By Obiabin Onukwugha
Frontline environmental activist and Executive Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation, Rev. Nnimmo Bassey, has accused multinational oil companies operating in Nigeria of rebranding and divesting from onshore assets to evade responsibility for decades of environmental devastation in the Niger Delta.
Bassey made the submission at the 2026 Correspondents’ Week organised by the Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, with the support of Renaissance Africa Energy Company Limited, NLNG, and Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Centre, in Port Harcourt, on Monday
Delivering a keynote address on the theme, “The Imperatives of Comprehensive Cleanup of the Niger Delta Environment: Role of the Media,” Bassey insisted that international oil companies were deliberately restructuring operations to shield themselves from legal accountability over pollution and ecological damage in oil-producing communities.
“They are divesting to evade responsibilities. Now they’re changing strategy and calling themselves energy companies, instead of oil companies,” he said, pointing out that multinational firms now prefer transferring onshore assets to local operators while distancing themselves from decades of unresolved oil spills, abandoned facilities and gas flaring liabilities in the Niger Delta region.
“It is unacceptable that international oil companies can be allowed to avoid taking responsibility for their toxic legacy accumulated over seven decades.
“If we have a modicum of self respect, the so-called divestment deals should be reexamined and repudiated, because they simply provide the IOCs with basis to attempt to offload their responsibilities on the already damaged environment and impoverished people,” he said
The environmentalist argued that the continued environmental degradation in the Niger Delta was rooted in colonial-era extraction systems that prioritised profit over human lives and ecological safety, saying, “We should never forget that the oil business in Nigeria began as a colonial enterprise. This laid the foundation for ignoring the people and the environment because colonialism focuses on exploitation for the benefits of the colonizer and not the victims of colonization.”
He lamented that nearly 70 years of oil and gas production had left the Niger Delta heavily polluted, with regulators allegedly failing to enforce environmental accountability.
“Almost 70 years of crude oil and gas exploitation has left an expanding legacy of oil pollution with an equivalent of one Exxon Valdez oil spill, or 260,000 barrels of crude oil, spilled every year in the region.
“This has been happening simply because our regulators allow the polluters to literally get away with murder and are more concerned about the financial returns than the health and security of the people or environment,” he said
Bassey further raised alarm over abandoned oil facilities scattered across communities in the Niger Delta, describing them as “ecological time bombs.”
He cited ongoing incidents including the Ororo-1 oil well fire off the Ondo coastline, the Alakiri wellhead fire in Okrika, Rivers State, and gas eruptions in Bille Kingdom as evidence of regulatory failure and environmental neglect.
“There are wellheads, manifolds, flow stations and pipelines that ought to be decommissioned and removed from communities across the Niger Delta by the IOCs and their domestic partners.
“These derelict facilities constitute threats to ecosystems especially regarding groundwater contamination, soil and air quality. They are time bombs that are not waiting to explode but have already been exploding.
“There is no reason why an oil well should burn for years without action being taken to stop the flames. There is no reason why gas should bubble and burst in flames randomly across a community and yet nothing is being done to safeguard the lives of the people,” he continued.
The environmentalist also criticised what he described as coordinated efforts by oil companies to manipulate public perception around pollution incidents by routinely blaming oil spills on sabotage and third-party interference.
“A major win for the oil companies is that many people now get to believe that oil spills and other pollutions in the region are caused by community people rather than failure of poorly maintained equipment.”
“We have seen incidents where Joint Inspection Visits indicated that oil spills were caused by equipment failure and yet companies and sometimes government officials would claim otherwise,” he stated.
Bassey urged journalists to resist propaganda from polluters and intensify investigative reporting on environmental abuses in the Niger Delta.
“The media has the duty and capacity to report the ecocide happening in the Niger Delta factually and in real time. The thing the polluters dread most is having their harmful acts exposed and placed in the public domain,” the environmentalist stated
He also called for immediate environmental and health audits across the Niger Delta as well as the declaration of a state of environmental emergency in the region.
“The future of the Niger Delta must no longer be defined by exploitation and ecological sacrifice, but by justice, restoration, environmental integrity and development shaped by the aspirations and rights of the peoples of the region,” he stated.
