At the shore of Ijegun-Egba terminal, also called, Water Side, the first thing The Guardian noticed was oil spillage on the water and refuse dumps at the left side of the shore.
Asking community members the cause, they said most of the oil carriers or ships that transport diesel, usually spill some on the water body. Another cause, they noted, was that such occur when ships, and drillers carry out repairs of their engines on water.
 
The effect of these has led to a loss in the major occupation and means of livelihood of the Island, which is fishing as fishes are now scarce. 
    
According to the Nigeria Oil Spill Monitor (NOSDRA), in 2022, there were 551 publicly available oil spillage records, making 18,720.164 barrels of oil. 190 of them had no estimated quantity of oil spilled. The data did not include the most recent spills and those whose details are currently under review.
  
The Island, known as Snake Island, is home to about 30,000 people. According to heads of the community, it is made up of 10 communities namely; Ibasa, Ilashe, Ibeshe, Imore, Igbologun, Igbo-osun, Igbo-eseyore, Ikare, Irede and Iyagbe.
 
At Ijegun-Egba terminal, which is one of the major entrance to the snake island community (from this terminal, it’s easy to access at least four of the communities), the presence of Ranogaz, Rainoil and Bond Global Energy Projects, were easily spotted.
  
Boarding the boat to get to Snake Island instilled a bit of fear because the life jackets were not in the best of shape, meaning that in the case of an unfortunate situation, there was no guarantee of safety.
  
The Guardian gathered that due to the topography of the island, which is predominantly sandy; there are no buses or tricycles to transport indigenes around the various communities. Indigenes have three choices, to use a boat, motorcycle (also called Okada) or walking on foot.
 
To use a boat, the person has to find a way to the shore to join the boat. The price differs depending on the particular destination. Getting an Okada is quite a herculean task because they are limited in number (in all visitations across the communities, The Guardian saw not more than four in total) and costs N500 per stop, so getting one means you must have their contact so you can call whenever you have to go out.
 
To avoid paying exorbitant motorcycle and ferry fares, most people prefer to walk. What else would be the expectation for a community with large landmass, which has no operational company and a weakened fishing occupation, thus limiting their income streams?
  
A major need identified in the communities was potable water. All four communities visited, lamented lack of potable water, noting how they have to buy sachet water for their use. Though some of those communities have borehole water, like in Ibasa community, The Guardian saw a borehole made up of three tanks with political stickers on it, meaning a politician must have donated it. In Imore community, two borehole stations were observed. For Ibsehe, the one observed looked non-operational.
  
Olori Ayaba of Ilashe, Ruratu Akinwo, said major occupation of the women is trading and farming but complained of how transportation and water are constant challenges. 
  
“We have coconut farms and God is helping us to survive. The COVID-19 period was very hard for us here even till now. We do not have water. We do buy “pure water”(Sachet water) daily. A few of us with a borehole try to connect the water taps outside so that children in the community can have access to water,” the Olori said.
  
According to her, the affected communities constantly get promises from the government and people who come visiting but serious actions have not been taken.
  
Another major challenge is electricity bill and cost of items, which are exorbitant because traders have to factor in transportation and other cost while selling.
  
National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), in its latest National Multidimensional Poverty Index report, released in November 2022, disclosed that 133 million Nigerians are multi-dimensionally poor. It said that 63 per cent of Nigerians were poor owing to lack of access to health, education, living standards, employment and security.
 
The Multidimensional Poverty Index offered a multivariate form of poverty assessment, identifying deprivations across health, education, living standards, work and shocks.
 
In this report however, Lagos comes second in least poor states, with a 29.4 per cent, following Ondo state closely, which has 27.2 per cent.
 
A sales girl in Imore community explained that though they have constant electricity, it costs so much. She stated that an occupant of a room pays as much as N4,000 monthly on electricity and a small bungalow can cost as much as N10, 000 monthly, if one is living alone.
 
She said that though items are more expensive on the island, most people go outside the Island, places like Oshodi to work and make money to afford the cost of items. She gave instance with items like bread, sachet water, soaps, sardine and others that have an additional N50 or N100.
 
Community leader, Chief Odofin of Ibeshe, Olubolu Waliu, alongside other representatives echoed that they are challenged with electricity bill and access to potable water.
 
“We in this community, have been suffering for a while, we don’t have drinking water and good hospitals. We need government support. If they can provide borehole, schools and jobs for the youths, it would be good. This is because the major thing we do is fishing, but now, we cannot fish. We don’t have work, we are just waking up, roaming for a while and going back to bed,” he added.
 
He noted that a lot of their youths are jobless and just spend their time on activities such as gisting and playing soccer, which could lead to increased crime in the area.
 
On electricity, while showing a sample of the bill, which had a total of N47.1 million, as at June 2022, he noted that the electricity company has taken its hands off collecting money from communities and have shifted the responsibilities to the community leaders, who now have to rack their brains on how to share the bills among the houses and gather the funds to pay for the bill.
 
He added that though they have constant supply of electricity, the task of allocating bill to houses and the cost of electricity has been a major challenge.
  
It was observed at Imore, that oil pipeline dug by NNPC, which had been buried for the last 50 years, was dug up for maintenance. It was gathered that before now, people around the community engaged in oil bunkering, whenever they dig up the pipeline for maintenance.
 
Ade Olusina, a resident of Imore, who is a registered photographer with the government said that apart from fishing, most of the youths are artisans.
 
Olusina, who is also a herdsman and cement seller, said though the community has steady supply, the electricity bill is challenging to meet up with.
 
He added that, though the community has a primary school, students from Ilashe, Imore, Ibasa, Ibeshe Beach and Ibeshe have to go to Ibeshe for their secondary education, as that’s the only place that has a government school. Students have to walk long distances of at least 30 minutes (for the closest community) to get to the school and those that stay at Ibeshe beach, have to cross the river, to get to the venue.
  
Eletu of Imore said they usually have cases of stealing but not armed robbery and when caught, they are taken to the police.
He said that the island contributes a lot to Lagos security, as they do a good job in securing that area.
 
“We make Lagos have peace because if we don’t do our security well, this place would be the hide out for terrorist as we identify every new face here,” he said. 
Eletu lamented that the existing school is not sufficiently equipped with staff and facilities to give the students the best.
  
As a way to give to his community, he stated that he had to open borehole water where everyone, especially the students can fetch from on their way back from school.
 
Hasan Abisoye from Ilashe, who works at Fatgbems Filling station, Kirikiri said that Castech, a company that produced irons, which was previously located within the island and was a source of employment was shut down eight years after change of government, so community members now had to get into the city in search of jobs when they graduate from schools.
  
“They gave community slots and my family benefited from it, my younger brother worked there. The company used to pay well but it has been shut down,” he lamented.

Reaching out to Rainoil with the concern of the oil spill and their counter action, an inside source said that they were not aware of any oil spill to the best of their ability.

An effort to reach Bond Global was unsuccessful.
Speaking to Public Relations Officer (PRO), Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency (LASEPA), Bola Ajayi, claimed not to know the area and asked if the reporter had reached out to Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

His words: I am just hearing this now, have you notified NNPC? You need to notify NNPC,” he said.
According to research by Amazon Frontlines, health implications of oil spills can be grouped into respiratory problems, irritations (eye, skin, etc.), neurological effects (headache, dizziness, etc.) and traumatic symptoms (pain), liver damage, decreased immunity, increased cancer risk, reproductive damage and higher levels of some toxics. These symptoms were, in many cases, related to the intensity of the exposure. 

This story was supported by the Africa Data Hub Community Journalism Fellowship.