The two largest transnational oil companies operating in Nigeria’s Niger Delta, Shell and ExxonMobil, are packing up and leaving.
Both companies have announced separate plans to sell off their assets as soon as they find buyers, and to leave the Niger Delta, where they have extracted crude oil and gas for over half a century. For communities living in the region, the news is cause for bewilderment and uncertainty – the fear that after the devastating impacts of oil extraction they have suffered, their quest for ecological justice may never be realized.
