Two communities in the Niger Delta are planning to take Exxonmobil and Shell to court over environmental degradation in their communities
The two communities at a Community Diagnostic Dialogues organised by the Health of Mother Earth Foundation in Port Harcourt are Ibeno in Akwa Ibom State and Joinkrama, a cluster of four communities, in Rivers State.
One of the delegate from Ibeno who is the Chief Specialist Effanga of Ibeno community said “We will go back to form a formidable force with our people and also connect with the Joinkrama people to approach the highest court of the land and demand justice.
“ We will toe the path of non-violence and will dialogue with them till they accept their wrong and begin to put in place measures to ensure that our land is completely clean, and our livelihoods are restored.”
Another member of Ibeno community, Emmanuel Akpan, stated, “the problem we have had before now was not having a right channel, but with the experience and teachings we have had here, our eyes are opened to know the right demand to make and actions to take. We will engage the government and our oppressors using the right media.
“ExxonMobil has enslaved us for long but it is time to take up active advocacy in demanding for the restoration of our environment. We have suffered from cancers, respiratory diseases and others aliments while we lack basic essential amenities that we ought to have.”
Also speaking, representative from Joinkrama community, Azaga Ovie-Oniso Kelvin, said “Joinkrama is criss-crossed by oil and gas pipelines. Oil floats on the river and we can no longer fish, while crops like cassava are also not yielding like they used to. You can see the environment.
“The roofing sheets are all rusty. What we want is for the oil company operating here to mitigate the effects of their operations in the community by stopping pollution and cleaning up the damaged areas.”
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He further added that the 2022 flood left a huge impact. “Crops were all destroyed. We were rendered homeless. The oil companies are not helping matters, and even the access road is completely broken. The oil company and government should at least repair our only access road. There are no benefits at all from the oil company. We still drink polluted water from the Orashi River,” he lamented.
Sunday Dressman from Joinkrama while appreciating HOMEF for organising the training stated the plight of his community following their lack of preparedness to the happening in the community.
He said, “My people are enlightened by this capacity building meeting. We came as a group to gain from this training and we are going back home to step it down to enable us engage the polluters properly.”
Director of HOMEF, Nnimmo Bassey, described the monitoring training as timely.
“This has given the communities the basic tools and knowledge on how to defend their environments and by so doing their health and livelihoods. The situation in both Ibeno and Joinkrama show abject abandonment of a very accommodating people. Their situation cannot continue to be one by which they are remembered only for exploitation of resources and extraction of votes during elections. There are key oil and gas issues in these areas and there have been notable oil spills over the decades, human rights abuses and repression of the people. We have heard from them and we encourage them to speak with one voice,” he said.
Also, Ken Henshaw, the executive director of We the People, during his presentation stated that the Nigeria health and environment of its people. He added that oil theft and criminality are not carried out by communities and they should not be criminalized for what they are not responsible for.
Ibeno community was known for fishing while Joinkrama stood out as a food basket serving both Rivers and Bayelsa States. Joinkrama has 48 oil wells being exploited by Shell and producing about 200,000 barrels of crude oil daily.
Ibeno has been host to ExxonMobil and hosts about 90 offshore platforms comprising of 300 producing wells at the capacity of about 550,000 barrels of oil extracted daily.
