Firms and their host communities are not always the best of friends. But at Rido community, hosts of the Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company (KRPC), residents and the refinery workers are not at daggers drawn, either.
True, the poverty level in the community is quite high, but the farming community has no doubt benefitted from the firm, even though sometimes it also has some grievances.
Youths of the community and others in the operational area of the refinery are currently benefiting from oil firm’s youth empowerment programme, but the residents have also lived with pollution from the activities of the refinery.
An executive director of the company, Idi Mukthar told The Nation that what the company flares is not gas, but carbon which is not harmful to the human system. He said that the company is aware of the community’s complaint and is working round the clock to address it.
He pointed out that the black smoke coming out from the refinery is the result of a breakdown of one of the compressors which has been identified and is being corrected by the company. He said further that the company constantly mobilises a team of medical experts, officials of the Safety and Public Affairs Department of the company to enlighten the host community on their operations, and what to expect.
He said: “We have sunk a borehole for them because we are aware that often, the carbon settles on the water and that is not good for them. So, we gave them a borehole so that they only have to get water when they need to use water and don’t have to store water from the stream. However, we have contracted someone to clean up the stream. At the moment, we have people working round the clock to clean up the carbon”.
Even though members of Rido are quick to point at some of the benefits they now enjoy from the company. Some of their youths have been beneficiaries of the Youth Empowerment scheme initiated by the immediate past Managing Director of the company, Bolanle Ayodele. Some
other things which the company has provided to the community include a bore hole, blocks of classrooms and a health centre among others, they are not happy with the level of pollution they have to grapple with daily. Mukthar said that the borehole, classroom and health centre is
not the only intervention of the company in the community. He disclosed that at every stage, the company regularly carry out immunization in the communities. He said “every time we immunize our staff, we do the same thing for the community. In fact, the immunisation is not limited to children alone. At every stage, we cover about 5000 people in the host communities. We have also provided electrification for some of the communities”.
The Manager Public Affairs of the company, Abdullahi Idris also told The Nation that the company has a standing community relations committee made up of about 11 district heads and some management team from the company. According to him, the committee meets regularly to articulate the needs of the communities which are prioritised in line with the budget of the company.
“When we meet, they will come with their needs and we discuss them and see what can fit into our budget and we tell them. This has worked very well”, he said.
In spite of that, the community is worried about the double flame from the company anytime they are in production. Some members of the community spoken to by The Nation admit that the company has done so much for them, but claimed that the gas emitted from the refinery on a daily basis is polluting their environment and doing a lot of harm to their livestock, farmlands and water bodies. Iliyasu Elijah, a resident of the community told The Nation that their farmland has been subjected to all manner of chemicals from the refinery.
He said: “This is where we were born but our farmlands are now suffering. We can’t even drink water from our rivers anymore”.
Michael Waziri, another resident of the community corroborated Elijah’s position, saying, “we the poor are tired of complaining but honestly it’s not funny at all. It is not in doubt that have provided a few amenities for us here, but that is not enough compared to what they are subjecting us to daily. Take a good look at this community and tell me if this is what we deserve. You can see poverty written all over the place. However, we hope that with the construction of the Eastern byepass, the government will remember us and compel the refinery to do something better for us”.
Another resident, Luka Makama also spoke in similar vein. According to Makama, the community has lost several children to pollution in the past and are not ready to loss more. He said, “we have lost several children in this community to pollution. The last time they gave each household 3 packs of milk. If they are to be trusted, they should be giving us milk every month”.
On her part, Jumai Jatau said that “getting food from our farms now is a difficult thing, not to talk of drinking water. Everybody in this community now has catarrh due to the black emission”.
However, Bature Bidam is more militant in his response, saying, “Very soon we will block the roads and nobody will be allowed access into the refinery again until the issue of pollution is addressed”.
Similarly, Abubakar Shehu who said he lives close to the refinery fence said that the gas being flared daily has saturated the area and is causing serious health problems to them.
“People who are working there are big men and women driving jeeps and others expensive cars. But do they want us living in our poor ancestral homes to die? We allow government to establish the refinery here and not to send us out of this place. Our children are not working there except the Rido community chief who has betrayed us and sold us out to Kaduna refinery and so he can’t even defend us. The emission of the carbon dioxide is a serious disaster on us. In the morning and evening the gas always descends on the whole environment, making it difficult for us to breathe, it is also the same thing in the evening.
And it has a very powerful unbearable odour. If we are eating, it is as if we are swallowing the substance along with the food.”
Another resident, Suleiman Joseph expressed fear that with the increasing level of awareness by the youths, they may not be able to hold on for too long without taking steps to speak out against the pollution. He said, “the residents might not be able to bear it for long. We are calling on government and management of Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company to take immediate action to stop this flaring, because what we are inhaling in this place is poisonous and is capable of killing us. Some people in our area who rented houses have left but the landlords have no place to go”.
Some other members of the community told The Nation that credit must be given to the company for making effort to give them a good life.
Some of them said that regularly, the company brings carton of milk to distributed to children in the community, adding that at the last exercise, about 700 cartons were given to them in addition to over 30,000 exercise books distributed quarterly to primary schools in the host communities. As at the time of this report, the company was making arrangement for another set of books to be distributed to the selected schools.
A visit to the community revealed that apart from the gas emission from the refinery, Rido community, like many others have remained the most poorest within Kaduna metropolis and environs while the refinery makes billionaires of other people. The community can best be referred
to as a slum suffering from the constant shadow of unrelenting noxious fumes.
investigation however revealed that Nigeria is one of the few countries in the world that still flare its gas while other nations are making billions of dollars from it. In other words, the flaring of
gas by oil companies in the country is not limited to the Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company along. It is believed to be more common in the Niger-Delta region where cities like Warri and Port Harcourt also experience the same hazards. It is believed that Nigeria is flaring between 1.3 and 1.4 billion cubic feet of gas daily, second only to Russia which flared three times the size of what Nigeria burns.
Environmental experts believe that the gas flaring by Nigeria oil companies is doing so much damage to the environment, pointing out that the damage on the environment, to the land, water habitat and human beings cannot be quantified. An environmentalist who would not want his name in print told The Nation that even though there is still ongoing research on the effect of gas flaring on human beings, “the effects are sometimes visible on people residing in areas close to refineries. The sign and symptoms include vomiting, cancer diseases, lung diseases and Asthma.”
It is believed that Nigeria is losing lots of gas daily, including carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, sulphur and nitrogen oxide, which could be channelled to positive use by Nigerians. It is also believed that rather than trapping these gas substances for use, Nigeria allows them to be flared while importing them for use in various aspect of the country.
These gases are also believed to combine with rainfall to cause serious damage to the soil.
Public Affairs Manager of the Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company, Mallam Abdullahi Idris was quoted as saying that the company was doing everything humanly possible to ensure that the community does not suffer any damage. He was also quoted as saying that the community have benefited from initiatives of the company which include the Youth Empowerment scheme introduced about five years ago and is currently being modified to make it more effective. He said that at the moment, the company has contracted those who trained the youths in the various vocations to mentor them, set them up and monitor them for six months. He said “during the first two exercise, we realised that it was not making the impact we expected as only about 40 percent
utilise the take-off grant they were given. Right now, what we do is give the grant to the trainers to set them up and we believe that will make a bigger impact. Today, the KRPC YESEP is a house hood name in KRPC. We believe that Corporate Socia Responsibility goes beyond sinking borehole. We also believe that if every company assist in providing skill for the youths, we will greatly reduce the level of unemployment in the country. Idi Mukthar who collaborated his spokesman said that many organisations including government has come forward to either learn from them or collaborate with them in carrying out such training.
