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC) was eager to upgrade their arms to better guard its facilities. Ample evidence and testimony suggest that by 1995, SPDC was engaged in an arms proliferation deal with the Nigerian government and that the company was also arming communities involved in rival struggles to get part of the crumbs that came their way from the oil companies.

On December 1, 1993 the Managing Director of SPDC wrote a letter to the Office of the Inspector General of the Nigeria Police (IGP) asking for an increased spy police quota and OPAPCO (Shell’s Supernumerary Police) police contingent, as well as for approval of an upgrade in arms and ammunition.  Shell followed up with another letter to IGP dated 17th August 1994 stating, “We […] wish to formally request for additional weapons and ammunition […] Much as we appreciate all the efforts and help rendered so far, we shall be grateful if the order is expedited as we are under immense pressure.”

After numerous attempts to attain permission for the arms upgrade, SPDC solicited the assistance of a man named Chief G.O. Akinluyi in obtaining the approval, since his company, Humanitex, held an ammunition license and could negotiation arms supply contracts with the Nigerian Police.  In a letter to Humanitex dated February 6, 1995 SPDC requested the following supply of arms and ammunition:
 
134  -Beretta model BM12S 9mm semi-automatic rifles or Berretta style equivalent suitable for 9mm short ammunition, 80 -Beretta Model 92FS 9mm pistol or Berretta style equivalent suitable for short ammunition,  82   -12 GA pump-action shotgun, 6 shots including slings, 200,000 9mm short ammunition, 100,000 12 bore cartridges, 35 -Gun oil for servicing weapons and 35  -Gun cleaning kits.

Akinluyi agreed to participate in the deal, on the condition that he would be paid adequately.  After much convincing, Akinluyi was finally able to secure an approval.  In a letter dated July 27, 1994, the Inspector General of the Nigeria, Ibrahim Coomasie, granted permission to the Shell Corporation to use semi-automatic weapons in order to conduct “better and a more coordinated Spy operations.”  According to the operating procedure set out in the letter, the weapons would be purchased by Shell for the Nigeria Police, who would be responsible for their deployment to properly trained “Spy personnel.”  Therein, government approval of the SPDC arms proliferation has been obtained.

The planned transaction, as the documents read, involved the supply of arms and ammunition to SPDC by Humanitex Nigeria Ltd., via the Nigeria Police. Yet despite providing invoices to the proper departments, Akinluyi never received any payment.   Shell, having received the approval needed to procure arms, reneged on earlier agreements to pay its weapon supplier.  In response, Akinluyi took Shell to federal court over an alleged breach in contract.  The issue of SPDC entanglement in arms importation has now been shuffled around in the Federal High Court of Nigeria for fifteen years.

SPDC has been accused by Akinluyi, the public, and even high court judges of using delay tactics to avoid punishment.  SPDC responds to each statement of claim with an application to stall the trial on account of insufficient “cause of action” or an appeal for one reason or another.  For a decade and a half, the SPDC has been allowed to buy justice by stalling court trials ad infinitum.

Meanwhile, Akinluyi said has had trouble finding work in an industry in which he has a pending trial. Akinluyi claims his company has lost millions of dollars of revenue, as well as the interest that such revenue would have accrued over 15 years; thus, he is suing for monetary reparations.

In a letter to the Managing Director of SPDC on January 17, 2007, Akinluyi pleads for a peaceful end to the suit, emphasizing that despite their differences, he wants a “peaceful working environment for Shell’s operations in Nigeria.”   This desire for a proper functioning oil industry recurs throughout Akinluyi’s letters.

The NGO Global Peace Movement (GPM) attempted to mediate the disagreement, arguing that a court trial would not benefit any party, however after initial negotiations, GPM decided that the trail should take place after all.  On August 13, 2007 the GPM drafted a letter to the Nigerian Armed Forces advising that the Federal Government settle the dispute in a timely fashion, or the political upheaval in an already volatile region would worsen.  If Shell is allowed to carry on business as usual, GPM argued, the Delta will remain divided and the people will continue to be exploited.

Earlier, on February 26, 2009, Akinluyi had also written to the minister of Petroleum Resources.  In it, he also warned again that the matter would only worsen, that the oil and gas industry would not benefit from the trial, and that the matter should be settled immediately.
The case shows evidently that SPDC intended to purchase firearms and ammunition from a government-licensed dealer, help arm a brutal regime as had always been known that the company participated in arms importation something outside of its operation as an oil producing company.

It also now undeniable the extent to which Shell and the oil companies control the Nigeria judicial process, as communities and persons seeking justice against the oil monster has to cope with processes that are needlessly drawn out.  Akinluyi, Shell’s intended weapon supplier returns to the Federal High Court this week after he won his case to get Shell to answer to his claims, a case that Shell had stalled its trial up to the Supreme Court.
 

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