By Adedapo Adesanya
Communities in the Niger Delta have asked the Federal High Court in Abuja for N505 billion in damages from Shell Plc after the oil giant struck a deal to sell its onshore assets in the region.
In the suit, they accuse Shell of breaching an existing court order by striking a deal to sell the assets.
Recall that Shell is set to exit Nigeria’s onshore oil and gas sector after agreeing in January to sell its business to Renaissance, a consortium of five mostly local companies for an initial $2.4 billion, which has since depreciated to $1.3 billion.
The much-contested deal has so far not been completed since the transaction is subject to approvals by the Federal Government of Nigeria and other conditions.
However, over 1,000 representatives of Ilaje communities in the Niger Delta asked the Federal High Court in Abuja to stop the deal.
Their lawyers argued that Shell was violating a December 2023 ruling that suspended any assets sale until a compensation lawsuit was concluded.
The community also has a pending lawsuit against Shell, which it accuses of causing an oil spill that damaged waterways and farms.
Shell has long maintained that such spills were mostly due to theft of oil and interference with pipelines.
In the court papers, the community said Shell should be penalised for going ahead with the asset sale, adding that they took this decision “when the plaintiffs and the host of their community members have remained in perpetual suffering over the failure of the defendants to obey the preservative orders of a competent court.”
The oil major has faced a string of lawsuits locally and abroad from communities demanding environmental restoration or compensation for land damaged by historical oil spills including the Permian Basin, the most productive oil and gas region in the United States.