The issue of environmental justice is relevant today in light of Shell’s decision to sell its onshore oil and gas operations in Nigeria, the continent’s biggest oil producer. In March 2025, Shell finalized the sale of $2.4 billion in onshore and shallow-water assets in Nigeria to a consortium of Nigerian companies called Renaissance.

Shell has faced mounting legal scrutiny for years, with courts ordering the company to pay plaintiffs billions of dollars in damages. Shell awarded $15 million to plaintiffs for an oil disaster in 2004 in Goi that left families “eating, drinking and breathing the oil.” In the fishing town of Bodo, villagers sued Shell for two massive oil spills that caused the biggest loss of mangrove habitat in the history of oil pollution. In 2014, Shell agreed to a $83 million settlement but the Bodo community alleges that the clean-up has not been effectively carried out.