Amnesty International has demanded a comprehensive audit of every environmental incident across the Niger Delta, not only Ogoniland, and a Superfund-style contribution from fossil fuel companies to finance clean-up to international standards. The demand accompanies a new report, "Nigeria: Lifting the Lid," published with a coalition of Nigerian and international environmental and human rights organisations.

The report's implications reach beyond Nigeria. If its claims hold, senior Shell officials in the country knowingly operated through decades of environmental degradation — evidence, campaigners say, of corporate liability (the legal responsibility of a company for harm caused by its operations) that could anchor future legal action.

What does the report actually allege?

Presenting the findings in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Amnesty International Nigeria's Director, Isa Sanusi, said the report documents alleged collusion between oil company employees and operators involved in oil bunkering (the theft of crude oil from pipelines and infrastructure). He said these allegations require further investigation.

The report also examines Shell's activities in the Niger Delta over the past 60 years and the company's responsibilities for the resulting environmental damage, according to Eva Pastorelli, a campaigner with the Italian research group ReCommon.

"Through evidence-based proof, we have shown that all levels of the company could be held responsible for not doing things or not having done things," Pastorelli said. "So, I think this is the first chapter of what could come next regarding Shell's responsibilities in the Delta region."

That is a claim of company-wide awareness, not just field-level negligence. Pastorelli said senior Shell officials in Nigeria were aware of the situation in the region. What the report does not yet detail publicly is the specific evidence behind that assertion — a gap any litigation, or corporate rebuttal, will turn on.

Her assessment of multinational operations in the region, she said, revealed a lack of environmental justice, environmental degradation and human rights abuses, among other concerns. She called for the companies to be held accountable and made to pay for the damage.

What does this change for the clean-up?

The report's central argument is geographic: the clean-up now under way in Ogoniland covers one part of a contiguous, degraded region. Sanusi put the point bluntly.

"If you do it only in Ogoniland without extending it to the rest of the Niger Delta, you are doing it the wrong way," he said. "We want the Nigerian government to audit all environmental incidents, not only in Ogoniland but across the entire Niger Delta."

Sanusi also urged the federal government to ensure what he called a genuine clean-up of polluted communities and continuous, effective oversight of the fossil fuel industry. He said Amnesty International would soon write to the President and send him a copy of the report to ensure he receives it and acts on it.

A letter, however, is not enforcement. No government body has yet committed to a region-wide audit, and the report carries no binding force of its own.

Is divestment letting polluters walk away?

A second front opened at the event. Dr Celestine Akpobari, Team Lead of the Mideekor Environmental Development Initiative, urged Amnesty to investigate the divestment (the sale of oil assets by departing operators) of multinational oil companies — particularly the transition of Shell Petroleum Development Company into Renaissance Africa Energy Company.

Akpobari said international oil companies had polluted the Niger Delta through their operations and were leaving without cleaning up the damage under the guise of divestment.

"This issue of divestment is a problem. Ogoni will not be cleaned up until all other parts of the Niger Delta are cleaned up because we are linked together. Ogoni is not an island," he said. "Therefore, those who left under the guise of divestment must return to clean up their mess. Who are they leaving the mess for?"

He appealed to Amnesty to "put its teeth into this matter," aiming to reverse the divestments, clean the pollution and restore the environment so communities can return to fishing.

What are the open questions?

Three caveats temper the campaign's promises. The alleged collusion between oil workers and bunkering operators is presented as a concern requiring investigation, not a proven finding. The claim that Shell's senior leadership knew of the damage rests on evidence the report's authors say they hold but have not fully laid out. And the superfund proposal has no committed contributors — it is a demand, not a financing mechanism, until companies or the state agree to fund it.