Mkpoikana Udoma
Port Harcourt — A fresh crude oil spill from Shell’s operated Trans Niger Pipeline, TNP has again rocked Bodo community in Gokana Local Government Area of Rivers, causing devastation to the Ogoni environment.
The spills which became noticeable yesterday, is coming about a year after multiple oil spills from different sections of the same pipeline rocked the same community in August 2023 and July 2022.
Although the cause of the spill has not yet been ascertained, SweetCrude Reports gathered that the leaking pipeline has not been clamped up till this moment, while JIV has not been conducted, even when stakeholders told our correspondent that Shell has been notified of the incident.
Confirming the development, the President of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People, MOSOP, Mr Fegalo Nsuke, called on Shell to quickly clamp the pipeline for the safety of the community.
Nsuke speaking exclusively to our correspondent, lamented that farmlands have been impacted by the spills, and advised members of the communities to stay away from the spill site.
Also, a group known as Eco Defence Alliance has decried the incessant oil spill in Bodo community and wondered why the government has refused to proffer permanent solutions to the repeated crude oil spill incidents in Bodo.
Coordinator of the group, Comrade Damian Gbogbara, said the spill began with a loud blast and must have been caused by equipment failure
“This is not funny to hear that Bodo is a community with the highest number of crude oil spills that the world has ever recorded in human history.
“The latest spill occurred on Thursday 4th July 2024, at about 12:45 am in the Sugi area of Bodo community, not far from where multiple oil spills have occurred in recent times on the TNP operated by Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Ltd.”
The community-based group charged the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency, NOSDRA to immediately embark on a joint investigation visit, JIV with relevant stakeholders to the spill site in the Sugi area of Bodo, without delay.
Gbogbara warned against any attempt to manipulate the JIV outcome, saying that caution must be exercised by relevant authorities in the quest to ascertained the cause of the spill and subsequent closure of the leaked pipes, to avoid any crisis in the community.
“Again, there is the need for transparency in the whole process, from constituting the JIV team to its implementation and its final result to avoid any form of crisis as witnessed the other time.
“The JIV report will help to hold the operator to account and also serve as evidence-based documents for possible litigation on the ecosystem destruction, and save the fragile Bodo, Ogoni, and Niger Delta environment, especially with the ongoing Clean Up exercise by the Bodo Mediation Initiative, beside the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project, HYPREP, coordinated clean up gearing up to start in the area.”
