Global Business and Ethics

The Shell organization is a worldwide petrochemical and energy company. The company is the second largest energy corporation in the nation. According to the Center of Constitutional Rights (2009), “Royal Dutch Shell began oil production in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria in 1958 and has a long history of working closely with the Nigerian government to quell popular opposition to its presence in the region.” As the resistant took a position and protested on the harm the oil company was causing, Shell demanded the Nigerian soldiers to exercise deadly force on a popular ethnic group in Nigeria identified as the Ogoni in southern Nigeria. For the Ogoni people, the oil companies brought devastation and poverty to the adored land. Shell’s actions brought deforestation and oil spills that robbed the land of its splendor. The total disregard for human lives directly from one of the nation’s well-known energy leaders was to become a reality.

The Ogoni community believed in constitutional rights and created a human rights group called “The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People.” The group was established in 1990 by a Nigerian author Ken Saro-Wiwa. He was a fanatical advocate who spoke in opposition to the ecological change in the Delta Niger. Along with other protestors, he spoke strongly against the harm created by Shell’s behavior in the area. As the reputation of the group grew, Shell’s orders for the Nigerian troops to use evil force on the opposition also grew. Shell’s actions caused soot deposits that collected on the roofs of homes around the environment. When the rainwater washed the soot away, it ran down from the rooftops into the top soil. This was understood to change the richness of the soil. Other studies were done for the nature preservation in Nigeria and found that gas emissions became a huge part of the global warming issue. Nigeria was quickly losing the exquisite beauty that the community adored.

One Ogoni member, Karalolo Kogbara,...