Governor of Bayelsa State, Mr. Seriake Dickson, has decried environmental terrorism in the Niger Delta region blaming the oil companies of being the brains behind it.
Dickson, therefore, advocated stringent environmental laws to protect and preserve the environment from such terrorism.
The governor who spoke on Tuesday when members of the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), led by its Chairman, Major Lancelot Anyanya (rtd), paid him a courtesy visit in Government House, Yenagoa,
He said oil companies were fond of abandoning crude oil spill sites without properly cleaning them.
governors_Governor_Seriake_Dickson_463831975He said such sites had ravaged environment in the region citing Bayelsa State as the worst hit.
Dickson while addressing members of NOSDRA said: “I have said it before that what has been going on in Bayelsa State, the Niger Delta and in all oil-producing areas concerning the levity with which oil companies treat the issues of the environment and the maintenance of environmental and health standards.
“When you look at all of these and particularly listening to your chilly statistics, which I believe is only a tip of the iceberg, one is really left with no other conclusion than that, we are actually facing a case of environmental terrorism.
“What has been going on in the Niger Delta since the discovery of oil; a situation where more than one spill takes place in Bayelsa every day, going by what your statistics is telling us and all these sites are treated with reckless abandon and the environment is left to fend for itself, the livelihood and in fact the lives of the people and the ecosystem are not attended to. What then is more of terrorist action than this?”
He emphasised the need for international oil companies operating in the Niger Delta region to protect the environment.
He said an environmental summit would be organised by his administration soon to discuss ways of mitigating the effects of oil and gas exploration and exploitation in the region.
He expressed his administration’s commitment to collaborate with NOSDRA to facilitate the speedy passage of the amended Act of the agency, which had undergone its first and second readings at the National Assembly.
The governor explained that, health hazards arising from such environmental pollution were the reasons behind the establishment of the toxicology institute.
He granted the request of NOSDRA for a functional office in the state and called on the agency to site its headquaters in Bayelsa.
He described the state as the host to the bulk of oil and gas operations in the region.
As part of efforts to address environmental problems, Dickson proposed that the Federal Government should build receptacles to evacuate crude oil recovered from illegal refineries.
He also asked the the government to design mechanisms for effective and proper remediation of impacted areas.
“This is an opportunity again for us to remind ourselves that we all have a duty to work together as government to government and it is also an opportunity for us to call on all stakeholders especially the oil companies, regulatory agencies and everybody to be alive to the need to protect our environment”, he said.
Earlier, a team of NOSDRA delegates led by the agency’s Director-General, Mr. Peter Idabo, said they were in the state of President Goodluck Jonathan to assess spill sites in various communities.
Idabo said environmental pollution arising from crude oil spills in Bayelsa could only be compared to similar disaster in Ogoni, Rivers State.
Idabo and his team first visited Well 12 operated by the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) near Imiringi in Ogbia local government area.
“Pollution in Bayelsa is very rife, it is like what is happening in Ogoniland”, he said.
He, however, observed that Well 12 where a truck discharged pollutants last year, had been cleaned.
He said the visit of spill sites in the state was part of activities lined up by the agency in its tour of oil-producing states.
He said the agency would consult and cooperate with the Governor of the state, Mr, Seriake Dickson, to tackle problems of oil spills in the country.
In his remarks, Chairman of NOSDRA, Major Lancelot Anyanya (rtd), explained that the visit was aimed at strengthening the existing collaboration between government and the agency on efforts at curbing oil spills and its attendant effects.
However, the negligence and nonchallant attitude of the oil company to the Niger Delta environment is of no good news. Our environment is uncared for and the lives in it being exposed to toxidity from the oil spills. I hope the board of NOSDRA will be more proactive in seeing to the environmental challenges in the region. Indeed, the oil companies are worst than environmental terrorists.
ReplyDeleteYou think they care about you, they only care about the oil and the revenue that accrued from it! if you die afterwards from exposure to toxidity, no one gives a damn! and still some group of scumbags and idiots will come out shamelessly to say niger delta should just take every bullshit from Nigeria and the born to rule idiots! we are the ones who live right inside this mess and we are the ones not gaining anything out of it. why do we have to suffer and die prematuredly, our waters polluted, our lands soiled due to oil spillage, our youths jobless even in their own oil rich states, Nigeria was a wrong marriage from the onset, let the country divide and every man to your tent oh isreal!
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