For three harrowing weeks, the Nembe community in Nigeria’s oily creeks of Bayelsa State bled with a devastating, raging fire. Before the Federal Government got to the Santa Barbara site of the spitfire oil well, all the damage -domestic, human, environmental – had been done.

When the Minister of State for the Environment, Sharon Ikeazor, briefed the press at the end of the weekly presidential conference in Abuja on Wednesday, after almost 20 days the fire raged, it was on a note of penitence. She said the fire that had ravaged the Nembe local government area of the state due to the oil spill that followed the blowing up of a wellhead in Santa Barbara on November 5 had come under control.

The blow-up, the minister added, had spewed oil into the water bodies in water for subsequent days before necessary personnel and equipment were deployed for recovery and remediation efforts in the area. The well is jointly owned by Aiteo Eastern Exploration and Production Company (AEEPCO) and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

However, Aiteo, as the operating company of the OML29 in Nembe, Bayelsa State, blamed the recent oil spillage in the country on sabotage by the locals. It is a recurring decimal of stories locally after incidents. Meanwhile, the minister also announced plans to institute stiffer punishments for companies involved in oil spillage in the country, especially the Niger Delta region.

She also explained that the ministry of environment had been engaging other relevant government agencies to deliver on the stiffer punishments for such incidents. According to her, the ministry of environment has been working to amend the law establishing the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) to build its capacity and give it “the needed teeth to bite.” Ikeazor added, “We need to put a strong legal framework to stop the oil spills that are going on. The devastation in the Niger Delta is massive — this is something we need to tackle headlong.

“We need to review the NOSDRA Act— National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency. We need to put stiffer penalties in place to be able to have the teeth bite. “The government is working to create an alternative livelihood for the communities to be able to move them away from illegal activities.”

The minister also emphasised the need to put an end to artisanal refineries, which she said, had continued to cause pollution in the Niger Delta. Ikeazor also lamented the high rate of deaths from smoke, especially among women in the country, which according to her, is the highest in the world.

The environment minister stated that the country cannot be committed to zero net emission and still be flaring gas, adding that something must be done about the ongoing gas flaring.

Sorry story
Piqued at the gory sights in the area while the devastation caused by the oil spill lasted, a rights group, Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN), urged Aiteo Eastern Exploration and Production Company Limited to immediately end the oil spill caused by leaks on its pipeline at the Worikuma-Kiri oil field in Nembe.

Environmental field monitors, like the Vice President (20 of the Ijaw National Congress (INC), Alabo Nengi James and the Project Officer/Head of Niger Delta Resource Centre at ERA/FoEN, Mr Alagoa Morris, who led some journalists to the impacted site of the oil spill in OML 29 Well I, in Santa Barbara River, decried the level of devastation by a spill on farmlands and water sources.

Others who visited the spill site include the Vice President of Nembe Youth Federation, Comrade Nimibofa Collins Degi, and Alabo Woriku Ivory, the Amanyanabo of Worikuma-Kiri, the site of the spill.

Reports had said that, days ago, a four-year-old girl from Sand-Sand Village, three kilometres away from the wellhead, one Precious Longlife, died as a result of methane gas poisoning from the wellhead which had contaminated the prevailing atmospheric oxygen around the settlements. “Since its occurrence on November 1, Aiteo had allegedly not done much in clamping the ruptured spot as crude oil and gas have continued to spew,” the report stated.

Morris and Nengi James requested that Aiteo should take immediate steps to mobilise to the site and clamp the ruptured spot on its pipeline to clean up the impacted environment.

The Nigerian Tribune reported that a boom had already been set by Aiteo to contain the further spread of crude into the environment, but it seemed the pressure was much and the boom could not do the work properly.

Ministerial visit
Excused from the state meeting, Minister of State Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, on Wednesday undertook an on-the-spot assessment of the oil spill site of Aiteo Eastern Exploration Company, in Basambri, Bayelsa State.

The minister was joined on the inspection by Gbenga Komolafe, an engineer and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Nigeria Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), as well as the traditional ruler of Opu-Nembe Kingdom, King Biobelemoye Josiah and a member of House of Representatives in Abuja, Mr. Israel Adi, who represents Brass/Nembe Federal Constituency, Bayelsa State.

A worried minister, Sylva stated, “Mr. President is very concerned about the spill that is why he sent me to come and have the spot assessment of the situation. He feels the pains of the people and wants urgent steps taken to address the problem.” According to him, the spill was a serious environmental concern that needs urgent measures to contain nothing that no stone will be unturned in dealing with the environmental problem.”

The minister added, “So much damage has been done to the environment in the Niger Delta region, and the government is very much concerned about this situation and would not allow further degradation of the environment. That is why the government will take urgent measures to tackle the situation,” the lawmaker said

He disclosed that the relevant agencies had already been deployed in the area to tackle the oil spill, adding that “we will need to bring in support to help us clean up the spill”. Turning to the Basambri community after inspecting the spill site, Sylva said it was important for him to come to see things for himself to ensure that there was no problem between the oil company and the community.

He expressed the president’s regrets over the spill, saying that “President Buhari will ensure that the situation is immediately remediated”. He noted that as regulators in the upstream sector of the economy the Commission will ensure that the operators operate within acceptable international standards that will impact positively the lives of the people in the oil-producing community!

The spill
On November 5, Aiteo reported a major oil leak from its Oil Mining Lease (OML) 29, in Nembe, Bayelsa State. The oil company had acquired the Oil Mining Lease (OML) 29 for $2.4 billion, following the 2015 divestment by Shell. The company’s profile consists of the 97km Nembe Creek trunk line which evacuates crude from onshore oil wells within the oil bloc and other operators to Bonny Export Terminal.

Action
The Bayelsa State Government condemned the spill, urging the oil company to expedite action to contain it. Governor Douye Diri, represented by his deputy, Senator Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo, expressed concern over the spillage of crude oil and its attendant degradation of the environment.

He also called on Aiteo to take urgent steps at initiating remediation efforts towards ensuring that the spill at its facility was brought under control adding that the government would embark on an on-the-spot assessment at the spill site to assess the extent of damage caused by the spill nineteen days after it occurred.

The governor directed his commissioner for environment, his mineral resources commissioner, the deputy chief of staff, deputy governor’s office; the information commissioner, the special adviser to the governor on security one (1), as well as the attorney-general of the state and commissioner for justice, to undertake an on-the-spot assessment at the spill site.

The Ijaw National Congress (INC) condemned oil spillages by Aiteo in Bayelsa communities, INC) has rebuked the company for its ‘poor response’ to the November 5 spill from its oilfields in Nembe. The group stated it was wrong for Aiteo to link the wellhead leak within its oil bloc in the Nembe creeks when a Joint Investigation Visit (JIV) had not been conducted on the incident.

The Director-General of the National Oil Spills Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), Idris Musa, revealed that a joint investigation into the cause could not be held until the leak had stopped.

The effect
Fishing settlements along the Nembe creeks lamented that efforts to plug the leak did not bring results, even as the well continued to spew oil and gas into the environment.

INC President, Benjamin Okaba, told journalists in Yenagoa that the conclusion on sabotage by the oil company was hasty as there had been no Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) by independent monitors.

Okaba and other ranking INC officials visited the site but Aiteo’s spokesperson, Mathew Ndiana, later maintained in a statement that the sabotage was suspected to be the cause of the leak.

He faulted Aiteo’s position, saying, “First and foremost, we want to express our dismay over the position of Aiteo that the oil spill was caused by sabotage. The INC considers this position as prejudicial and pre-emptive, and it is unacceptable.

“Since the leak occurred, Aiteo has been complaining that it cannot mobilize personnel to clamp the leaking point on the facility. So the question is: without the JIV, how did they come up to ascertain that it is caused by sabotage?”

The INC leader called on NOSDRA to live up to its obligations and not bend rules on the incident.

“The place is still leaking; it is peculiar because it is not from the pipeline. It is coming from the flow under, to the extent that it is difficult for any living being to even access the spot of damage. It requires high technology,” he said.

On the donation of four truckloads of food items, medical supplies, and N5 million cash to the impacted communities, Okaba observed that the package was meager considering the number of impacted residents in the 41 communities.

“They sent only 200 bags of rice. This is inhumanity taken too far. Two hundred bags of rice are what a company that has destroyed people’s livelihoods is talking about. They are not even ashamed of themselves,” Okaba revealed.

“They should be ashamed of themselves to even attribute the incident to sabotage. We are too smart for that kind of dirty politics.”

The operator of the OML 29 asset acquired following the 2015 divestment by Shell said it had enlisted foreign experts to help cap the leaking well and hoped to stop the leak in a couple of days.

OML 29 includes the 97-kilometer Nembe Creek Trunk Line, which conveys crude produced from onshore swamp wells to the Bonny Export Terminal operated by Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC).

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Remediation
However, after 20 days of the spill, the Minister of State for Environment, Sharon Ikeazor, disclosed that a wellhead in the Santa Barbara South field had blown up on November 5, spewing oil into the water bodies in subsequent days.

According to her, the Santa Barbara spillage has been brought under control, weeks after the incident occurred; with necessary personnel and equipment deployed for recovery and remediation efforts.

The Federal Government also immediately suspended exploration on the oil well. Rights groups like the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) decried the level of devastation by a spill on farmlands and water sources.