According to the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), Bayelsa State saw 1,086 oil spills between January 2015 and February 2022.
When delegations from Connected Development (CODE) and OXFAM paid an advocacy visit to his office in Abuja, Mr. Idris Musa, the Director-General of NOSDRA, let them know. The purpose of the trip was to talk about various difficulties encountered in oil-producing areas.
Out of the 1,086 oil spill instances reported in Bayelsa, 917, according to Musa, were the result of sabotage, such as pipelines being deliberately blown up or broken by a third party using a hacksaw.
Communities in the vicinity, he claimed, must safeguard oil infrastructure and stop such vandals since their complacency was harming the ecosystem.
“You see, we cannot keep running away; I gave you the statistics now that we recorded 1 086 oil spills in Bayelsa from 2015 to February 2022, that is 84.4 percent; that means we need to do something.
“It is not about experts; if I came from a community, for instance, and then an expert will aid me to break a pipeline in my neighborhood that will spill oil into my water, will I then drink it and do other domestic chores?
“We need to speak to these issues; we have done that consistently with evidence, what we call Disaster Risk Reduction program for communities, telling them why they do not need to vandalise oil facilities.
“So CSOs also have to wake up and interface with these communities, let everybody check his own part and do the right thing, that is what I will advocate, the blame is not just on oil companies.”
“If everybody in the statistics I gave, which is 84.4 per cent, stop that act, then we will have zero spill and our environment will be good,” the DG said.
Musa said Nigeria loses billions of Naira due to the oil spillage experienced daily.
He added that NOSDRA has been advocating against it and working to end the sabotage and destruction of oil facilities.
“This is because when this spill happens, three things happen. As a nation, we lose revenue, individuals lose livelihood because the oil will impact on areas where they either fish or farm and then it is also a loss to the oil companies and the environment,” he added.
Mr. Hamzat Lawal, Chief Executive Officer, CODE, said that the organisation, through its Follow the Money initiative, tracks the utilisation of public funds to ensure its judicious utilisation in the interest of communities.
Lawal said that in collaboration with Oxfam, CODE has been working in the Niger Delta region through its Conflict and Fragility project. He added that they worked on a new project and sought collaboration with NOSDRA.
Lawal said the CODE partnership with OXFAM and the advocacy visit to NOSDRA also domesticate the National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights in Nigeria at federal and state levels.
Henry Ushie, Project Coordinator, Fiscal Accountability for Inequality Reduction, said that OXFAM Nigeria works to reduce poverty caused by inequality.
“It is not that there are no resources, but those resources do not go around because a few people have hijacked most of the resources to themselves.
“So we try to reduce poverty by ending inequality in all its forms, whether social, political or gender inequality, we just make an effort to complete those inequalities.
“Specifically in Nigeria, we work across three key areas – gender justice, economic livelihoods, and accountable governance.
“Within this sphere of work is our work on just economy, where we look at those areas that have to do with revenue sharing.
“For example, issues around natural resources within the extractive industries and within that space, we work with stakeholders to look at those anomalies, the mismanagement that happen, particularly at community level.”
Ushie said the advocacy visit engaged with NOSDRA on tackling challenges in extractive communities and how the communities can benefit more from the resources.
He added that the advocacy was to get updates on how the agency leveraged the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP26, and its plan to participate in and maximise the upcoming COP27 for the nation’s benefit.