‘Investigate Ejigbo oil leakage’

Following the discovery of ‘oil wells’ in the compounds of some residents of Alimatu Ilo Street, Ejigbo, Lagos, by officials of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps recently, the Director at Health of Mother Earth Foundation, Nigeria, and Coordinator, Oilwatch International, Mr. Nnimmo Bassey, has called for a national study of the entire Nigerian environment and a master plan for remediation to be put in place.

Speaking to our correspondent on the phone on Thursday, Bassey, who described the Ejigbo incident as a national disaster, called for an independent investigation to ascertain the extent of the oil leakage and how much it had spilled into the environment.

“The entire Nigerian environment is comatose, whether it is solid waste disposal, which is the easiest, or other forms of waste, medical, chemical, electronic or crude oil waste, artificial mining or deforestation. We should be having a state of environmental emergency across the nation.

“From the recent findings, it shows that the oil leakage has been going on for some time now, so there should be a proper research or study to assess the cause of the leakage or loss of crude.

“The most potent thing to do is to find the cause and stop it. Just blaming one another will leave the pollution there, which will still be contaminating the ground water and the entire area. This is not good for the people or the environment,” he said.

Bassey also compared the current oil spill in Ejigbo to what happened in Ogoniland, Rivers State.

“Two years ago, the United Nations Environment Programme showed that all the surface and ground water were polluted with layers of oil up to 8cm thick, so much so that you’d be wasting your time if you dug a borehole in Ogoniland,” he added.