From Tony John, Port Harcourt
A group, The Eco Defence Alliance has expressed concerns about the oil spill that occurred in Bodo City in Gokana Local Government Area (Ogoni) of Rivers State.
Coordinator of the group, Damian Gbogbara, in a statement released in Port Harcourt, decried the incessant oil spill in Ogoni land and wondered why relevant authorities have failed to proffer permanent solution to mitigate the menace.
He said: “As a new oil spill has been reported again in Bodo City in Gokana Local Government Area (Ogoni) of Rivers State, months after many other multiple crude oil spills have occurred along the pipeline but at different location, among many others over the years.
It wonders why the authorities have refused to proffer permanent solutions to the menace of crude oil spill in Bodo.
“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.” Gbogbara said the latest spill occurred on Thursday, July 4, at about 12:45am in the Sugi area of Bodo community, not far from where multiple oil spills had occurred in recent times on the Trans-Niger Pipeline (TNP) operated by Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC) Limited.
According to Mrs Monica, whose residential home is located very close to the spill site, as well as that of last year’s, “a loud blast was heard like that of last year’s (2023), at about 12:45am.
Saturday Sun gathered from community sources that the latest spill was allegedly caused by equipment failure. The community-based environmental advocacy group said it has lost counts of oil spill incidents in Bodo. The coordinator, however, warned that caution should be exercised by relevant authorities in the quest to find out the cause of the spill and subsequent closure of the leaked pipes to avoid any crisis in the community.