An environmentalist, Dr Nnimmo Bassey, has berated the International Oil Companies (IOCs) over the sustained degradation of the Niger Delta region.
Bassey, who is the Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), said this at a two-day programme on Friday, August 2, 2024, at the Niger Delta University, Amassoma, Bayelsa State.
The environmentalist, who described the poor state of the region as a “privatised and sacrificed zone”, appealed to the Federal Government to stop the pollution, which is said to have reached unimaginable level.
Bassey, a renowned environmentalist who holds a national honour of Member of the Order of Federal Republic (MFR), spoke on the recovering of the region from the IOCs.
According to him, the current focus is the sacrifice zones in the world, how to stop and eliminate the pollution.
“My take or initial conclusion of what we are going to do today and tomorrow is that the Niger Delta is a privatised and sacrifice zone.
“The gold mines of South Africa, the gas fields, the phosphate fields of Togo and Western Sahara. These are all sacrifices.
“The lands are sacrificed, the people are sacrificed and all the revenue goes to the corrupt leaders,” he said.
According to him, our creeks, rivers, streams, coastal areas, swamps have all been privatised by oil companies and the Nigerian government agencies.
“How has this been done? 66, 68 years of oil extraction in commercial quantities in the Niger Delta have seen the complete pollution of our water bodies by oil spills.
The environmentalist noted that there were high concentration of benzene in drinking water in the region and spills had gone more than five-metre deep into the soil as the reckless extractive activities continued.
Dr Charles Oyibo, the university’s Head of Department, Environmental Management, said that he hoped the students had been better informed by the lecture.
Oyibo said the collaboration with HOMEF had been an eye opener in grappling with the issues of the environment.
By Shedrack Frank
