Nembe spill: NNPC urged to clean up, remediate the affected environments

•Activist says the area is faced with eco-genocide

By Timi Black

A Niger Delta environmental activist, Comrade Franklin D. Magada, Executive Director of Niger Delta Eco Monitors has lamented that the Nembe crude oil spillage was a classical example of neglect, marginalization, exploitation and environmental degradation in Niger Delta region.

The director said the Niger Delta crude oil companies were responsible for the complete despoliation of the region’s environment without commensurable efforts of remediation.

This was contained in a press statement which was sent to Congress newspaper on Wednesday.

According to him: “These exploration companies: Environmental Management Plan (EMP), Environmental Management System (EMS), International Standard Organization (ISO), Health Safety & Environment (HSE) are lip services”.

However, the Executive Director of Niger Delta Eco Monitors, Comrade Magada called on NNPC to clean up and remediate the cumulative impacted area of the Nembe pollution environment as a matter of urgency, as a way of declaring the polluted area an Environmental Emergency Zone.

“As a practicing environmental professional and consultant, through my private incident investigation and impact assessment of the spillage site, while using Strategic Environment Assessment(SEA) tools, this pollution remediation will be quantifying to thousands of billions of dollars and that anything short of that is a robbery on the environment and the Niger Delta. To recolonize this polluted aquatic environment to its pre-pollution state, it will take a complete decade.

“This incident is an environmental genocide on the Niger Delta environment, booms and containment equipment couldn’t courtail the spillage, except only on the incident location. This is due to the spillage magnitude and duration of days it lasted. Nembe Spillage is a broad daylight Eco-genocide”, he added.