End Environmental and Human Rights Abuses in Nigeria
The Nigerian government has executed nine activists, including Nobel Peace Prize nominee Ken Saro-Wiwa. Now 19 more organizers are in jail, awaiting the same fate. All have been accused of the murder of four Ogoni chiefs, a charge widely regarded as politically motivated. Saro-Wiwa and the other MOSOP (Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People) members were outspoken opponents of both Nigeria's military government and the international oil companies that they believed were complicit in the violation of environmental and human rights in their native Ogoniland.
More than 97 percent of Nigeria's export revenue comes from oil, nearly half of which is pumped by Royal Dutch Shell, the parent company of both Shell U.S. and Shell Nigeria. Shell pulled out of Ogoniland in 1993, but maintains operations in other parts of Nigeria, and left behind a disastrous environmental legacy, including above-ground high-pressure pipelines that criss-cross through villages and once-fruitful agricultural land. (Read Shell's response to these charges.)
According to the Sierra Club, which is calling for a consumer boycott of Shell and an international embargo of Nigeria, makes $312 million a year in profits from Nigeria and is about to commence a $4 billion natural gas joint venture with the Nigeria military government. The Sierra Club believes that a boycott would "hold Shell accountable for its environmental abuses and tolerance of injustice" and hit the military leaders where it hurts: their substantial share of Nigeria's $10 billion oil revenue.
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