OBSERVER 28.1.96. by Cameron Duodu
Shell, the multinational oil giant, has admitted importing weapons into Nigeria to help arm the police. The company revealed to the Observer that the weapons are to help protect its oil installations. However, activists accuse Shell of arming the death squads who have been brutally suppressing the Ogoni people.
The admission come in the wake of reports in Nigerian newspapers that Shell place tenders in Nigeria for the importation of arms.
Eric Nickson, a spokesman for Shell international, said: "Shell has purchased sidearms handguns on behalf of the Nigerian police force who guard Shell's facilities. But once imported, the arms remain the property of the Nigerian police, who store, guard and use them." He added: "The Nigerian police do not sufficient funds to equip themselves... We purchase the weapons on their behalf. But Shell does not have arms itself."
Shell would not say where the arms were being imported from, nor how many are involved. Mr Nickson said the practice is carried out by a "wide range of companies in Nigeria, who employ the police to guard their facilities."
But a highly respected Chief of Defence Staff in Nigeria, Lieutenant General Alani Akinrinade, said: "The Nigerian police are well equipped and do not need anyone to import arms for them."
Pointing out that the Nigerian police have "their mobile force, who are armed to the teeth", he added: "There is no excuse for any one to have a private army in Nigeria. They don't need it."
Shell's admission will confirm the worst fears of the Ogoni people of South Eastern Nigeria, who have been accusing it of acting in collusion with the Nigerian government's security agencies. Ogoni people have killed and maimed while protesting against the environmental devastation of Ogoni lands. Shell pulled out of the Ogoni area in 1993.
In 1990 the mobile police whose nickname in Nigeria is the Kill and Go Mob killed 15 people in the village of Umuechem, where Shell installations were being attacked by villagers angry at the pollution.
Human rights abuses by Nigeria's military regime have meant that limited sanctions, which include a ban on military hardware, were strengthened after the execution of the playwright Ken Saro©Wiwa and eight other activists on 10 November.
Among those call for inquiries into Shell's importation of arms into Nigeria are the respected academic, Professor Claude Ake, and Dr Owens Wiwa, brother of Ken Sar0 Wiwa. Professor Ake called on the Nigerian government to institute an official inquiry. In an address to the Cooperation and Development Committee of the European Commission in Brussels, Dr Owens Wiwa asked the commission for help in ending Shell's "illegal purchase of arms into Nigeria."
Professor Ake brought attention to a court case, pending before a Lagos High Court in which Shell Nigeria is being sued by a Nigerian arms importing company, Humanitiex Nigeria Limited for $1.2 million for "a breach of contract." over arms the company was supposed to import for Shell in 1993. The case was reported in Lagos's This Day last month.
Mr Nickson said Shell had filed a defence in the Nigerian court, stating that "no contract was drawn up with Humanitiex, in respect of any arms, ammunition or communications equipment".