Group warns of oil spill in Rivers community 

An environmental rights group, known as Youths and Environmental Advocacy Centre (YEAC), has raised the alarm over a recent oil spill, which occurred on March 5 at Touma-Ama Community Manifold in Bille Kingdom in Degema Council of Rivers State.

The group, which called on authorities, especially the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), noted that oil was still spilling into the environment and destroying the ecosystem in the Bille Kingdom territorial areas.

According to a statement signed by its Executive Director, Dumnamene Fyneface, and issued to newsmen in Port Harcourt, yesterday, a member of Advocacy Centre’s “One Million Youth Volunteers Network of Human Rights Defenders and Promoters in the Niger Delta” in the area, Isaac Opiriyabo-Ofori, confirmed the spill, which occurred on the Touma-Ama Community Manifold on Saturday, March 5, 2022.

The statement said Opiriyabo-Ofori revealed that the facility, where the liquid suspected to be crude oil was spilling from, belonged to Eroton Exploration and Production Company Ltd (Eroton E&P Ltd) and the company was notified on March 6, but till the date of this alert, the facility was still spilling crude into the environment.  

Fynface said: “Eroton E & P Ltd had visited the spill site for inspection without involving any member of the community or the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA). To us at ADVOCACY CENTRE, such a clandestine visit by the company is a “Secret Investigation Visit” (SIV), a development that is provoking the people of the community as reported to Advocacy Centre.

“In series of short video footages and photographs sent to YEAC as shreds of evidence of the spill and authenticity of the report, Advocacy Centre could see crude oil leaking from the facility at the manifold into the environment-nonstop. Advocacy Centre further observed that the equipment is failing and the pace and speed of the spillage increasing gradually when compared to the video footage of March 5 and that of March 12 as explained by the source.”