The Dutch government has vowed to put pressure on its multinational companies like Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) to clean up all contaminated areas in the Niger Delta, and adhere to strict international standards wherever they operate.

Sharon Gesthuizen, a Dutch parliamentarian, speaking at a conference organised by the Niger Delta Campaign (HNDC), held in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, said her government had over the years not paid adequate attention to the situation in Nigeria, chiefly in the Niger Delta.

Presenting a paper titled "Success and challenges of the Nigerian government amnesty program: The role of international community", Gesthuizen said the Dutch Socialist Party would press for environmental and human right laws that would force Dutch multinational companies like Shell to adhere to strict international standard wherever they operate.

Gesthuizen accused the oil companies and Nigerian government officials of being responsible for the crisis in the Niger Delta, urging them to listen to the sincere yearnings of the people for development.

Also in the account of her last visit to Nigeria, Gesthuizen recalled gas flaring, environmental pollution, oil theft, and people who were living in abject poverty in the midst of abundant natural resources.

The Dutch Foreign Affairs Ministry responsible for Horn of Africa, East and West Africa, in collaboration with other European Union countries would hold a round-table dialogue with the Nigerian government officials on the way forward for the amnesty programme.



A US$1 billion clean up
Early August, UN Environmental Program (UNEP) said in a report that the pollution of the Niger Delta in Nigeria will cost US$1 billion and take at least 30 years to clean up.

The UNEP report, based on the monitoring of 200 locations in the Niger Delta for more than 14 months, indicated that "The environmental restoration of Ogoniland could prove to be the world's most wide-ranging and long term oil clean-up exercise ever undertaken if contaminated drinking water, land, creeks and important ecosystems such as mangroves are to be brought back to full, productive health,"

While locals were accused of sabotaging pipelines in order to steal oil causing ecological damage in the process, Amnesty International's Audrey Gaughran argues that the report has proved that "Shell has had a terrible impact in Nigeria, but has got away with denying it for decades, falsely claiming they work to best international standards".

Shell reportedly accepted liability for two spills which took place in 2008 and 2009 saying it would resolve the legal battle under Nigerian law.

(By Konye Obaji Ori, The Africa Report, 18/10/2011)