OIL SPILL: Idu – Ekpeye Community Send SOS To Govt, Agip
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By Oyagiri Chime
The people of Idu-Ekpeye Community in Ahoada West Local Government Area of Rivers State have appealed to the government and multi-national oil companies operating in the community to save them from extinction.
Spokesman of the community, Chief Ndukwem Jacob Ubaji, while speaking with _Bochnews_ , lamented that an oil spill from an Agip pipeline since May 2020 is yet to be cleaned up and the land remediated.
According to Ubaji, the spill devastated farmlands, cash crops and aquatic life.
He said, “Oil spillage has destroyed our land. Our aquatic life is gone, fish traps are no longer there, our farms are no longer productive, our economic trees are destroyed.”
“In all these, the company is doing nothing to redeem the land. We are calling on Agip to clean up and remediate our land”
He lamented that in spite of being a host community to multinational oil companies, the people still wallow in poverty with the youths roaming around without jobs.
“Before now, they claimed that we had no qualified personnel for them to employ, but we now have trained graduates in those areas, yet they refused to employed them,” the retired Assistant Superintendent of Prisons lamented.
The community spokesman also revealed that the youths have not benefited from any scholarship, skills acquisition programme or any kind of support from the company, that would have channelled the energy of the youths to positive use.
He appealed to the government and multi-national oil companies to come to their aid, noting that; “If our youths are employed or empowered, social vices will be minimized”.
He called on the community youths to restrain from taking the laws into their hands.
Efforts to get an official response from Agip through its public relations personnel proved abortive.
