The United Nations Special Procedures led by the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights and several UN Special Rapporteurs, has declared that the divestments approved by the Nigerian government, including Shell’s sale of its onshore subsidiary (SPDC) to the Renaissance consortium in 2024, were advanced without transparency, warning that they could risk undermining environmental remediation.
It specifically highlighted the absence or weakness of required decommissioning/abandonment funds, as well as the risk that buyers lacked the capacity to address ageing, leaking infrastructure and legacy pollution.
This is as a coalition of environmental activists on the aegis of Oilwatch International, applauded the intervention of the UN Working Group which exposed how international oil companies (IOCs), have been divesting from the Niger Delta without cleaning up their toxic legacy, trampling fundamental rights in the process.
The coalition noted that the UN experts’ letter (Ref: AL OTH 61/2025, dated 2 July 2025) squarely linked decades of pollution and the current wave of divestments by Shell, Eni, ExxonMobil and TotalEnergies to ongoing violations of the rights to life, health, safe water, an adequate standard of living, a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, access to information, and effective remedy.
The experts also highlighted the chronic regulatory failures, gaps in spill investigations, incomplete containment, and poor remediation sign-offs.
The UN expert specifically reminded duty-bearers that Nigeria remains in breach of binding ECOWAS Court rulings aimed at protecting the rights of the Niger Delta people.
The UN letter also noted fresh legal momentum: on 20 June 2025, in which the UK High Court ruled that Shell Plc can be sued over legacy pollution in Nigeria and that failure to clean up may constitute a continuing legal wrong.
Oilwatch International noted that Independent reporting has also detailed systemic cleanup failures, including serious governance lapses in Ogoniland’s cleanup program, which the UN withdrew due to persistent concerns about corruption.
Coordinator of the Oilwatch International, Kentebe Ebiaridor, therefore urged the Presidency, National Assembly, and state governments to convene open public hearings with affected communities, civil society, regulators, and companies on the violations and demands that regulators ensure that protections and ecologically sound conditions for any asset transfer are respected.
Similarly, a member of the steering committee of Oilwatch International, who is also the Executive Director of Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), Nnimmo Bassey, noted that for years, communities have insisted on ‘no exit without cleanup.’
Bassey further said; “The UN has now affirmed what we have long insisted on: no sell-off of toxic assets, leaving behind poisoned water, dead soils, and shattered livelihoods.
“Nigeria must halt these divestment plans immediately until there is a binding, fully funded plan to decommission, remediate, restore, and prevent further harm with communities at the centre,” he said.
Speaking in turn, the coordinator of Oilwatch Nigeria, Emem Okon, said that civil society actors have consistently called for a halt to all IOC divestments until comprehensive cleanup and justice are secured.
According to him; “Divestment without repair is dispossession. Women, fishers, and farmers are bearing the heaviest burden from toxic water and lost livelihoods to alarming health risks for infants and newborns. No community should be treated as a sacrifice zone.”
Oilwatch International therefore called on the Federal Government of Nigeria to as a matter of national importance, declare a halt to the divestment and sale of assets in Nigeria until remediation and cleanup are assured.
It also demanded the decommissioning and dismantling of abandoned wells are effectively carried out as well as community restoration and reparation,
Oilwatch International further said that as a start, an environmental restoration fund should be established with an initial deposit of $1 trillion and also demanded the provision of safe water for polluted communities, implementation of health audits, monitoring and treatment programmes for exposed populations, and an immediate cleanup of the Niger Delta.
