Group Decries Impact of Methane Emission on N’Delta Communities 

Blessing Ibunge in Port Harcourt 

A group, Policy Alert in collaboration with the Natural Resource Governance Institute and We The People, has organised a one-day sensitisation programme for community leaders and rights activists on the impacts of methane emissions for extractive communities in the Niger Delta region.

The programme which was held in Port Harcourt, witnessed presentations from various experts, including environmentalists, government officials, community representatives from across the states in the region.

Speaking with journalists at the event, the Executive Director, Policy Alert, Mr. Tijah Bolton-Akpan, said the workshop was organised to build capacity of community members to work towards implementing actions towards the reduction of methane emission in their communities. 

He stated that the region over the years has become a theatre of environmental degradation, a theatre of economic deprivation for the inhabitants, stressing that “the reason is because the corporations have not been following global standards for resource extraction like it appears elsewhere in the world.

“And the government on their own part has not been keen on enforcing regulatory principles and frameworks and that has also led to huge impacts for communities, ecological impacts, social impacts and economic impacts.”

He noted that “One of the most criminal of these practices is actually gas flaring, venting and leakages, emissions that are called fixed emissions, both leakages and equipment failures. Now when those things happen, they release a lot of poisonous gasses into the atmosphere. CO2 is a common one we know which is highly responsible for climate change.”

Akpan explained that methane is one of the major causes of for climate change which is less known by the public and especially by the communities who are impacted by it. 

“So, we want the communities to come up to speed on the impact of methane emissions on their lives. Whether on their social lives, their economic livelihoods or health.

“We have a lot of cancer cases, we have a lot of respiratory disorders in our communities, we have a lot of reproductive disorders and so on and this has been linked to the poisonous gasses that they inhale.”

He said what the workshop seeks to achieve was to ensure that community people are aware and are able to do actions and advocacy from the point of knowledge, from a point of view that actually utilised current data.

“For instance, we have gas flare data that shows how much from each oil facility is being flared. You can pinpoint from that to know how much methane is coming out from a particular asset area and then tie it to some of the happenings within these communities. You can also begin to measure that and juxtapose it with the economic benefit that these communities are getting,” Akpan added.

He however, said that in order to address the challenges of methane emission, the government must enforce the implementation of the legal frameworks controlling the activities of the extractive sector. 

“Yes, there are gaps in the laws but even the existing framework is not being implemented. They are so weakly implemented that sometimes you wonder whether we have a government at all.” 

In her presentation, a Senior Officer with the Natural Resource Governance Institute, Nengi George-Okoli, said “we came here today to ensure that decisions that are being made are also incorporating best practices, policies that minimise the impacts on the health and environmental risks that leveraging gas can have on communities in terms of their livelihoods.”

She regretted that Nigeria has a lot of laws and policies but we do not have regulations, saying “Until we can understand where we are coming from we cannot say where we are going to or progress we need. So that’s one thing I think will be very important to help the fight against methane emissions”.