ON SHELL MD, TWO OTHERS JAILED FOR DISOBEYING COURT ORDER – LESSONS TO BE LEARNT FOR OIL COMPANIES
By Zik Gbemre
With regards to recent reports that a High Court sitting in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, has sentenced the Managing Director (MD) of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), Mr. Osagie Okunbor, and two other top officials of the oil firm to three months’ imprisonment with hard labour for contempt, we cannot help but write to pinpoint some salient lessons that needs to be learnt by Multinational and domestic oil and gas companies operating in the Niger Delta region, as well as all relevant stakeholders.
The other two officials convicted by the court are Nike Onyilola, who is the SPDC Secretary and Head of Legal Department; and Keibi Atemie, who is the Deputy Country Head of Legal/Managing Counsel, Global Litigation, Sub-Sahara Africa. Delivering judgement, the presiding judge, Justice George Omereji, said the three persons were convicted for refusing to obey a court order in 2008 instructing them to forfeit land where Bonny Crude Oil terminal was located. It was gathered that the said land belonged to the Jumbo Major House of Bonny and the Brown House of Finima in the Bonny Local Government Area of Rivers State.
Though, the convicted Shell officials were not in court, Justice Omereji instructed the police and other law enforcement agencies to arrest and send them to prison. It was also learnt that Justice Opara had in 2008 instructed that Shell should give up the Bonny terminal for violating the terms of tenancy and surreptitiously getting a Certificate of Occupancy from the then government of Rivers State for the said land. Thirty per cent of Nigeria’s crude oil is said to be produced and exported from the land owned by Jumbo Major House of Bonny and the Brown House of Finima. Shell (SPDC) had after the ruling in 2008 gone to the Appeal Court, lost the case, and went to the Supreme Court, where it also lost.
Though, Shell (SPDC) spokesperson, Bamidele Odugbesan, had come and stated that the oil company did not accept that it disobeyed any court order and had appealed the judgement, the crux of the matter here is that this is obviuuosly not a good development, neither is it a good publicity for the image and corporate business of Shell (SPDC) as an oil and gas company operating in the country.
One big lesson, which we strongly believe oil and gas companies should learn from this development, is that they should always endeavor to ‘respect’ and honour the wishes, wills and aspirations of their host communities’ locals and stakeholders, particularly in areas where they are operating. They should also avoid issues that would bring about litigations and negative publicities in their business dealings and operational practices within their host communities.
One thing they should always do in this regard, is to ensure that there is ‘open channel’ of dialogue and communication between them, as the oil and gas companies, and their host communities locals and stakeholders. In other words, they should always have that ‘listening ear’ disposition to the every complaint, opinion and issue raised by their host communities’ locals and stakeholders. The truth is that, we believe if they have this sort of ‘friendly relations atmosphere’ between them and their host communities’ locals and stakeholders, there are a whole lot of issues that can be settled and addressed outside the court rooms – this would avoid any possible litigations to arise in the first place.
However, in other to actualize the above situation within their operations, it is imperative that these oil and gas companies put the ‘right persons’ to handle their ‘Host Community Relations.’ That means, the right persons with the right character, expertise, integrity, and transparency should be placed as their Community Relations Officials, Community Interface Coordinators (CICs), as well as other portfolios in their Community Relations Department. The kind of persons that are in place in this particular Department, will determine whether their top Management Officials will be fed with the right information on how best to address their host communities’ issues.
In other words, this will either make or mar the public image of the companies in question, especially in the area of addressing issues that might lead or not lead to litigations and negative publicities. It is counterproductive, and not a good way to build good relationship between these oil and gas companies and their host communities, when they always ‘shield themselves’ with ‘military presence/might’, and lots of ‘bureaucratic protocols, all of which makes it near impossible for host communities’ locals and stakeholders/opinion leaders to have access to them in their Offices and places of operations. This does not create an atmosphere where issues affecting host communities can easily be addressed via dialogue and open communication. This area needs to be addressed by oil and gas companies, by ensuring that ‘identifiable’ host community stakeholders like Opinion Leaders, Community Elders, Community Executives, etc., have easy access to top/relevant Management personnel, especially when it has to do with addressing sensitive issues that have the propensity to snowball into unanticipated crises, litigations, and negative publicities.
Most of these cases arose as a result of the ‘bad personnel’ in the Government and Community Relations Department of oil and gas Companies, who give wrong feedbacks, advice and information to their Management, with hidden agendas of creating/causing conflicts within host communities to make themselves seem relevant. For instance, let us look at the case of the Community development GMoU initiative by oil and gas companies, which was meant to bring about sustainable development in host communities. But the said GMoU was placed to be directed by the State Governments. This involvement of State Governments in Communities’ development through the GMoU is no doubt, a faulty policy practice. Almost all the oil and gas producing States have failed to use the huge revenues that accrues to them via the 13 per cent derivation to develop the host communities. They have refused to use the withholding tax revenues from the oil and gas sector to develop the host communities. Yet, the oil and gas companies have placed their Community development GMoU initiative to be controlled and managed by the same State Governments, a good example is the Delta State Government. With this, how would such GMoU program initiative work/function in bringing about Community development as expected? How would a State Government like Delta State, which cannot use its available oil and gas wealth to develop their State, be made to decide and supervise the oil company Community development GMoU program in host Communities? The Delta State Government do not have the capacity, competence and integrity to direct the said GMoU activities in host Communities.
Another way forward is that there is need for oil and gas companies to use identified consultancy firms with grassroots understanding of host communities, to help them in building and managing Host-Community-Relations and other Community development initiatives in their areas of operations in the region. When these things are in place, it will go a long way in preventing/avoiding uncalled for agitations and issues that can be avoided in the first place. But it appears oil and gas companies that are operating in the Niger Delta region have not learnt from the Ogoni crises, which caused the death of prominent Ogoni leaders and attracted a lot of global attention amongst the international community. It is surprising to note that majority of the oil and gas companies (bot international and domestic), are still working/operating without having regard for the host Communities’ locals and key stakeholders.
That being said, while it is imperative for the oil and gas companies to always carry out their operations within the ambits of the law of the land where their operations are taking place, it is also important for the Nigerian Judiciary and Nigerian Judges to always consider the intricacies, complexities and difficulties prevalent within the oil and gas industry operations, especially as it relates/affects oil and gas companies. This knowledge will help them not to issue/deliver Court Orders that are near impossible to obey by oil and gas companies. Court Orders that will be like, asking someone to stop breathing for 30 minutes, should be avoided by the Law Courts when addressing cases involving and affecting oil and gas operations/operators. They should always give room for ‘outside court settlement’ and dialogue between the parties involved in cases in this sector. This is important, especially when we consider the fact that the assets and facilities involved in the sector took years to build and they do not come cheap. But most importantly, these are usually viable assets that are like the building blocks of the nation’s economy. So, whatever adversely affects oil and gas operations in the region, automatically affects the nation’s economy.
Zik Gbemre.
National Coordinator
Niger Delta Peace Coalition (NDPC)
