Nigeria, one of Africa’s largest oil producers, needs twelve billion dollars ($12b) to clean up several years of oil spills in the Niger Delta region.
The development was revealed in a report by the Bayelsa State Oil and Environmental Commission.
It stated that Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited and Eni, an Italian oil company, were the sole culprits of oil spills in the Southern Bayelsa State for over twelve years.
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The Commission discovered that toxic pollutants from spills and gas flaring were many times higher than the safe limits in samples of soil, water, air, and residents’ blood.
The report blamed ICOs for neglect, inadequate road map, and strategy to end the oil-spills problem in the region.
It said:
“The report finds failures of strategy, prevention, response, and remediation by oil companies.”
Several ICOs have engaged in age-long legal battles with oil-producing communities without landmark victory.
The ICOs on the other hand said the oil thieves and illegal refineries were the cause of the “decade-age” oil spill problem.
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