Like history which does not satisfy or dissatisfy people but accurately gives account of the past, one recent account that satisfactorily and objectively portrayed the International Oil Companies (IOCs) operating in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria as architects of environmental degradation, pollution and promoters of health challenges in the region is the latest report by the Bayelsa State Oil and Environmental Pollution Commission.
The Commission, which was set up in March 2019 by the former Governor Seriake Dickson-led government in the state to investigate the impact of years of oil spillage and environmental pollution in the state, unveiled its final report on 16 May 2023 at the House of Lords in London. That is after four years of work.
Titled ‘An environmental genocide: Counting the human cost of oil in Bayelsa, Nigeria’, the report, aside from documenting the over six decades of oil exploration and pollution in the state, indicated that several health studies have documented the connection between gas flaring and a range of chronic diseases including bronchial, rheumatic and eye conditions alongside hypertension, noting that constant inhalation of sulphur dioxide causes nose and throat irritation and shortness of breath. It also said prolonged exposure to flared gas has been associated with cancer and neurological, reproductive and developmental effects.
Going through an extract of the report as reported by the media, it is evident that aside from speaking what has been on the minds of Niger Deltans and of course Nigerians as a whole, the latest report remains a broad-based piece of work that does not only indicate intellect or genius but manifests series of challenges arising from IOCs’ non-compliance with international best practices in their crude oil exploration and production in the Niger Delta and how such non-compliance has dovetailed into a burden that currently confronts the people.
Essentially, even as the report is celebrated, there are also evidence-based reasons to believe that its scope, content and revelations are neither new to the people of the region nor strange to researchers and development professionals. A 2022 study report entitled “Exposure to oil pollution and maternal outcomes: The Niger Delta prospective cohort study”, for instance, also says something similarly frightening and discouraging. The report produced by Dr Onome B. Oghenetega of Babcock University, Ilishan-Remo, in collaboration with Prof Michael Okunlola, Prof Godson R. E. E. Ana, Dr Oludare Morhason-Bello, and Prof Oladosu Ojengbede, and reported by the media, noted, among other things, that “women residing in areas with high exposure to oil pollution in the Niger Delta are more prone to premature rupture of membranes and severe vaginal bleeding after childbirth as compared to women residing in areas with low exposure”.
The above-referenced report which used data collected from interviewer-administered questionnaires and a review of medical records from April 2018 to April 2019 examined the effects of maternal exposure to oil pollution on pregnancy outcomes in 1,720 pregnant women aged 18-45 years, without doubt, made pollution prevention pivotal to achieving maternal death reduction in the region.
It is equally important to underline that so long as the Niger Delta region, going by reports, is currently dotted with about 139 gas flare locations spread across onshore and offshore oil fields where about 11 percent of the total gas produced is flared, this ugly narrative will continue to be a recurring decimal.
A boat tour of creeks and coastal communities in Warri South West and Warri North Local Government Areas of Delta State will amply reveal that the much-anticipated end of gas flaring is actually not in sight. In the same manner, a journey by road from Warri via Eku-Abraka to Agbor, and another road trip from Warri through Ughelli down to Ogwuashi Ukwu in Aniocha Local Government of the state show an environment where people cannot properly breathe as it is littered by gas flaring points.
Separate from the health implication of flared gases on humanity, their adverse impact on the nation’s economy is equally weighty. For instance, a parallel report published a while ago underlined that about 888 million standard cubic feet of gas were flared daily in 2017. The flared gas, it added, was sufficient to light up Africa, or sub-Saharan Africa, generate 2.5 gigawatts (Gw) of power or produce 50 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe) or 600,000 metric tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) per year, produce 22 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2), feed two-three liquefied natural gas (LNG) trains, generate 300,000 jobs, attract $3.5 billion investment into Nigeria and has $350 million carbon credit value. This is an illustrative pointer as to why the nation economically gropes and stumbles.
What troubles me in addition to the above itemized health and economic losses inherent in gas flaring is the experts’ belief that the major reason for the flaring of gas is that when crude oil is extracted from onshore and offshore oil wells, it brings with it raw natural gas to the surface and where natural gas transportation, pipelines, and infrastructure are lacking like in the case of Nigeria, this gas is instead burned off or flared as a waste product as this is the easiest option. This has been going on since the 1950s when crude oil was first discovered in commercial quantity in Nigeria.
Also disturbing is the awareness that while Nigeria and Nigerians continue to encounter gas flaring in the country, successive administrations in the country made both feeble and deformed attempts to get it arrested but all to no avail.
In 2016, the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration enacted Gas Flare (Prohibition and Punishment) Act that, among other things, made provisions to prohibit gas flaring in any oil and gas production operation, blocks, fields, onshore or offshore, and gas facility treatment plants in Nigeria.
On Monday, September 2, 2018, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, then Minister of State for Petroleum, speaking at the Buyers’ Forum/Stakeholders’ Engagement organized by the Gas Aggregation Company of Nigeria in Abuja, said, “I have said to the Department of Petroleum Resources, beginning from next year (2019 emphasis added), we are going to get quite frantic about this (ending gas flaring in Nigeria) and companies that cannot meet with extended periods – the issue is not how much you can pay in terms of fines for gas flaring, the issue is that you would not produce. We need to begin to look at the foreclosing of licences.” That threat has since ended in the frames as the minister did little or nothing to get it actualized.
The administration also launched the now abandoned National Gas Flare Commercialization Programme (NGFCP) which, according to the Federal government, aimed at achieving the flare-out agenda/zero routine gas flaring in Nigeria by 2020. Again, like a regular trademark, it failed.
Away from Buhari’s administration, in 1979, the then Federal Government in a similar style came up with the Associated Gas Re-injection Act which summarily prohibited gas flaring and also fixed the flare-out deadline for January 1, 1984. It failed in line with the leadership philosophy in the country.
Similar feeble and deformed attempts were made in 2003, 2006, and 2008. In the same style and span, precisely on July 2, 2009, the Nigerian Senate passed a Gas Flaring (Prohibition and Punishment) Bill 2009 (SB 126) into law fixing the flare-out deadline for December 31, 2010 – a date that slowly but inevitably failed.
Not stopping at this point, the FG made another attempt in this direction by coming up with the Petroleum Industry Bill which fixed the flare-out deadline for 2012. The same Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) got protracted till 2021 when it completed its gestation and was subsequently signed into law by President Buhari, as Petroleum Industry Act (PIA).
Despite this vicious movement to save the industry, the environment, and its people, the Niger Delta challenge remains.
So the important question is this: if this legion of laws/acts cannot save the people of the region, who will save the people from the ongoing environmental genocide?The answer is in the womb of time.
*Utomi is the Programme Coordinator (Media and Policy), Social and Economic Justice Advocacy (SEJA), Lagos.
