Resources & FAQ ยท People Advancement Centre
What to do, who to call, and how to check
This is the working page of the site: the steps to take after a spill, the cleanup explained in plain language, the original documents, and the questions people actually ask us in Bori. Where the honest answer is that nobody has published the information, we say so rather than fill the gap.
24 hrs
Deadline for the spiller to report a spill to NOSDRA in writing (NOSDRA Act 2006)
2 weeks
Deadline for the spiller to clean up to all practicable extent and produce a remediation plan
08168308820
NOSDRA emergency oil spill hotline
001 / Start here
What are you trying to do?
Pick the line that sounds like your situation; each takes you straight to the part of this page that answers it. If you are in the middle of an emergency, take the second one first.
There is oil on my land, my water or my creek and I need to report it today. Go to 002 →
I want to understand who is running the cleanup and why it is taking so long. Go to 003 →
Somebody quoted me a figure and I want to know whether it stands up. Go to the comparison table →
I am looking for a report, a law or a court judgment and cannot find it. Go to 004 →
002 / Report an oil spill, step by step
Eight steps, in order
Do the first three the same day if you can. The record made in the first hours is what everything else will be argued from — by the operator, by the regulator, and one day perhaps by a court. Take your time over step 5.
1. Make your own dated record before you tell anyone
Photograph and film the spill, with the date visible on the phone screen if you can manage it. Take wide shots showing a landmark — a road, a jetty, a building — and close shots of the oil. Write down the date and time you first saw it, the exact place, the direction the oil is moving and who else saw it. Keep the originals; send copies to someone outside the community. This is the only part of the record you fully control.
2. Report it to NOSDRA yourself
The National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency receives and coordinates spill response nationally. Email oilspillalerts@nosdra.gov.ng and call the emergency hotline 08168308820. Two further numbers are published: 08156260257 and 08095870159. Say who you are, where the spill is, when you first saw it and what is affected — farmland, fishing ground, drinking water. Note the officer’s name and the time of the call. Send the photographs by email, so your report carries a timestamp.
3. Know the duty that sits on the spiller, not on you
Under the NOSDRA (Establishment) Act 2006 the spiller must report the spill to NOSDRA in writing — by fax or email — within 24 hours. Failure attracts a fine of ₦2,000,000 for each day it continues. That duty is the company’s, not yours. Your own report still matters, because it fixes the date independently: if the operator reports late, the gap between your dated email and their notification is itself evidence.
4. Get the community to the Joint Investigation Visit
A Joint Investigation Visit is required by law as soon as practicable after a spill has been identified and contained. It brings the oil company, community representatives and government agencies to the site together to determine cause, impact and scale. The signed JIV document is the legal foundation for any compensation claim or legal action that follows. Do not let it happen without you: send people who can read the form, count the affected area and stay to the end.
5. Read the cause field before anyone signs
The JIV records a cause: broadly, corrosion or equipment failure, or sabotage. That single entry governs whether statutory compensation is payable, which is why it is the most contested line on the form. Amnesty International’s 2013 report Bad Information: Oil Spill Investigations in the Niger Delta documents systematic problems with how cause is attributed. Read what has been written. If you disagree, say so at the site, ask for your objection to be recorded, and do not sign a document you believe is wrong. Ask for a copy on the day.
Kpean in Khana LGA shows why. On 3 August 2025 a Yorla oil field well, drilled around 1967 and dormant for decades, leaked. NOSDRA’s Joint Investigation Visit five days later attributed the cause to corrosion and recommended immediate wellhead repair and cleanup. NNPC disputed that and claimed vandalism. A second spill on 4 December 2025 was not contained until 25 December; as of late January 2026 cleanup had not started.
6. Track Form B and the two-week cleanup duty
NOSDRA’s operational guidance expects a spill to be contained or stopped within 24 hours and Form B submitted within two weeks. Form B sets out the areas impacted, the quantity spilled and recovered, and the cleanup measures taken. Under the 2006 Act the spiller must also clean up the site to all practicable extent within two weeks, including an action plan for remediation. Non-compliance carries, on conviction, a fine not exceeding ₦5,000,000, up to two years’ imprisonment, or both. Diary that two-week date and check the ground.
7. Ask for Form C, and keep everything
Form C documents a completed cleanup. If you are told the site is closed out, ask to see it. Keep one file — paper or phone folder — holding your dated photographs and video; a note of every call, with date, time and officer’s name; copies of emails; the JIV report and any objection you lodged; Forms B and C; witnesses’ names and contacts; receipts; and a plain record of what you have lost, such as fishing days missed or the size of farm affected. Store a second copy elsewhere.
8. Tell the people beyond the operator
Tell your community leadership and, if you are Ogoni, MOSOP and the Ogoni Solidarity Forum-Nigeria. Tell us, and send the photographs and the JIV copy. NOSDRA also publishes spill data on its oil spill monitor: check whether your incident appears and whether the details match what you saw. One family’s spill is easy to ignore; a documented pattern across communities is not, and building that pattern is our work.
Common mistakes we see
- Waiting for the company to report it. The 24-hour duty is theirs, but if you wait you lose your own dated record.
- Signing the JIV form to be polite, or because the team is in a hurry to leave. Once signed, the cause on that form is hard to move.
- Letting a small number of people attend the JIV without anyone who can read and question the form.
- Cleaning or burning the site before it is documented. It destroys the evidence of scale.
- Keeping no copy. Ask for the JIV report and Forms B and C, and photograph every page before you hand anything back.
- Accepting a verbal promise of relief with no written record of who promised what, and when.
- Assuming an old, unremediated spill is finished business. It may not be — see the FAQ on time limits.
On compensation amounts
People ask what a hectare of ruined farmland or a lost fishing season is worth. We cannot tell you, and we will not guess: we have found no authoritative, current, publicly available compensation rate schedule. Ask anyone quoting fixed per-crop or per-hectare rates to show you the published document and its date. In practice the amount is negotiated, so what you can prove — the JIV cause, the measured area, your dated evidence of loss — carries the weight. Get independent advice before you settle.
003 / Understanding the cleanup
Where the cleanup came from and who runs it
Four things explain most of the confusion: a scientific report, a fund, an agency, and the fact that the numbers people quote are counting different objects.
The UNEP report, 2011
On 4 August 2011 the United Nations Environment Programme published its Environmental Assessment of Ogoniland, commissioned by the Federal Government of Nigeria and funded by Shell. Over fourteen months it surveyed more than 200 locations, walked 122 kilometres of pipeline right-of-way, took over 4,000 samples and engaged more than 23,000 people. It recommended a restoration authority, a restoration fund with an initial US$1 billion from industry and government, a contaminated soil management centre and a centre of excellence — and it estimated around five years per contaminated land site, twenty-five to thirty years for full restoration including mangroves.
The Ogoni Trust Fund and the money
The Ogoni Trust Fund holds the cleanup money. Its Board of Trustees was inaugurated with the second Governing Council in Abuja on 15 March 2021, chaired by Dr Michael Nwielaghi. The SPDC Joint Venture pledged US$900 million and had contributed US$572 million by 2023 — $180m in 2018, $180m in 2019, $212m in 2022. The Federal Government’s US$100 million counterpart funding was not delivered as promised. At an October 2025 House of Representatives hearing, oil company representatives put collective contributions at US$900 million. We show both accounts rather than choose one.
HYPREP and its four parts
The Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project does the work. It sits under the Federal Ministry of Environment; the cleanup was flagged off in June 2016 by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo and the Project Coordination Office was established in 2017. Its mandate covers soil and groundwater remediation, potable water, public health assessment, capacity building and livelihoods. It has four parts: the Governing Council sets direction; the Board of Trustees of the Ogoni Trust Fund holds the money; the Project Coordination Office runs delivery and contracts; and the Central Representative Advisory Committee (CRAC) is the channel through which Ogoni communities are meant to be represented. Prof. Nenibarini Zabbey is Project Coordinator; he was removed on 13 July 2024 and reinstated on 15 July 2024 after MOSOP protested at the appointment of a non-Ogoni replacement.
Why progress figures conflict
Most public disagreement about the cleanup is not disagreement about facts. It is people quoting numbers that measure different objects, at different dates, by different methods. A site is not a lot; a lot is not a hectare; and a site declared remediated by the body doing the remediation is not the same claim as a site independently tested and found able to support agriculture. The table below sets three accounts side by side without merging them.
| What is being counted | HYPREP’s own statement, August 2026 (15 years after UNEP) — self-reported delivery | HYPREP midterm report, June 2025 — self-reported work-in-progress, different units | Dataphyte investigation, May 2023 — independent field and registry checks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contaminated sites | 30 of 65 contaminated sites fully remediated | 50 remediated lots across 17 UNEP-assessed sites closed out; 13 Category N sites certified | HYPREP’s July 2022 magazine claimed 57 sites remediated; of 21 sites independently checked, none could support agriculture |
| Mangroves | 1.5 million mangrove seedlings planted | Mangrove pilot phase 93% complete across 560 hectares | Not assessed in this investigation |
| Shoreline | More than 1,000 hectares of shoreline rehabilitated | Shoreline cleanup at 53% of 1,700 hectares | Not assessed in this investigation |
| Drinking water | 49 communities connected to potable water | Not stated in these terms in the midterm figures | Twelve communities visited had no potable water seven years after launch; Bodo Jetty samples tested positive for chloride, nitrite, lead, mercury and arsenic, all failing safety standards |
| Jobs and training | More than 8,000 direct jobs; more than 1,000 scholarships | Not stated in these terms in the midterm figures | Not assessed in this investigation |
| Buildings and institutions | 100-bed Ogoni Specialist Hospital at Kpite and 43-bed Cottage Hospital at Buan nearing completion; Centre of Excellence for Environmental Restoration around 96% complete | Not stated in these terms in the midterm figures | Not assessed in this investigation |
| Other claims | Ogoni Wetland designated a Ramsar Site; three-year health biomonitoring study with WHO’s IARC underway | — | Five firms receiving payments had no Corporate Affairs Commission registration; eleven companies with expired corporate status received contracts contrary to the Public Procurement Act 2007; two firms had no prior remediation experience |
Scrutiny on the public record
Amnesty International set out its assessment in No Clean-Up, No Justice in June 2020. In 2022 a National Assembly joint panel summoned the Environment Minister and HYPREP; officials skipped three invitations and the panel chair, Degi Eremienyo, alleged an appearance of concealment of information. On 16 October 2025 a House of Representatives ad-hoc committee on mismanagement of oil spill cleanup funds held a public hearing. In July 2026 Sahara Reporters published a leaked memo in which HYPREP sought to raise the Centre of Excellence contract from ₦41.47bn to ₦84.13bn and the 100-bed Specialist Hospital from ₦18.31bn to ₦38.21bn — ₦62.55bn in total, with 24-month extensions proposed — despite its own June 2026 report putting the Centre at 96.64% complete.
004 / Key documents and where to find them
Go to the original, not the summary
Every one of these is free to read. If you are preparing a case, a submission or a community meeting, download them and keep your own copies — links move and pages disappear.
| Document | What it is | Why it matters to you | Where to find it |
|---|---|---|---|
| UNEP, Environmental Assessment of Ogoniland (2011) | The scientific survey commissioned by the Federal Government and funded by Shell, published 4 August 2011. | It is the baseline every cleanup promise is measured against, and it names specific communities and contamination levels. | unep.org/resources/report/environmental-assessment-ogoniland |
| NOSDRA (Establishment) Act 2006 | The law creating the regulator and setting spill reporting and cleanup duties. | It is the source of the 24-hour reporting duty, the ₦2,000,000-per-day penalty, the two-week cleanup duty and the ₦5,000,000 or two-year penalty. | Agency site: nosdra.gov.ng |
| NOSDRA oil spill monitor | The public database of reported spills. | Check whether your incident was recorded, and whether the recorded cause, volume and date match what you saw. | nosdra.oilspillmonitor.ng |
| Amnesty International, No Clean-Up, No Justice (June 2020) | An assessment of the cleanup’s progress and of Shell’s conduct in the Niger Delta. | Useful when you need an independent account to set against official progress statements. | amnesty.org/en/documents/afr44/2514/2020/en/ |
| Amnesty International, Bad Information: Oil Spill Investigations in the Niger Delta (2013) | A study of how spill investigations attribute cause. | Read it before your JIV. It explains why the cause field is contested and what to watch for. | amnestyusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/afr440282013en.pdf |
| Ogoni Bill of Rights (1990) | The founding statement of Ogoni demands, adopted at Bori. | Its four demands are still the reference point for every negotiation about Ogoni land and resources. | mosop.org/2015/10/10/ogoni-bill-of-rights/ |
| Dataphyte investigation (May 2023) | An investigation into HYPREP contracting and water provision, with field testing. | The most detailed independent check on contractor registration and on whether remediated land and water actually work. | dataphyte.com — HYPREP investigation, May 2023 |
| Alame & Ors v Shell plc — analysis of the June 2025 English ruling | Commentary on the High Court decision in the Ogale and Bille litigation. | This is the ruling on continuing pollution and time limits, and on liability where sabotage is involved. | corpaccountabilitylab.org — Alame & Ors v Shell plc. Case history: business-humanrights.org |
| Shell plc EITI company assessment (June 2023) | The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative’s assessment of Shell against its expectations for supporting companies. | It found Shell met 7 of 9 expectations, partially meeting Expectations 4 and 6 — useful when transparency claims are made. | Published by the EITI on its own site, eiti.org. We have not found a stable direct link to the assessment document and will not guess at one; search the site for Shell plc. |
005 / Frequently asked questions
The questions people actually ask us
Answered as we would answer them in the office at Bori: briefly, with the source named, and with a clear “we do not know” where that is the truth.
Who pays for the cleanup?
The oil industry and the Federal Government, through the Ogoni Trust Fund. UNEP recommended in 2011 an initial US$1 billion from industry and government. The SPDC Joint Venture pledged US$900 million and had paid US$572 million by 2023 — $180m in 2018, $180m in 2019, $212m in 2022. The Federal Government’s US$100 million counterpart funding was not delivered as promised. At an October 2025 House of Representatives hearing, oil company representatives said collective contributions stood at US$900 million. We publish both accounts because they do not agree.
Why is it taking so long?
Partly because the job is genuinely long: UNEP estimated around five years for each contaminated land site and twenty-five to thirty years for full restoration once mangroves are included. But part of the delay is not technical. Funding arrived slowly and incompletely, and the Project Coordination Office was only established in 2017, six years after the report. Contracting has been repeatedly questioned — by a National Assembly panel in 2022 whose chair alleged an appearance of concealment of information, and by a House of Representatives hearing in October 2025.
What is a JIV, and can I refuse to sign it?
A Joint Investigation Visit is the site inspection required by law as soon as practicable after a spill has been identified and contained. The oil company, community representatives and government agencies attend together to determine cause, impact and scale. The signed document is the legal foundation for any compensation claim or court action. Nobody can force your hand onto the paper. If the form does not describe what you saw, say so at the site, ask for your objection to be recorded, and decline to sign. Photograph every page.
If the JIV says sabotage, does that mean I get nothing?
The recorded cause governs whether statutory compensation is payable, so a sabotage finding matters a great deal. It is not automatically the end of the matter. Amnesty International’s 2013 report Bad Information documents systematic problems with how cause is attributed, so a finding can be challenged. And on 20 June 2025 the English High Court held in the Ogale and Bille litigation that Shell can be liable even where third-party sabotage occurred, if it failed to prevent it. That was a ruling on those claims in an English court, not a general rule in Nigeria. Take legal advice.
Is it too late to claim for a spill that happened years ago?
Not necessarily, and this is the most important recent development for old spills. On 20 June 2025 Mrs Justice May held in the English High Court that ongoing pollution from unremediated spills is not time-barred, because continuing pollution may constitute a fresh actionable nuisance each day. In plain terms: if the oil is still there and still causing harm, the wrong may be happening now rather than only in the year it started. The main trial is listed for 2027. Whether that reasoning helps your claim is a question for a lawyer, but do not assume an old spill is closed.
Can I still sue Shell now that it has sold SPDC?
Shell plc remains a defendant in the UK Ogale and Bille litigation alongside its former subsidiary, so the sale did not end that case. On 12 February 2021 the UK Supreme Court ruled those claims could proceed in English courts, finding a good arguable case that the parent owed a duty of care. In 2023 the High Court allowed individual human-rights claims, and in October 2024 the Court of Appeal overturned the “global claim” requirement. Whether a new claim about your spill can be brought against Shell depends on when it happened, who operated the asset and where you sue.
What is Renaissance?
Renaissance is the consortium that bought the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria. The sale was announced on 16 January 2024 and completed on 13–14 March 2025 for US$2.4 billion — $1.3 billion upfront plus up to $1.1 billion for prior receivables and cash balances. The consortium comprises ND Western, Aradel Holdings, FIRST Exploration & Petroleum Development, Waltersmith and Petrolin, and SPDC was renamed Renaissance Africa Energy Company Ltd. Shell retains deepwater and integrated gas positions in Nigeria. In July 2025 seven UN special rapporteurs and working groups said the divestments lacked transparency.
What is HYPREP and who runs it?
The Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project is the federal body carrying out the Ogoni cleanup, under the Federal Ministry of Environment. It was flagged off in June 2016 by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo and its Project Coordination Office was established in 2017. It has a Governing Council, a Board of Trustees for the Ogoni Trust Fund, the Project Coordination Office and the Central Representative Advisory Committee. Prof. Nenibarini Zabbey is Project Coordinator; he was removed on 13 July 2024 and reinstated two days later after MOSOP protested at the appointment of a non-Ogoni replacement.
Is the water safe to drink?
It depends where you are, and there is no single current answer for all of Ogoniland. UNEP found in 2011 that at least ten Ogoni communities had hydrocarbons in their drinking water, with peak groundwater hydrocarbons above 1,000,000 micrograms per litre against a Nigerian standard of 600. In May 2023 Dataphyte reported that twelve communities it visited still had no potable water, and that Bodo Jetty samples tested positive for chloride, nitrite, lead, mercury and arsenic, all failing safety standards. HYPREP states it has connected 49 communities. If you are unsure about your source, treat it as unsafe and press for testing.
What did UNEP actually find in 2011?
Contamination worse, deeper and more widespread than had been officially acknowledged. At Nisisioken Ogale, benzene in drinking water at more than 900 times the WHO guideline and an eight-centimetre layer of refined oil on the groundwater; UNEP asked for emergency action there ahead of all other remediation. At least ten communities had hydrocarbons in drinking water. Soil contamination reached five metres depth or more in 49 cases. In Bodo West, mangrove roots were coated in a bitumen-type layer a centimetre or more thick, with 10% of healthy mangrove cover lost over 307,380 square metres.
What is the Ogoni Bill of Rights?
The founding statement of modern Ogoni demands, adopted in 1990 at Bori in Rivers State. Sources differ over whether it was August or October, so we write only the year. It makes four demands: political control of Ogoni affairs by Ogoni people; control and use of Ogoni economic resources for Ogoni development; adequate and direct representation as of right in all Nigerian national institutions; and the right to protect the Ogoni environment and ecology from further degradation. It was presented to the Federal Government, the UN Working Group on Indigenous Peoples in Geneva and bodies including Greenpeace.
When is Ogoni Day?
4 January. The first Ogoni Day was held on 4 January 1993, when MOSOP mobilised around 300,000 people despite a government ban on public gatherings; leaders were arrested afterwards. The January 2026 commemoration was held at Bori in Khana LGA, addressed by Rivers State Governor Siminalayi Fubara and MOSOP President Fegalo Nsuke, on the theme of unity as the precondition for justice. We deliberately print no ordinal for 2026: published sources give conflicting counts, and an ordinal we calculated would be our arithmetic, not a fact.
Were the Ogoni Nine pardoned or exonerated?
Pardoned. On Democracy Day, 12 June 2025, President Tinubu announced a posthumous pardon and national honours for the Ogoni Nine, hanged on 10 November 1995 at Port Harcourt prison after a military tribunal trial Amnesty International called a sham. The distinction matters: a pardon forgives an offence, while exoneration says there was no offence. MOSOP welcomed the announcement but demanded exoneration. Celestine AkpoBari, coordinator of the Ogoni Solidarity Forum, rejected it: “You cannot pardon someone that has not committed an offense; we are demanding total exoneration… To say ‘pardon’, I think it is insulting. If there is any group who needs pardon, it is the Nigerian government.”
Will oil production restart in Ogoniland?
It is being actively pursued and actively resisted, and nothing is settled. On 21 January 2025 President Tinubu hosted Ogoni leaders and the Rivers governor and directed the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, to open dialogue on resumption. The Ogoni Dialogue Committee consulted across Ogoniland and submitted recommendations on 24 September 2025. MOSOP and others publicly rejected the moves in September 2025, and in May 2026 MOSOP said the President was “not sincere”. On 2 February 2026 hundreds protested across 17 communities in Tai LGA; on 6 August 2026, 51 civil society organisations demanded a moratorium on the Yorla South field.
What can I do if my community was not consulted?
Start by creating the record that does not yet exist. Write down what was decided, by whom, on what date, and what your community was and was not told. Get it agreed and signed by community leadership so it is a collective account rather than one person’s complaint. Then take it to more than one door: CRAC is meant to carry community representation into HYPREP; MOSOP and the Ogoni Solidarity Forum-Nigeria can raise it publicly; National Assembly committees have taken evidence on cleanup contracting. Send it to us as well.
How do I check a figure a politician quoted?
Ask four questions. What exactly is being counted — sites, lots, hectares, communities? Who published it, and are they reporting on their own performance? What date does it describe, not what date was it said? And has anyone independent been to the place and checked? Then compare it with the table in section 003, which sets HYPREP’s August 2026 statement, its June 2025 midterm report and Dataphyte’s May 2023 field investigation side by side. If those four questions cannot be answered, the figure is a claim, not a fact.
How much compensation should I expect?
We cannot tell you, and we will not invent a figure. We have found no authoritative, current, publicly available schedule of compensation rates for spill damage in Nigeria. That absence is the point: without a published schedule there is no rate you can hold anyone to, and outcomes depend on negotiation and on evidence. Settlements have been reached, though. In the Bodo case, following the 2008–09 Trans-Niger Pipeline spills, £55 million was settled in 2014 for 15,600 claimants, each receiving over £3,000. Get independent legal advice before agreeing any figure.
006 / Glossary
The words used in meetings about your land
Officials and company staff use these terms quickly and often without explanation. Knowing them changes the balance of a room.
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| JIV | Joint Investigation Visit. The site inspection required by law after a spill, attended by the oil company, community representatives and government agencies, to determine cause, impact and scale. The signed JIV document is the legal foundation for any compensation claim or legal action. |
| NOSDRA | National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency. The federal regulator that receives spill reports, coordinates response, monitors compliance, assesses ecological damage, mediates between communities and spillers and checks that cleanup is completed. |
| HYPREP | Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project. The federal body delivering the Ogoni cleanup, under the Federal Ministry of Environment. Flagged off June 2016; Project Coordination Office established 2017. |
| UNEP | United Nations Environment Programme. Author of the 2011 Environmental Assessment of Ogoniland, the scientific baseline for the entire cleanup. |
| SPDC | Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria. Shell’s Nigerian onshore subsidiary, sold in March 2025 and renamed Renaissance Africa Energy Company Ltd. |
| NEPL | NNPC Exploration and Production Limited. Asset operator at the Yorla oil field, where Well 14 leaked at Kpean in Khana LGA on 3 August 2025. |
| Renaissance | The consortium — ND Western, Aradel Holdings, FIRST Exploration & Petroleum Development, Waltersmith and Petrolin — that bought SPDC for US$2.4bn, completing on 13–14 March 2025. |
| EITI | Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. An international transparency body with an assessment process for supporting companies; its June 2023 assessment found Shell plc met 7 of 9 expectations, partially meeting Expectations 4 and 6. |
| MOSOP | Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People. Founded in 1990 by Ken Saro-Wiwa and Ogoni chiefs; the umbrella body for roughly 700,000 Ogoni. President: Fegalo Nsuke. |
| OSF | Ogoni Solidarity Forum-Nigeria. An Ogoni rights and environmental-justice advocacy network coordinated by Celestine AkpoBari, and a partner of the People Advancement Centre. |
| CRAC | Central Representative Advisory Committee. The part of HYPREP’s structure through which Ogoni communities are meant to be represented in the cleanup. |
| Ogoni Trust Fund | The fund holding cleanup money, with a Board of Trustees inaugurated on 15 March 2021 in Abuja and chaired by Dr Michael Nwielaghi. |
| Category N site | A site classification used in HYPREP’s reporting of remediation progress. Its June 2025 midterm report stated that 13 Category N sites had been certified. Note that “sites”, “lots” and “hectares” are different units and cannot be added together. |
| Remediation vs restoration | Remediation means removing or reducing the contamination. Restoration means bringing the land or water back to a functioning state — soil that farms, creeks that fish, mangroves that grow. UNEP estimated around five years per contaminated land site but twenty-five to thirty years for full restoration. A remediated site is not automatically a restored one. |
| Form B | The NOSDRA form recording the areas impacted, the quantity spilled and recovered and the cleanup measures taken. Operational guidance expects it within two weeks of the spill. |
| Form C | The NOSDRA form documenting a completed cleanup. Ask to see it before you accept that a site has been closed out. |
| RAP | Remediation action plan. The plan for cleaning up an impacted site. Under the NOSDRA Act 2006 the spiller must clean up to all practicable extent within two weeks, including an action plan for remediation. |
| Continuing nuisance | A legal idea that a harm which is still happening is a fresh wrong each day rather than a single past event. On 20 June 2025 the English High Court held that ongoing pollution from unremediated spills is not time-barred on this basis. |
| Ramsar site | A wetland designated as internationally important under the Ramsar Convention. HYPREP states that the Ogoni Wetland has received this designation. |
| bpd | Barrels per day, the standard unit of oil production. After Shell withdrew its workforce from Ogoniland in 1993, extraction fell to about 10,000 bpd — 0.5% of the national total. |
| Democracy Day pardon | The posthumous pardon and national honours for the Ogoni Nine announced by President Tinubu on Democracy Day, 12 June 2025. MOSOP welcomed it but demanded exoneration rather than pardon. |
| Kaiama Declaration | The declaration issued by the Ijaw Youth Council on 11 December 1998, demanding resource control, environmental protection and self-determination for the Ijaw. |
Still stuck? Bring it to us
If a JIV is being arranged and you do not know what to ask, if a form has been put in front of you, or if a figure does not add up, send it. We are at No. 6 Kani Road, Bori-Ogoni, and we read everything that arrives.
This page is general information about processes, deadlines and public documents. It is not legal advice, and it cannot take account of your own circumstances. For a specific claim, dispute or settlement offer, get qualified legal representation before you sign anything.
Last reviewed August 2026. Figures on this page are attributed to their source and date because published cleanup numbers vary by unit and by year. If you believe something here is wrong or out of date, write to us and we will check it and correct the page.