In March of 2025, Shell announced its exit from Nigeria’s Niger Delta.[1] The multinational oil and gas company was selling its onshore assets while retaining its offshore operations, putting it beyond the reach of the people in terms of reparations, accountability and legal hunting. I discussed this situation with my interlocutors during my 2025 exploratory research in Ogoni on the Niger Delta. For the Ogonis, this move carried an internal paradox. They blamed Shell for destroying their land and have long demanded accountability. Shell’s departure felt like a loss of those efforts and the few results achieved so far. At the same time, Shell remained central to their survival, as many livelihoods depended on the economic activities it made possible. Shell still formally employs laborers of Ogoni descent for its operations and through its self-funded perpetual restoration scheme carried out by the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP) under the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) initiative.[2] Additionally, the Trans-Niger Pipeline (TNP), which feeds a network of approximately 100 oil wells through Ogoni, has become a source of illegal oil extraction by locals—who tap the pipelines and refine the oil using indigenous methods—feeding a black-market economy and providing informal livelihoods.[3] This paradox highlights contexts where communities, which fight corporate excesses but rely on corporate benefits, must adapt to the harms and uncertainties associated with corporate exit. This project explores what is at stake for Indigenous communities in such moments: what new forms of survival and everyday life emerge when they lose the benefits but remain with the harms of a corporation’s withdrawal?
This project began in my childhood days in southwestern Nigeria. I grew up with the constant awareness that Nigeria’s economy is heavily dependent on oil, which forms a significant part of its international trade and revenue. I was also aware that oil is extracted from the South-Southern region of Nigeria (The Niger Delta), of which the Ogonis constitute a part. I witnessed and read from the news and television how these communities faced persistent environmental pollution, violence, and infrastructural neglect, employment marginalization, and broader developmental deprivation. This early awareness shaped my academic interests and research focus. An environmental anthropology class deepened my interest during my undergraduate education. I was exposed to the works of geographer Michael Watts, anthropologist Omolade Adunbi, and political activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, all of whom worked on the Niger Delta.
This project began in my childhood days in southwestern Nigeria. I grew up with the constant awareness that Nigeria’s economy is heavily dependent on oil, which forms a significant part of its international trade and revenue. I was also aware that oil is extracted from the South-Southern region of Nigeria (The Niger Delta), of which the Ogonis constitute a part. I witnessed and read from the news and television how these communities faced persistent environmental pollution, violence, and infrastructural neglect, employment marginalization, and broader developmental deprivation. This early awareness shaped my academic interests and research focus. An environmental anthropology class deepened my interest during my undergraduate education. I was exposed to the works of geographer Michael Watts, anthropologist Omolade Adunbi, and political activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, all of whom worked on the Niger Delta.
Summarily, this study contributes to broader conversations about the stakes of the withdrawal and exit of extractive corporate institutions. How do impacted populations deal with toxic legacies in the absence of the culprit corporation?
[1] https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/shell-exits-nigeria-leaving-behind-a-trail-of-environmental-degradation
[2] https://hyprep.gov.ng
[3] https://widerimage.reuters.com/story/nigerias-illegal-oil-bunkerers