By Douglas Blessing, Port Harcourt
The Executive Director of Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), Nnimmo Bassey, has urged the Federal Government to ensure that indigenes of Goi community in Gokana Local Government Area of Rivers State, who were sacked from their community over oil pollution are returned back to their ancestral home.
Bassey made the call when he recently, led some foreign environmentalists and members of the Oilwatch to Goi and other communities affected by oil and gas pollution, as well as communities undergoing remediation in Ogoniland.
The HOMEF boss regretted that Goi community does not have an oil well, flow station, gas flare or oil installation apart from the pipeline at the fridge nearer to Bodo, yet had the worst pollution in their river which has also affected their land.
Bassey explained “This community is a prime example. Goi has been neglected.The UNEP report did not mention Goi at all and you don’t hear Goi appearing in the cleanup in this territory but this is the prime place that the cleanup ought to have started.
“The Goi people are living as refugees in other communities. You cannot stay here for long and remain healthy because the hydrocarbon is very thick in the atmosphere, in the air that we are breathing”.
“The oil spill and fire that occured here did not happen because they have oil installation but because the ecosystem, the creeks are all inter connected. This is why they talk of host communities that have oil in the Niger Delta, is absolutely nonsense.
“Goi community needs attention and government should not wait any further before reacting. Whether UNEP shut or open it eye, government cannot shut it eye to Goi community”.
Bassey frowned at the way multinationals operate in the Niger Delta region with impunity, polluting the environment through their alleged careless activities.
“In the terms of pollution in the Niger Delta, the refineries are also complicit. So, there is no part of the petroleum industry activites that is safe. In terms of prospect for sesmic activity on land and in the water, they disorient big acquatic animals”, Bassey added.
Chief Eric Dooh, paramount ruler of Goi community who narrated the incident that drove them away from their ancestral home, regretted that 16 years after the pollution experience which he said claimed all their source of livelihood, that federal government has not shown serious concern to their plight.
The monarch regretted that instead of the government to come to their aid, it was non governmental organisations and some environmentalists that have been fighting for justice for the indigenes.
Dooh narrated: “The year the spill first occurred in Goi, my home community was in August 2003, and it emaneted from the Trans-Niger pipeline about a kilometer from my community and we vacated in 2005.
“There is no oil well in my community but because of the tider flows of environment, the spill coming from Bodo is carried by the high tide into my community and spill from Bomu oil field because of the topography of the area, it flows downwards through the sea into my father’s investment in Goi”.
Also, during visit to other impacted areas undergoing remediation, Kpobari Nafo, Information officer with Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP), revealed that the cleanup is in progress in Ogoniland, adding that the agency was concentrating on less complex site and have achieved tremendous success.
He explained that the complex site in K-Dere Gokana and other similar sites would be handled after treating the less polluted areas in Ogoni.
Nafo further disclosed that Hyprep have given more attention to drinkable water supply, owing that majority of the impacted areas are suffering from serious pollution which had contaminated their water making it more poisonous to drink or use for cooking.
