By Obiabin Onukwugha
Rumuekpe community in Emohua local government area of Rivers State, has lamented the impact of decades of oil exploration activities. This comes as the community has insisted that Shell and other oil multinationals must remediate the environment and restore their livelihoods before divesting their assets in the area.
NatureNews gathered that oil was discovered in Rumuekpe in 1958, after that of Oloibiri in Bayelsa State. It was also gathered that Rumuekpe hosts Shell’s largest manifold from which oil produced in its East Operations is transported to Bonny Terminal for sale.
It was further gathered that the Rumuekpe manifold was a booster station before it was bombed during the Nigerian/Biafra civil war.
Stakeholders of Rumuekpe made the demand while speaking with journalists, during a tour of spill sites in the area by environmental body, Social Action, last Thursday.
Like other host communities in the Niger Delta region, Rumuekpe, despite its strategic position in the sale of Nigeria’s oil to the international market and the impact oil exploration activities has had on its environment and the livelihood of the people are also not aware of the ongong divestment by the oil multinationals.
It would be noted that civil society organizations, including Social Action have been in the forefront of calling on the federal government to halt all divestment moves by the IOCs until the entire Niger Delta environment is remediated. It is this call by the CSOs that have drawn the attention of the host communities to the divestments, a situation that the various communities view as Eco injustice.
Fielding questions from journalists, a Community Leader of Imogu-Rumuekpe, Chief Innocent Eroro, expressed shock that Shell and other oil companies would divest their assets without engaging the community. He also lamented that despite hosting five oil companies namely; Shell, Agip, TotalEnergies, NDPR and now Aradel, the community lacked social amenities and development.
“Since they said they are going, they want to sell their assets to another company, they should do what we call remediation so that we will reclaim our land. The land is no more fertile, no hospital, nothing in Rumuekpe. We are no more enjoying anything. No electricity, no roads. In other communities they pay the Chiefs but here, nothing. Shell has operated for over sixty years in Rumuekpe community but there is nothing to show,” he said.
Another stakeholder in the community, Mr. Gaius Ajuru, said despite the strategic contributions of the community to the Nigerian economy, it lacked both federal and state government presence in terms of development. He said decades of oil spill has been left uncleaned, which has affected groundwater bodies and farmlands.
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According to him, Rumuekpe has the largest manifold in Shell East Operations and houses oil delivery from Egi, Total Line, Agip, Bayelsa, Kolo Creek, Ugwuta, Asa before its delivered to the Bonny Terminal, which is called Rukpoku/Rumuekpe Trans Niger Pipeline (TNP). He mentioned that despite several provisions like MoUs, GMoUs, CSR and now PIA, the oil companies never implemented any of them in the community. Ajuru, who was a former councillor representing Rumuekpe Ward 8 in the local government, also decried that gas flaring has affected air quality and the health of the people over the years.
He said: “There was an oil spill in 1979, that oil was not cleaned, a series of oil spills which I may not be able to give the dates, have not been attended to. What you saw in the bush, that oil has gone to underground waterbed, affecting the source of drinking water. As a local community, our major source of water is the river.
“The gas flaring alone is enough to send us parking from this community. And what we call conflagration of wells. It is only gas that is supposed to flare but when there is conflagration of wells, the oil mix with gas and the oil and gas burns and when it burns, the atmosphere changes and the community is affected, our health is affected, the air is affected. That is what the activities of Shell and the other oil companies have been doing to this community.”
On the divestment, Ajuru said, “What you are talking is new to everybody in this community. Divesting to where? If they are divesting they have not let any of the community chiefs know. The women are not aware. If they are divesting without carrying us along, then who are they leaving their liabilities for? If they leave their liabilities, the other companies that are coming, won’t they shy away and say we are not the cause of the pollution. If they are divesting they should let us know and we will hold a Town Hall meeting. The youths, the women, the chiefs must be carried along. We must be aware, we have questions begging for answers that the community needs to ask them which they need to answer us.”
On her part, Blessing Orijos, Secretary of Rumuekpe Women Prayer Warriors, lamented the impact of oil activities on the reproductive health of women and children. She also pointed out that their land is no longer fertile for farming as Rumuekpe is predominantly a farming community.
“Mostly women are affected by the oil spill. Like the first place you people visited, there is one stream along the road they call “mmiri oboro”, we drink that water. Anytime we are going to farm we don’t carry water from the house, we fetch water from there and we don’t rinate or bathe in that river, if you do, you will be fined for it. That water is very cold. But the spills that occurred around that area entered that water and even our ponds. Before now Rumuekpe produced fishes, during the dry season that is when you go to the ponds and you see a lot of fishes but today you will go there and bail from morning till night, you cannot see even crayfish.
“The spill also affected our land. We are a farming community, we produce cassava, yam, Okro, cocoa yam. Rumuekpe, what they normally know us with, is farming but today you can no longer see good farm produce. The harvest is poor, you can no longer see pepper in this community, even mushroom. Our women used to pick mushroom and prepare meals with it but that is no more, even our bush meats are all gone. Hunters no longer kill any meat to tell you how our land have been affected.
“Today women are crying with one sickness or the other. Our young women enter menopause from 28 to 30 years of age. Many families are crying, fighting because women can no longer bear children, their husbands can no longer impregnate them. Before now we don’t know what is called cancer, but today everywhere is cancer. From one person to another, cancer. If you sustain an injury and the injury comes in contact with the water it becomes an everlasting wound because of the pollution in the water.
“The stretch of the spill you see is more than 40km and oil spill damaged the whole of that land. Our women will use the water and bathe, they don’t even know the effect of the crude on their bodies. We have one skin sicknesses or the other, eye problems, children are having eye problems because of the oil spills and pollution in the community. In the night you can’t even breath well. So we are affected.
“We don’t have a hospital, not even a maternity ward in our community. Many women deliver through local midwifery and when the case is too complicated we go to UPTH in Port Harcourt. Most times by the time you get there, the person dies on the way. If we call out our women for medical checkup you will see thousands of women that have one sickness or the other. So, we are crying. If Shell wants to go, as you people have told us, that poo that they shit there, they should come and pack it before a stranger will come if not we women will block them. The only language they ((oil companies) normally hear is blockade,” she stated.
