Opinion by Dr. Inenyo Esinte
Twon-Brass is a serene, peaceful, picturesque, community in Brass Local Government Area of Bayelsa State. The community is a beehive of fishing and socioeconomic activities due to its unique location, as one of the southernmost human habitations bordering the Atlantic Ocean.
Twon-Brass is the host community of the Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC) Crude Oil Export Terminal sited along the Brass River, an estuary of River Nun, by the Atlantic Ocean, on Brass Island, in the Niger Delta, South-South region of Nigeria.
The terminal has a storage capacity of 3,558,000 barrels of crude oil with two(2) single point mooring buoys for loading tankers in the Atlantic Ocean.
AGIP is a subsidiary of the Italian multinational group ENI, that formed a joint venture (JV) partnership with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and established the Nigeria Agip Oil Company (NAOC) which commenced operations in 1962 in Nigeria.
The Italian parent company, ENI, has now divested itself of NAOC, having sold it to the Nigerian company, Oando PLC, at a whooping sum of 783 million U.S Dollars. The deal is reported to have been formally completed on the 22nd of August, 2024.
Since NAOC’s commencement of operations at Twon-Brass, the company has spilled more than 2 million barrels of crude oil into the Brass canal and river, causing unfathomable damage to aquatic lives, environmental assets, which also gravely affects the socioeconomic life and health of the indigenes and residents of Twon-Brass and other neighbouring communities, fishing being the predominant occupation of the Brassians.
For those who live in and around Brass Terminal at Twon-Brass, the persistent hydrocarbon smell in the air they breath is symptomatic and a tip of the iceberg of the operational age-long frequent crude oil spills into the Brass canal and river by AGIP.
Now that AGIP has been divested and fully formally acquired by Oando Plc, the big questions to ask are:
1. Who will pay the price for the decades long operational crude oil spills, chronic environmental damage and degradation by AGIP into the Brass Canal and river?
2. Who will mitigate, remediate, and restore the Brass canal/river and aquatic environment damaged by AGIP’s age-long crude oil spills?
3. What proactive steps is the King, the Chiefs, Elders, youths and women groups of Twon Brass and neighbouring communities who are victims of AGIP’s environmental crimes proffering to hold AGIP to account and ensure environmental justice for the host community?
4. Are the Kings, Chiefs, Elders, youths, and women groups of Twon-Brass and neighbouring affected and impacted communities aware of the huge damage meted and committed against their environment, health and socio-economic life by the age-long crude oil spills by AGIP?
5. Did AGIP divest to indirectly evade and transfer its environmental crimes to Oando Plc?
6. Is Oando Plc willing and ready to shoulder, and pay for the environmental crimes and injustice committed by AGIP?
7. Will the King, Chiefs, youths and women groups factor in and take as a priority the environmental mitigation, remediation and restoration measures in their MOU, if any yet, with Oando Plc to bear and pay for the environmental crimes of AGIP as part of negotiations with Oando Plc?
8. Will Oando Plc operate differently in a manner and approach that will be environmentally friendly, safe and sustainable?
9. Will the Federal Government and particularly the Minister of Petroleum who, as is often the case, is an indigene of Bayelsa State and from an oil producing area also do nothing to protect the interests of Brass and other affected communities?
10. Will the Bayelsa State Government also just sit back and do nothing while its communities suffer the brunt of the oil production that the state government gets its stupendous monthly revenue allocations from?
The above questions should be pondered upon and provided with the requisite responses and answers by all concerned indigenes and residents of Twon-Brass and other neighboring communities who over the years are affected by AGIP’s frequent and continued crude oil spills and discharges of environmental contaminants into Brass canal and river.
This article is an advocacy to all concerned Twon-Brass indigenes, the Bayelsa State Government through the Ministries of Environment and Mineral Resources, Federal Ministries of Environment and Petroleum Resources, and NOSDRA to hold AGIP to be responsible and account for its decades-long operational environmental crimes committed against the people of Twon-Brass and other neighbouring communities in Bayelsa State.
Dr. Inenyo Esinte is an environmental rights activist, social analyst and commentator.
