Group To Nigerian Govt: Act On Warri Refinery Report

Group To Nigerian Govt: Act On Warri Refinery Report

FOREMOST environmental rights advocacy group in Nigeria, Environmental Rights Action(ERA) has commended the House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream) for ordering the shutdown of the Warri Petrochemical Plant in Delta State, insisting that its continued operation with the mammoth environmental hazards detected by the House spells disaster for nearby local communities.

At a special meeting of the House committee on May 24, the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) was ordered to immediately shut down the plant and was blamed for the harmful impacts that the plant was having on the Ajomata/Awhakpor community in Uvwie Local Government Area of the state.
The meeting was a followup to an earlier one called in response to complaints from the community over frequent emission of carbon black from the facility.

Though the NNPC admitted that there was carbon black emission from the plant, it said the emission was not frequent and was dampened by jet spraying of the soot with water. It also said that the carbon black and soot do not impact on human health. The community however disagreed with this.

Dakuku Adol Peterside, who convened the meeting to investigate the complaints, in the ruling, condemned the lack of cooperation between the NNPC and other government agencies like the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and the National Oil Spills Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), noting that the NNPC does not subject itself to regulations.

ERA, which is also the country's wing of Friends of the Earth, in an online statement to AkanimoReports on Monday, applauded the House committee for promptly attending to the complaints of the community. They, however, added that NNPC be compelled to take the full responsibility for the wider impacts of its operation on the community.

''The House committee hammer on the NNPC is welcome and rekindles our belief that the oil corporations cannot continue to evade justice. We however demand that the corporation must also take full responsibility for the impacts of its misadventure on Ajomata/Awhakpor including the health burden now on the people'', ERA's Executive Director, Nnimmo Bassey said.
Continuing, he said, ''that the NNPC admitted that the plant in Warri is obsolete and ill-maintained yet it kept running it, rubbishes their so-called global best practice and reaffirms our position over the years that the oil industry expends more money on image laundering and should not be relied upon when it comes to disclosing the impacts of their operations in host communities''.

He pointed out that ERA field monitors who visited the community and spoke with community folks documented impacts such as total discoloration of the environment. Residents complained about the pollution of their water in the wells, frequent headaches, cough and chest pains. These have forced many to abandon their sources of livelihood and relocate to safer havens.

According to him, ERA is particularly dismayed that the NNPC in its defence before the House Committee, tried to twist the issues by heaping blame on the victims of their pollution by claiming the people illegally occupied the land.

''We demand that the NNPC comply with the recommendations of the House Committee and take full responsibility for its misadventure in Ajomata/Awhakpor community. We insist on nothing less'', Bassey who is also the Chair of Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) said.

ENDS

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