Divestment: Rivers Community Laments Decades of Environmental Pollution, Demands Remediation 

Blessing Ibunge in Port Harcourt 

Rumuekpe community in Emohua Local Government Area of Rivers State has lamented the impact of decades of oil exploration activities in the area.

This comes as the community has insisted that Shell and other oil multinationals must remediate the environment and restore their livelihoods before divesting their assets in the area.

THISDAY gathered that oil was discovered in Rumuekpe in 1958, after that of Oloibiri in Bayelsa State. It was also gathered that Rumuekpe hosts Shell’s largest manifold from which oil produced in its East Operations is transported to Bonny Terminal for sale and that Rumuekpe was a booster station before it was bombed during the Nigerian/Biafra civil war. 

Stakeholders of Rumuekpe made the submissions while speaking with journalists during a tour of spill sites in the area by environmental body, Social Action Nigeria, yesterday. 

Speaking, Community Leader of Imogu-Rumuekpe, Chief Innocent Eroro, expressed shock that Shell and other oil companies would divest their assets without engaging the community.

He also lamented that despite hosting five oil companies namely; Shell, Agip, TotalEnergies, NDPR and now Aradel, the community lacked social amenities and development.

“Since they said they are going, they want to sell their assets to another company, they should do what we call remediation so that we will reclaim our land. The land is no more fertile, no hospital, nothing in Rumuekpe.

“We are no more enjoying anything. No electricity, no roads. In other communities they pay the Chiefs but here, nothing. Shell has operated for over 60 years in Rumuekpe community but there is nothing to show,” he said.

Another stakeholder in the community, Mr. Gaius Ajuru, said despite the strategic contributions of the community to the Nigerian economy, it lacked both federal and state government presence in terms of development.

He said decades of oil spill has been left uncleaned, which has affected groundwater bodies and farmlands.

According to him, Rumuekpe has the largest manifold in Shell East Operations and houses oil delivery from Egi, Total Line, Agip, Bayelsa, Kolo Creek, Ugwuta, Asa before its delivered to the Bonny Terminal, which is called Rukpoku/Rumuekpe Trans Niger Pipeline (TNP). 

He mentioned that despite several provisions like MoUs, GMoUs, CSR and now PIA, the oil companies never implemented any of them in the community. Ajuru, who was a former councillor representing Rumuekpe Ward 8 in the local government, also decried that gas flaring has affected air quality and the health of the people over the years. 

He said: “There was an oil spill in 1979, that oil was not cleaned, a series of oil spills which I may not be able to give the dates, have not been attended to. What you saw in the bush, that oil has gone to underground waterbed, affecting the source of drinking water. As a local community, our major source of water is the river. 

“The gas flaring alone is enough to send us parking from this community. And what we call conflagration of wells. It is only gas that is supposed to flare but when there is conflagration of wells, the oil mixes with gas and the oil and gas burns and when it burns, the atmosphere changes and the community is affected, our health is affected, the air is affected.”

On the divestment, Ajuru said, “What you are talking about is new to everybody in this community. Divesting to where? If they are divesting, they have not let any of the community chiefs know. The women are not aware. If they are divesting without carrying us along, then who are they leaving their liabilities for? If they leave their liabilities, the other companies that are coming, won’t they shy away and say we are not the cause of the pollution.”

On her part, Blessing Orijos, Secretary of Rumuekpe Women Prayer Warriors, lamented the impact of oil activities on the reproductive health of women and children. She also pointed out that their land is no longer fertile for farming as Rumuekpe is predominantly a farming community.

“Mostly women are affected by the oil spill. Like the first-place you people visited, there is one stream along the road they call “mmiri oboro”, we drink that water. Anytime we are going to farm we don’t carry water from the house, we fetch water from there and we don’t urinate or bathe in that river.

“The spill also affected our land. We are a farming community, we produce cassava, yam, Okro, cocoyam. Rumuekpe, what they normally know us with, is farming but today you can no longer see good farm produce. The harvest is poor. Today women are crying with one sickness or the other. Our young women enter menopause from 28 to 30 years of age. Many families are crying, fighting because women can no longer bear children, their husbands can no longer impregnate them. Before now we didn’t know what is called cancer, but today everywhere is cancer,” she lamented.