Nwafo
BY CHIMA NWAFO
Last week we discussed the seeming installmental death sentence passed on oil-bearing communities who bear the additional burden of having gas being flared in their localities. Each community’s experience is as old as when an oil well was successfully drilled or a flow-station was erected in their land or nearby river. This has been going on unabated, since 1956, despite several unheeded deadlines and international outcry.
For example, eight years after the recommendation for the clean-up of the heavily polluted Ogoni land by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), the exercise STILL suffered unnecessary hiccups. First, for inexplicable reasons, President Goodluck Jonathan – under whose watch in 2011 the UNEP report on Ogoni land came out – failed to act on the recommendation. The report was kept in the cooler for four solid years by the Niger Delta-born president from neighbouring Bayelsa State, whose wife hails from next-door Okrika in Rivers State. That earned it a campaign issue in 2015 by the presidential candidate of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), Gen Muhammadu Buhari. Two years into his administration, Buhari sent Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo to inaugurate a committee to kick-start the Hydro Carbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP) for the clean-up of Ogoni land. Ironically, the anti-corruption, change administration also muddled up the exercise. But the President did not give up. The Federal Government has re-engaged the United Nations Environmental Programme to provide technical support to the Hydro Carbon Pollution Remediation Project, and ensure that the project remained executed in line with the UNEP recommendation.
According to a News Express report, the Project Coordinator of HYPREP, Dr Marvin Dekil, in a statement issued recently by Assistant Director (Information), Ekaete Umoh, said the Federal Government re-engaged UNEP for the next one year to work with HYPREP in all aspects of the project, while also providing technical support in communication and project management.
It’s important that HYPREP shall be fully and professionally implemented to the required standard, being first of its kind in the over six decades of oil-related environmental pollution. Recall that it was a result of years of local and international environmental activism. But must oil-bearing communities navigate the rough and bloody existential terrain as the Ogoni did, to get a remediation after their lands, air, and rivers have been terribly polluted in the course of crude oil exploitation by agents of the Federal Government and their joint-venture partners? Notwithstanding his controversial nature, how many communities can afford a committed and informed radical leader of Ken Saro-Wiwa’s intellectual bent? Not many, both in the Niger Delta and other states of the federation.
That is why it is indeed very disturbing to note that the Federal Government and its agent, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), is not doing enough or lacks the political will to persuade oil giants to comply with the laws against gas flaring and other pollution infractions. According to Environmental Orbit’s findings, gas flaring was officially banned in 1984. But the government has repeatedly failed to compel the oil czars to comply with agreements to end the practice. Whereas many other top flarers, such as Russia, Venezuela, and Algeria, have decreased flaring levels since 2016, Nigeria’s have increased.
Having failed several deadlines to end pumping of the deadly fumes into the atmosphere, one doubts if the current one will be different. Fortunately, the experts who investigated the Niger Delta expressed same sentiment in their report.
“To test whether the government’s most recent claims to put an end to gas flaring by 2020 were realistic, this report commissioned a geospatial data expert to analyse infrared data (see our last week’s photo) to assess whether the number of hotspots had decreased over time. ‘The satellite data appears to show a marked increase in radiant heat emitted by gas flares in Nigeria, starting late 2017’ explained Rory Hodgson, the analyst who compiled the figures.
“The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite, which collected the data, has recorded infrared readings since 2012. It is the first time since its launch that readings for Nigeria have been so high. The data points to 2018 having more gas flares burning more intensely than has been seen for the past five years.”
That is not all. The World Bank’s rankings of Global Gas Flaring Reduction Partnership from July 2018, places Nigeria as the sixth largest gas flaring country globally, and the second largest in Africa, after Algeria; moving up from the seventh global flarer in 2017. Furthermore, “the United States Environmental Protection Agency Greenhouse gas calculator quoted the amount of greenhouse gas emitted by gas flaring in 2016 in Nigeria as equivalent to over three and a half million passenger vehicles driven for one year, and over four coal-fired power plants running for a year.” Just ponder over the data!
These figures may not convey the depth of government neglect on this all-important issue of life and death of millions of Niger Delta inhabitants. Some personal experiences of victims could provide additional insight into the enormity of the environmental damage in the region. For those of us familiar with the terrain, you are aware that millions of people live within five kilometres of a gas flare in the Niger Delta. Below the flames, they’re extracting oil. With the oil comes unwanted gas, which is burnt off in a process called gas flaring. Technically, they have a choice, if the government cares.
From the investigation of the foreign experts captured by Premium Times, here’s the story of Mr Benjamin Nwaiku, a Delta State indigene, who lives beside a constant flame. In 2001, he moved back to Ebedei where he grew up, having retired from his job to become a farmer, with seven children to raise.
But in 2009, a flow station was erected right near his house to extract oil. He immediately became concerned about the possible effects on his health and his children’s.
His words: “We are living under the shade of hazard because of this flaring. You plant, and before you know it everything is dead. It is a disaster! With the noise and the heat, you can’t sleep again. No more darkness at night. During the rainy season, the rainwater was visibly black. It is not consumable. No need for a microscope. We can’t even use it to bath because it is very, very poisonous to the eye. Almost the whole of this community is having eye problems. The rainwater corroded my zinc roof; holes appeared and rotted the wood inside; my corn crops were growing strangely, shooting up like electric poles, without any fruit.”
The rise in soil temperature caused not only him but the entire farming community a loss of crop yield.
It’s not all about farmers and farmlands. The enquiry also captured the impact on education. Anslem Onyibo, a 35-year-old teacher at a primary school in Obodougwa, located 500 metres away from a flow station. The flaring began in 2009, selling crude oil the following year. Instead of talking when he teaches, Onyibo said he must now shout over the noise of the flare, for the pupils to hear him. “It takes a lot of energy, and the student that does not have smart hearing ability will not get through. You know, some students are shy, they are not hearing what we are saying, but they claim to have heard it.”
Besides the noise effect, the primary school teacher equally complained of increased coughing among the 300 or so six to 13-year-olds who attend the school.
On his part, Friday Okolo, a father of five whose children attend the school, does not see a solution in sight: “The children will still continue to go to their school. We have no option.”
Given the intensity of the heat from the flare which, like the Biblical Fire of Gehenna, burns non-stop day and night, its impact is as instant as it is widespread. Doctors are aware of the health implications of gas flaring and see the effects daily. Mr Enebeli, a medical doctor at Trinity Hospital in nearby Obiaruku in Delta State, sees about 20 patients per day, many of who come from surrounding gas flaring communities, including Ebedei. He sees a large number of patients who suffer from breathing problems, coughing and chest infections, particularly among the children.
Whatever experiences captured in this report resonate in throughout the Niger Delta region from the east to the west. Given the huge sum of petro-dollar the government and oil companies have earned and still earns from petroleum resources, should oil-bearing communities be subjected to this degree of suffering?
*Nwafo, Consulting Editor with News Express, can be reached on 08029334754; [email protected].
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