Tag Archives: Niger Delta

To fly into the Niger Delta is to marvel at seemingly endless trees. Africa’s moist equatorial forest stretches from Congo to Gabon. Much is still pristine in Nigeria, the canopy closed. However, vast swathes have been despoiled by oil seepage and flaring. Joblessness and insecurity abound. “The young boys are punching holes in the oil pipelines,” exclaims Father Kevin O’Hara, ...

In the spirit of the third year anniversary of the release of the report on Ogoniland by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Nnimmo Bassey, who heads the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), reflects at a recent forum on the travails of the community, scarred by decades of land and sea degradation as a result of oil and gas ...

About this time last year this writer had the tough job of settling a dispute between two friends. One is a Nigerian from the Niger Delta and the other a South Africa from the Witbank area. Their argument was over which was the most polluted place in Africa. Was it the oil fields of the Niger Delta or the coalmine ...

Oloibiri is a small community in Ogbia Local Government Area in Bayelsa State, in the eastern Niger Delta region of Nigeria. Oloibiri is a historic town to the oil and gas industry as the first commercial oil discovery was made there (at Otuabagi/Otuogadi) by Shell Darcy on Sunday, January 15th, 1956 after about 50 years of exploration. Indeed, Oloibiri has many firsts to its credit in the ...

Oops, we’ve done it again! In what appears to have become a norm, barrels of crude oil have found their way beyond the “safe” confines of a pipeline. A week ago, yet another round of oil spill occurred in Kalaba community in Okordia clan of Yenagoa Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, leading to widespread environmental devastation. Crude oil reportedly ...

The wealth of Nigeria is largely from oil and it is centralised mainly within the Niger Delta region. In as much as it puts a smile on the faces of Nigeria, it also accounts for some negative effects especially when it concerns damaging the environment through oil spills and gas flaring. Oil spills are a common event in Nigeria and ...

Information Minister, Labaran Maku, has isolated environmental degradation as one of the greatest threats to the Niger Delta region. Maku made the submission in Abuja during a visit to the Civil Defence Academy, at the continuation of 2012 National Good Governance Tour. He listed other threats to the region to include pipeline vandalisation, illegal refineries and bust pipes. According to him, illegal ...