Senate Minority Whip Urges IOCs to End Gas Flaring, Practices Destroying the Environment

Eromosele Abiodun and Nume Ekeghe in Marrakech

 The Senate Minority Whip, Senator Darlington Nwokocha, yesterday, called on the international oil companies (IOCs) and multinational corporations operating in Nigeria to put an end to gas flaring and other practices to reduce the impact of climate change.

He said this in an interview at the end of the 2023 Global Parliamentarian Forum held on the sidelines of the ongoing Annual Meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Marrakech, Morocco.

Representing Abia Central Senatorial District, Nwokocha, decried the adverse impact of gas flaring and other practices that are hurting the environment in the Niger Delta and other oil-producing states in the country.

He revealed that the National Assembly was actively pursuing legislation aimed at ensuring that the highest international standards were followed by oil companies in the responsible extraction of natural resources within the country.

According to him: “The global Parliamentary forum is for us to compare notes and review all our practices over time. Now we are rounding up the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and global practices. When it comes to climate change, it is also ravaging Africa and there is no limitation to the effect. 

“It’s just like when you do directional drilling, you may be causing the problem here, while the effect will go viral to other places that do not have much in contributing to the problem.

“So, the issue I am raising is a situation where like, we have gas flaring in Nigeria and some other factors that are man-made, what efforts are we making to eliminate all those factors that are man-made?”

He added, “And I think we all need to work hard to make sure that we forestall every action that will lead to the devastation of our environment because we do not have any other place except our home. “Also, we do not have the technical know-how to tap the resources. All these advanced economies, what they do is they come around to tap these resources, now throwing into the winds, the best global practices of harvesting those natural resources.

“So I think all we need to do as far as this kind of gathering is concerned from the parliamentary arm is to make sure that we institute the proper legislative instrumentality to forestall everything that has to do with the devastations that man-made, mostly in Africa.”

 He reiterated that the gas-flaring occurring in Rivers State and neighboring states was a result of the avoidance of best practices.

Furthermore, he noted that oil companies that operate in the region have operations in other climes and adhere to best practices, arguing that in Nigeria, they maximise profit and ignore the environmental repercussions.

Responding to a question on if the legislature was working on a bill to tackle climate change effects to address the challenge, he said: “That is the essence of coming to these kinds of events because we are comparing notes and at the end of the day we are coming up with something stronger that can lift us from where we are to a greater height.”