By Carola Houtekamer and Merijn Rengers
Amsterdam: September 10, 2020. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs falsely fired a whistleblower who reported abuses at the embassy in the Nigerian capital Abuja. This is the conclusion of the court in The Hague in a judgment published on Wednesday.
This concerns the Nigerian-British born Fidelia Onoghaife, who worked as a senior policy advisor at the Dutch embassy until 2019. She came into conflict with the ministry after she raised in 2018 that the then ambassador to Abuja, Robert Petri, had too close links with the oil company Shell.
Onoghaife reported that Petri had leaked secret information about a criminal investigation into corruption by Shell to the oil company. Shell has been involved in a major bribery scandal involving the Nigerian oil field OPL245 for years. The ministry was also informed that Petri was using the oil company’s private jet and that there were problems with private use of official cars.
The sharpest accusation against Petri was that he had revealed information about an impending visit by the FIOD investigation service to Nigeria to the local Shell director. This information should have been kept confidential, especially for the oil company under investigation. This report was correct, according to an investigation by NRC in June.
The ministry promised Onoghaife that she would be protected as a whistleblower. Following its integrity reports, the ministry sent an investigation team to Abuja, which was later followed by an investigation into “management problems” at the embassy. Ambassador Petri was brought back to the Netherlands prematurely because of these investigations. He got a position in The Hague and kept his job and salary. Onoghaife, on the other hand, was fired shortly afterwards. According to the ministry, this had nothing to do with her whistleblower report, but was due to her part in the bad working atmosphere at the embassy.
The judge dismisses that suggestion. “It has been sufficiently established that the dismissal of the employee is related to the whistleblower report made by her,” said the judgment. The judge also blames the ministry for repeatedly waving a report on the abuses in Abuja, in which large parts had been made illegible.
Those black-painted parts would prove that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was right, the ministry’s lawyer suggested during the July hearing. But despite the judge’s urging, the department refused to release the secret passages. That is why the judge does not give much credence to the ministry’s claims.
Onoghaife’s attorney, Christiaan Oberman, says the former embassy employee is “very satisfied” with the verdict, especially since “the court found that she was fired for her whistleblower report. She feels that justice has been done and that she has been cleared of all blame.” She will receive compensation of two years salaries.
Onoghaife was supported in her fight by many NGOs who are concerned about the way the Dutch government deals with Shell. Donald Pols, director of Milieudefensie, says in a response: “The ruling confirms the image that the Dutch government is overshooting in its desire to facilitate Shell and other multinationals and is prepared to fire critical officials for this. We find this disturbing.”
“It cannot be the case that a country such as the Netherlands, which attaches great importance to the international legal order, will dismiss an internal whistleblower while the ambassador in Nigeria—whose integrity is under discussion—will be given a different position,” says Tuur Elzinga, vice-chairman of the FNV trade union. In Nigeria, four NGOs have asked the Nigerian Minister of Foreign Affairs to summon the current Dutch ambassador. A spokesperson for the ministry says that the department is studying the verdict.
The verdict of the court in The Hague comes when the criminal case against Shell and the Italian oil company Eni has resumed in Milan. On Wednesday, the Nigerian government demanded that the oil companies pay about 1 billion euros to the country, as an advance on all damage that Nigeria would have suffered as a result of the years-long bribery affair around the OPL245 oil field.
