In what critics are calling a calculated and carefully veiled retreat, French energy giant TotalEnergies now finds itself in a Paris courtroom not over profits, but over silence.
Four civil society organisations Friends of the Earth France, Hawkmoth, HEDA Resource Centre, and Social Action International have moved against the oil major, demanding full disclosure of documents tied to its $800 million divestment from Nigeria’s onshore oil sector. Their message is unmistakable: the era of opaque exits is over.
At the centre of the legal storm is TotalEnergies’ decision to offload its 10 per cent non-operating stake in the Renaissance Joint Venture to Nigerian consortium Vaaris a transaction that, on the surface, appears routine, but beneath it, raises troubling questions about accountability, responsibility, and moral obligation.
Filed under Article 145 of the French Code of Civil Procedure, the case is not yet a full trial it is something more telling. It is a demand to see what has been deliberately kept out of sight.
The deal, signed in January 2026, covers interests in 18 oil mining licences scattered across the Niger Delta — a region long synonymous with wealth extraction and environmental devastation. Yet, in a move that has drawn sharp criticism, TotalEnergies has retained its economic grip on three lucrative gas assets that supply roughly half of Nigeria LNG’s feedstock.
To critics, the strategy is stark: hold on to profitable, lower-risk assets while shedding those burdened with environmental liabilities.
It is not the company’s first attempt. A previous $860 million sale to Chappal Energies collapsed under regulatory scrutiny. Now, with a new buyer in place, the urgency to exit appears undiminished — but so too does the opacity surrounding the terms.
What unsettles civil society groups is not just the transaction itself, but the silence that surrounds it.
Who inherits the poisoned creeks?
Who restores the farmlands turned barren?
Who answers to communities that have lived for decades on the frontlines of oil pollution?
These are not abstract questions. A 2023 report by the Bayelsa State Oil and Environmental Commission paints a grim reality: between nine million and 13 million barrels of crude oil spilled across the Niger Delta over five decades — a catastrophe on a scale that dwarfs some of the world’s most infamous oil disasters.
The result is a region where water is unsafe, livelihoods have collapsed, and survival itself has become a negotiation with pollution.
“This is not just a transaction — it is a transfer of consequences,” said Isaac Osuoka of Social Action International. “Communities are being asked, once again, to bear the weight of an industry that has already taken too much.”
France’s Duty of Vigilance Law looms large over the case, placing a legal and moral burden on corporations like TotalEnergies to ensure that their global operations — and exits — do not worsen human rights or environmental harm.
For the NGOs, this is the crux: a company cannot simply walk away from decades of extraction without proving that it is not also walking away from responsibility.
TotalEnergies, however, maintains a familiar defence. At its annual general meeting, CEO Patrick Pouyanné pointed to crude oil theft, pipeline vandalism, and operational risks as justification for the exit, insisting that liabilities will be transferred in line with Nigerian regulations.
But to many, this response rings hollow.
Transferring liability, they argue, is not the same as resolving it.
TotalEnergies is not alone. Across Nigeria’s oil landscape, international majors are quietly retreating. Shell’s $2.4 billion sale of its stake in the same joint venture in 2025 and Eni’s subsequent divestment plans signal a broader shift — one that activists say is unfolding without adequate safeguards.
What emerges is a troubling pattern: a systematic withdrawal from onshore operations, executed with speed, but without clarity on who will clean up the past.
Olanrewaju Suraju of HEDA Resource Centre describes it bluntly: “This is divestment without accountability — a dangerous experiment where communities are left holding the environmental debt.”
As the case unfolds in Paris, one question lingers, sharp and unavoidable:
When the oil giants leave, who stays to answer for what they leave behind?
For now, TotalEnergies, Vaaris, and Nigeria’s regulators remain publicly silent. But in that silence, the voices of affected communities grow louder demanding not just answers, but justice.
Because in the Niger Delta, the story has never been just about oil.
It has always been about people.
