Shell's own internal documents confirm that the company spied on Saro-Wiwa in the 1990s as he traveled internationally to build awareness of Shell's role in Nigeria and it failed completely in 1995 to condemn the farcical proceedings of the Military Tribunal which condemned him and his 8 fellow protestors to death, although the proceedings were strongly condemned by by among others, Amnesty, Article 19, the UN and the International Court of Justice. In an effort to head off the executions, Ken's brother Owens met with then Shell Nigeria MD Brian Andersson to seek the company's intervention. Only at the 11th hour did the company finally issue a brief public statement urging clemency on humanitarian grounds. At the same time running ads in the British press suggesting that the human rights and environmental movements should bear responsibility for the executions. None of this is unique - I have heard very similar statements re good citizenship from Mobil executives who assure me that they use quiet diplomacy where they can.
Property needs protection.
Given the regime's dependence on oil exports for its economic survival, the Nigerian human rights and democracy movements have called for international oil sanctions to secure the release of political prisoners, return the military to barracks and implement the 1993 election results. The private sector position can be understood as self interest. They argue instead for the maintenance of the largely ineffective diplomatic sanctions currently in place in the U.S. and Europe, with the addition of a freeze on the personal assets of members of the regime, which is unlikely to be very effective. Nigeria is not South Africa, the argument goes, and sanctions cannot and will not work as they did against apartheid. They are correct, Nigeria is not South Africa.