Tag: oil spills

Despite  efforts to clean up Ogoni land, more oil spills have been discovered. They are devastating and ravaging lives, crops and the eco-system.

Worried by the situation, a non-governmental organisation, Centre for Citizens Rights,  threatened to file a suit against Shell and its partners operating in Ogoni land. The group said its priority is to ensure the safety of the Ogoni people living in the affected area. It also alleged that over five young men and women died monthly of lumps and other skin diseases emanating from the affected environment.

Although some communities have started receiving compensation from Shell, others have been abandoned to their fate, according to the group.

The leader of the Centre for Citizens Rights, Comrade Gogorobari Fredick James, took Niger Delta Report to the affected communities, such as Gbe, Kpor, Sime and Gio where each of the Paramount Rulers  signed a document empowering the organisation to take any action on behalf of the communities.

The first community visited was Sime in Tai Local Government Area where the people are battling an indigenous company, Duson and Son Enterprise for allegedly doing a bad remediation job on spill site at the Trans Niger Pipeline. The community youths and elders are protesting against the contractor, insisting that Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) must act fast to re- mobilize the contractor back to site.

His Royal Highness Chief Leton Nbaasue, the Paramount Ruler of Sime, said the contractor used fake materials without excavator to work on the site. He noted that the first idea was to award the contract to the indigene of the area and allow SPDC to supervise but SPDC refused.

Chief Nbaasue said: “My community is not happy over the level of job done at the spill site. When we discovered the spill, we reported to SPDC and we told them that to avoid any misunderstanding with the community especially the youths of the area. The remediation contract on the spill site should be awarded to any member of the community. Surprisingly, the contract was awarded to an outsider and the contractor refused to apply the right material for the job. We are the ones that insisted on the use of excavator, initially they were doing the job without excavator. After few months, the spill started affecting human lives and economic trees in the area, now what do they want us to do?

“So, my community is calling on SPDC to re-mobilize the contractor back to the site because we will not be taken for granted. We are peace loving people; we don’t want trouble, all we want is for SPDC to order the contractor back to work. We don’t want to be force to take any drastic action on the matter.”

At Gio, in the same LGA, over four young men were alleged to have died of lumps and various kinds of skin diseases due to polluted environment they found themselves. Residents said they are exposed to all kind of diseases because they are surrounded with the polluted Bodo-West spill. They said the environment is not only polluted, but that the people are inhaling poisonous air.

Mr. Khari Akpene, who spoke on behalf of said, “Look at our houses close to the spill, everything we had is gone including the environment. Last time we buried two young men who died of lumps related cases; about four had died before on the same issue. So this is the condition we find ourselves. Nobody is talking to us about compensation to our people though; we heard that some of the communities have started receiving attention on how to get their compensation.”

At Gbe community in Gokana LGA, the story was the same; the people of the community whose occupation is farming are stranded. The paramount ruler, His Royal Highness Mene Friday Dimkpa said, “My subjects have nowhere to farm, this is what we have been suffering for years. Even our only sources of water have been polluted because, there is no water to drink, some still go to the polluted stream to scramble for water. Our condition is worst, we need assistance from people who would visit Ogoni land and see things for themselves as it is being reported on the news”

The last community visited was Kpor in Gokhana Local government where “Shell Right of Way” overflowed and destroyed many economic trees and other crops planted in the area. The Paramount Ruler, His Royal Highness Mene Bemene M. Taoh said, “the community has reported to Shell on the damage done by the spill and have briefed them on the need for adequate compensation.”

The leader of the Centre for Citizens Rights, Comrade Gogorobari Fredick James said the organization in partnership with international organizations decided to undertake a tour to few scenes in Ogoni land, where good health of the residence have been jeopardized. He said in Ogoni land people lives are not important, but only the economic gain of those whose operations in the land have sentenced the environment to death.

Comrade James noted that, “Ogoni people have been victims of human rights violation for many years. In 1956, four years before Nigerian Independence, Royal Dutch/Shell in collaboration with the British government found a commercially viable oil field on the Niger Delta and began oil production in 1958. 15-years period from 1976 to 1991 there were reportedly 2,976 oil spills of about 2.1 million barrels of oil in Ogoni land, accounting, about 40% of the total oil spills of the Royal Dutch/Shell Company worldwide.

“In an assessment of over 200 locations in Ogoni land done by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), they found out that the 50 years of oil production in the region extended deeper than some may have predicted. Because of oil spills, oil flaring, and waste discharge, the once alluvial soil of Ogoni land is no longer viable for agricultural use and attributes to widespread land degradation. Furthermore, in many areas that seem to be unaffected, groundwater was tested to have high levels of hydrocarbons or contaminated with benzene, a carcinogen, at 900 levels above WHO guidelines.

“UNEP estimated that it could take up to 30 years to rehabilitate Ogoni land to its full potentials and that the first five years of rehabilitation would require funding of about US$1 billion.  The current Nigerian Minister of Petroleum Resources, Deizani Alison-Madueke, announced the establishment of the Hydrocarbon Pollution Restoration Project, which intends to follow the UNEP report suggestions of Ogoni land to prevent further degradation. Like I said before now, our concern as NGO is to create awareness on the damaging effect on the health of the people.”