Lucky Obukohwo Reporting
Residents of oil producing communities in the Niger Delta, who are majorly women, have called on critical stakeholders to join in the forces against incessant pollution and violation of their fundamental rights by oil multinationals.
The residents from Odimodi, Focadus in Delta State travelled to Benin to join the Gelegbene community, Edo State in a meeting with the International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA), Civil Society Organisations, Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) and Community Development Foundation (CODAF).
The riverine communities appealed to the environmental activists and women lawyers to intervene and stop pollution of their environment, as well as marginalisation and supersession due to the operations of the oil multinationals.
Narrating the ordeal of the community at the gathering themed “Niger Delta Legal and Strategic Meeting for Fisher Folks”, facilitated by the CODAF in collaboration with ERA/FoEN, Mrs. Mary Fedigha from Gelegbene decried that since Dubri Oil company began operations in the local, the environment had been seriously impacted.
She expressed dissatisfaction that the fishes, the residents used to catch were no more.
“Since the oil company started operations in the Gelegbene community, we have been suffering. Before the oil company came, when we went to the river, we caught fish at ease and used it as trade by barter in our neighbouring communities for goods.
“But since the oil company came, this is very difficult. You will tour from morning till evening yet you will not catch anything. You need to go several miles in search of fish before you catch a few,” Fedigha said.
Fedigha also identified gas flaring in the middle of the community as another dangerous experience that they were exposed to in the community.
“All the buildings around the gas flared zone are in danger; the heat there is unbearable.
“Despite being an oil producing community, Gelegbene has no potable water, no hospital, no road. We are benefiting nothing from the oil company,” she said.
Also Juliet Egbele, from Odimodi community, called the attention of the activists to an impending danger as a result of Trans-Raymond pipeline, whose lifespan, she said had elapsed.
“There is a pipeline running through the town, called Trans-Raymond; it is a 42 inch transparent pipeline.
“They said the pipe has only a 20 year lifespan; when the pipeline was over 25 years; we wrote to them, but they didn’t respond.
Sharing a similar sentiment, a retired Deputy Superintendent of Police, Fred Obi from Odimodi community in Delta State, related how he incurred losses due to pollution arising from the company’s operation in the area.
“I have a fishing yard and fish pond. I had my fishing pond at the bank of the river where I had different species of fishes, but when the river overflows it banks, it took away the fishes, so I moved to the upland to sink borehole and continued with my fishing ponds, but due to the pollution all my fishes died.
“What we are passing through is like hell on earth in Odimodi community,” he said.