WOMEN IN NIGER DELTA DEMAND RIGHTS FROM OIL EXPLORERS IN THEIR COMMUNITIES

DESIRE LORDSON

Women in the Niger Delta region who gathered to demand for their rights from Oil explorers in their communities, have been urged to get adequate and concrete facts on the hazards that oil extraction has caused them.

This was the heart of the issue at the Women’s Mock Environmental Tribunal in Port Harcourt.

Some of the women from Rumuekpe Community in Rivers State, and Otuabagi Community in Bayelsa State, where crude oil was first discovered in Nigeria, in 1956, demanding that the environmental done caused by oil exploration in their communities, should be given urgent attention.

They called for the clean up of their farm lands, lamenting that they could hardly eat nor earn a living from their poor farm yields due to the impact of oil on their environment, which has led to poverty and child marriage, as well as health hazards in the area.

In her submission at the mock Tribunal, a Port Harcourt based Lawyer, Mrs. Rosemary Inko – Dokubo, urged the women to take time in getting and documenting their evidence properly, pointing that the women had genuine cases as regards the Petroleum Industry Act, P.I.A. which stipulates cleanup of polluted sites by the oil explorers, as well as compensation with alternative source of livelihood to the victims

Director of a Nongovernmental Organization, Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Centre, Dr. Emem Okon, insisted that the health implication of the Report on the environmental pollution on the women, should not be treated with leivity.

Dr. Okon said, “Some of these cases, we are going to seek legal redress and it is also very important for Government to show concern over what is happening to their citizens, by carrying out periodic assessment pf the health of the environment.”

She added that, “Kebetkache conducted a research in 2022, on the effects of oil extraction in Otuabagi community, the host of Oloibiri Oil well 1 and oil well 2; the explosive one is that eighty women whose blood samples were taken, have hydrocarbon in their blood, we cannot keep quiet, nobody should keep quiet, even Government should not keep quiet.”

The Tribunal by Kebetkache and WOMIN, had community women from Eleme, Okuzi, Rumuekpe in Rivers State and Otuabagi in Bayelsa State.