18,149 Spills Ravage Niger Delta
Critical stakeholders in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector have expressed concerns that negligence and failure of regulatory authorities such as NOSDRA and NESREA, as well as local and international fossil fuel companies resulted in over 18,149 spills for a period of 18 years covering between 2006 and 2024 with a call on oil firms to tidy up their activities and save oil host communities further devastation of their environment, loss of lives and livelihoods
By Edu Abade
Environmental enthusiasts who assessed Nigeria’s environment spanning about two decades have passed a damning verdict on activities of multinational oil companies and their local collaborators, maintaining that with an average of 1,008 spillages yearly, amounting to 18,149 spill incidents in over 18 years, the severe damage to the environment of oil-bearing communities of the Niger Delta and other parts of the country remained inevitable
They insisted that the negligence of host communities by oil producing companies have caused irreparable damage to the ecology and that only responsible and accountable exploration of oil and gas in the Niger Delta and solid minerals in the North could save the country further despoliation of the environment.
Speaking at the unveiling of State of the Nigerian Environment Report documented by the Environmental Defenders Network, EDEN, they blamed the prevailing situation on government’s inaction, as well as weak implementation and monitoring of the activities of oil firms, exacerbated by continued gas flaring and sustained spillages, most of which end up unresolved.
Speakers at the well attended hybrid presentation of the document titled State of The Nigerian Environment Report and Celebration of Heroes of the Environment include Executive Director of EDEN, Barrister Chima Williams, former Vice Chancellor, Lagos State University, Prof. Olarenwaju Fabgohun, SAN, former Deputy Clerk of the Nigerian Senate and Founder, Vivien Nonyelum Njemanze Foundation, Dr. Vivien Njemanze, NDC Partnership in Country Facilitator for Nigeria, Huzi Mshelia, Executive Director, Center for Transparency Advocacy, Faith Nwadishi, Programmes Director/Board Secretary, EDEN, Philip Jakpor.
Other speakers, who attended the unveiling are the Founder, Hope for Niger Delta Campaign, HNDC, Comrade Sunday Ofehe, Associate Professor of Political Science, Federal University, Otuoke, Dr. Felix Oriakhi, Associate Professor, University of Derby, United Kingdom, Dr. Eghosa Ekhator and Associate Professor of Law, University of Bradford, United Kingdom, Dr. Pedi Obani, among others.
Authors of the report expressed concern that while economic activities like oil exploration and extraction could arguably be beneficial to the people, its unregulated extraction and other harmful economic activities have made the vision a pipe dream, adding that in recent years incidences of oil spills have increased at an alarming rate, carrying with it a progressive ecosystem loss.
Citing data from the National Oil Spills Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) the report revealed that there were 18,149 oil spill incidents between 2006 and 2024, with far reaching impacts on the people and the environment.
“We cannot overlook different case studies in the recently published Bayelsa State Oil and Environmental Commission Report including a report which showed that children living in close proximity to oil spills are at risk of increased health problems while pregnant women in the same location tend to lose their unborn babies before birth.
“Yet, this is just one of the many impacts that oil spills cause in host communities. About 194 kilometers away from Bayelsa, in Ogoniland, Rivers State, the United Nations Environment Programme, UNEP, reported in 2011 that beyond devastation to farm lands and rivers, underground water has been contaminated with a known carcinogen benzene, 900 times over and above World Health Organization (WHO) levels.
“The implication of the above is that the people in Ogoniland, and by extension the entire Niger Delta region where oil is mined are at risk of drinking cancer-causing water, and the effect of this can best be imagined. The Bayelsa State Oil and Environmental Commission which also investigated the environmental and human damage caused by multinational oil companies in Bayelsa also documented similar conditions and proposed $12 billion in cleanup funds. In all the oil-impacted communities it is also possible to draw a connection between the spills and communal clashes and conflicts. Some of the oil spill-related and induced conflicts have resulted in the rupture of the very essence of harmonious coexistence in oil impacted communities,” it stated.
They lamented that in some cases, it has led to the loss of confidence in community leadership structures, adding that elsewhere it has polarized community leadership along factional lines and that even as the report was being published, a spill incident is happening somewhere in the Niger Delta, gas flares are burning without restraint in the midst of some communities and chemical waste are being discharged into rivers by unscrupulous petrochemical companies.
“Extractive pollution is not limited to oil-bearing communities in the Niger Delta only. The same issues are rearing their ugly heads in the solid minerals sector with untold harm being done in mining communities across Nigeria. Another environmental challenge that Nigerians contend with is the perennial flooding which has become a watery nightmare for most communities especially since 2012 when climate induced rains wreaked havoc in 21 states.
“The negative impact of the floods includes inundation of arable farmlands, displacement of indigenous populations who live close to rivers and disruption of economic activities. The unsustainable consumption pattern of Nigerians has equally led to plastic pollution just as more trees are taken down for development projects. Our conclusion therefore is that in every direction you face the environment is taking a hit,” the report further stated.
In establishing the background of the report, the authors stated that the present state of the Nigerian environment presents a case of systematic and continual devastation of the land, waters and air by the unsustainable practices of the fossil fuels corporations owned by foreign entities and their collaborating Nigerian partners. We have also seen in recent times that the brazen and reckless mining of solid minerals have a negative toll on the environment in Nigeria.
The impacts of these activities are further exacerbated by climate change which has resulted in unprecedented levels of sea level rise and high temperature which continue to adversely affect agricultural productivity and the health of citizens.
“Seventy years of oil exploration and extraction have done grave harm to the environment and by extension the health and survival of the people of Nigeria. To the majority of the people living in oil impacted communities in Nigeria, when asked the question whether oil has been a blessing or a curse to them, their answer is always to the later. Asked if they can substantiate their position, they will quickly draw attention to the degraded environment. To them, apart from not having access to the benefits of oil extraction, their livelihood sources (farmlands, rivers etc) have been destroyed thereby making survival difficult for them and their children.
“Seventy years of oil exploration and extraction means different stories for different issues. The benefits and its distribution have also meant different strokes for different folks. For the environment, the story is a tale of woes. In August 2011, the widely referenced United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Assessment of Ogoniland was released. The findings of UNEP were as catastrophic as the peculiar circumstances of the people living in the geographical space called Ogoniland in Rivers State. The UN body found out that years of pollution has rendered the environment more degraded than many may have anticipated. The report asserted that for the Ogoni environment to be restored to full productive health, it will require what could easily pass for the world’s most wide ranging and long-term clean-up exercise to be undertaken for 30 years.
“Ogoniland represents a fraction of the Niger Delta region where oil operations are carried out. The situation of environmental pollution in Ogoniland represents the situation in other parts of the Niger Delta. There is however the argument that there are worse scenarios elsewhere in the Niger Delta than what was found in Ogoniland. The Niger Delta region following the negative impacts of decades of oil pollution has been aptly described by Watts and Zalik as “the most polluted place on the planet.”
The report, therefore, recommended that in the oil and gas sector, NOSDRA, the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency, NESREA and other government agencies charged with holding despoilers of the environment to account must be strengthened to carry out their statutory duties, while clean up exercise must not be cosmetic but must follow globally accepted standards similar to the response to the BP oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, which involved prompt clean up and compensation of affected communities.
“Meaningful dialogue must be initiated with host communities with a view to hearing directly from them and addressing their grievances against extractive companies, while divesting IOCs must be forced to fulfil all their outstanding MoUs and Global MoU obligations to their host communities and their environment before handing over assets to Domestic Oil Companies.
“There is the need to halt the ongoing divestment processes until environmental justice is secured for
communities impacted by IOCs operations, while the issue of local community exclusion in the ownership structure of assets through divestment must be addressed.
“Representatives of host communities, civil society groups, relevant Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies, as well as representatives of both divesting and investing entities should be involved in a multi-stakeholders review team on best practices in the divestment process,” the report added.
It also recommended the encouragement of renewable energy, dis-centralization and promotion of indigenous energy companies to provide renewable energy in Nigeria, as well as deal with the political nature of allocation of oil blocks, which has been a key grievance in local communities.
For the solid minerals and mining sector, the report canvassed adequate funding for the Nigerian Geological Survey Agency (NGSA) and other government agencies charged with the responsibility of generating geoscientific data so that they could execute their statutory obligations.
The requirement that reclamation of mining land should be carried out concurrently with mining operations in the Minerals and Mining Act of 2007 should be enforced religiously by the government, while the issue of creating an enabling environment for companies that are ready to observe the highest environmental standards in mining operations to check the proliferation of artisanal and illegal miners in the solid mineral sector should be addressed.
“To draw the line, we must say that it is difficult for us to come to any other conclusion than what we have proposed above in addressing the myriad of environmental crises bedeviling the country,” it concluded.
