Pollution: Group Urges Tinubu to Halt Environmental Degradation in Niger Delta

Michael Olugbode in Abuja

President Bola Tinubu has been urged to personally visit the Niger Delta region in order to have firsthand information on the devastating effect of oil spillages in the region.
Addressing a press conference on the cleaning up of the Niger Delta and resolving the prevailing environmental genocide yesterday in Abuja, a coalition of civil society organisations and stakeholders, Coalition for a Cleaned Niger Delta (CCND), claimed that a billion litres of crude oil equivalent have been released into the Niger Delta ecosystem as the price paid by communities in the area for Nigeria’s oil production.

The team which was led by Executive Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), Nnimmo Bassey, and Founding Executive Director, African Centre for Leadership, Strategy & Development (Centre LSD), Otive Igbuzor, said: “We trust our President is well aware that the ecosystem of the Niger Delta has for about 70 years been plagued by unprecedented perennial pollution from petroleum production activities, enabled or worsened by a highly dysfunctional, conflicted and compromised environmental regulatory system, since the country struck commercial oil in the Oloibiri Province prior to Nigeria’s Independence. This festering devastation has projected and ranked Nigeria’s Niger Delta among the worst oil and gas polluted regions in the world.
“By the very limited official records of Nigeria’s spill detection body (National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency – NOSDRA), there were 16,263 oil spills within the 17-year period of 2006 to 2023.

“This accounted for about 823,483 barrels of oil spilt, equivalent to 4,103 tanker trucks or 130,933,797 litres of crude oil, from NOSDRA data.
“These figures are a fractional slice of the reality, as they exclude 5,456 spills for which the spiller companies did not provide NOSDRA with estimates of spilled quantities. Besides, estimates are usually and “understandably” grossly suppressed by operators. Data for some mega spills, like the Aiteo blowout at OML 29 that lasted for 38 days in November-December 2021, are also omitted.

“Furthermore, it would be noticed that NOSDRA’s conservative spill statistics cited above do not include data for all of 50 years from 1956 when Oloibiri Well 1 was spudded, till 2006 when NOSDRA was created. We also omitted gas volumes flared continually for 68 years, and the equally deleterious millions of barrels of toxic effluents/“produce .water” discharged untreated into the rivers, swamps and mangroves as waste in the course of production. If allowance is made for these omissions and non-disclosures, easily one billion litres of crude oil equivalent have been released into the Niger Delta ecosystem as the price paid by communities there for Nigeria’s oil production.”

The Coalition while narrating the plethora of infractions done to the environment in the Niger Delta for over six decades, said: “Considering the apparent failure of a long line of Presidents, Petroleum and Environment Ministers, and Chief Regulators, to recognise the indescribable gravity of this ravage, its severe socioeconomic and security repercussions for Nigeria, and to comprehensively resolve it, we invite Mr President to pay a spot visit, along with the relevant Ministers and Regulators, and possibly the National Security Adviser, to some of the following locations, which are too few as examples of devastation, to see for yourself: Polobubo and Ogulagha in Delta State; Ibeno, Mbo and Ikot Ada Udo in Akwa Ibom State; Awoye in Ondo State; Bille, Obagi and Rumuekpe in Rivers State; and Gbarain/Ekpetiama, Nembe,Aghoro and Otuabagi (where Nigeria’s pioneer oil wells are located) in Bayelsa State.”

The Coalition further stated that: “We trust that Mr. President and the government are mindful of Nigeria’s numerous commitments to international treaties and conventions, including those on universal rights, environmental and indigenous people’s rights, and climate change. Mr President’s commitments to a world audience at the UN Climate Conference (COP 28) in Dubai, UAE, barely four months ago are also fresh in mind. A genuine action to cleanup the Niger Delta will be an excellent progress report for Nigeria, and particularly for Your Excellency, as the world gathers again at the next Climate Conference, COP 29, in about six months from now.”