The fire from the gas flare at Izombe, in Oguta, Nigeria’s southeast state of Imo, is not soft or warm but intense, prickly and ferocious. Raised in a stack above every other object in the community and its neighbours, the tongue licks the skies with uneasy gentleness, glowing in a calculated sequence. It steals the night of its darkness and compromises the brightness of the day; heralds enticing beauty but takes away the sights of residents; flings wealth to the skies and leaves the poor poorer, hungry and angry.
Learnard Onyemaize, 47, is one of the residents of Mgbele – Izombe’s neighbouring community. He is not just hungry and angry, but dejected and frustrated. With nine children and a wife to feed, living has been the greatest of his fears, and feeding, a nightmare.
“I am at the mercy of my brothers and friends. Life has been frustrating”, he told Nigerian Tribune.
With his eyes partly shut and arms folded below his breasts, he sat on a wrecked white plastic chair that expressed the depth of poverty’s grip on the family, as the conversation with Nigerian Tribune went into full swing. He fought back tears, intermittently, as he went down memory lane.
“Life was not this bad”, he said. “I was feeding my family well. Look at my house I started. My family was happy because I was working.”
Leonard’s nightmares began when he started experiencing intense itches at the edges of his eyes. It then grew more intense with tears occasionally gushing even when he didn’t cry. His brother advised a visit to a healthcare centre, and he heeded the advice. On visit to the second hospital, the doctor asked him: “Do you live in an oil producing community?” At last, his fears were confirmed. The doctor, he said, confirmed his sight challenge, which has now worsened, was linked to the gas flaring in Izombe. “I had to stop my driving business and since then life has been a nightmare.”
The plight of Learnard resonates with many residents of Mgbele, whose health has been adversely affected, soil hardened, pushing crop yield to almost zero, river polluted and animals affected.
Gas flaring, first outlawed over 41 years ago in Nigeria, has been one of the major nightmares of oil producing communities, most predominant in the Niger Delta region, which Imo State is part of. Oil exploration and servicing companies, like Addax Petroleum which owns the flow station from where the flare goes up, have consistently called the bluff of the Nigerian government with its continued engagement in burning natural gas. Experts say, however, the government has not shown enough commitment to deter the companies; meanwhile advocacy groups have not relented in their campaigns.
Ineffective regulation
Crude oil discovery in Nigeria came with ups and downs – the boom in revenue and then the death it hands to host and neighbouring communities. About 800 million standard cubic feet (Mmscf) of gas is flared every day from approximately 144 gas flare points across Nigeria. Between November 2016 and November 2017, oil companies operating in the country flared a total of 301.69 billion standard cubic feet of gas, the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) says. These grim stats have exacerbated the carbon dioxide emission in the country previously at 82,634.2 Kt as of 2016, but increased to 107,570.0 Kt in 2017 and 110,690.0 Kt in 2018.
C02 emissions are those stemming from the burning of fossil fuels and the manufacture of cement. They include carbon dioxide produced during consumption of solid, liquid, and gas fuels and gas flaring.
But the Nigerian government in its efforts to hold the international oil companies to utilise the flared gas and reduce the effects of the activities on the communities, in 1979, promulgated the Associated Gas Re-Injection Amendment Decree99 of 1979 to compel oil and gas producing companies to submit proposals for the utilisation of Associated Gas in their operating areas and stop gas flaring, except by express permission of the Minister of Petroleum Resources. The decree prescribed that where gas is flared without obtaining the permission of the Minister in writing it amounts to an offence resulting in the forfeiture of concessions granted in relation to the field(s) or fields in connection to which the offence was committed.
Then, to deter the companies from continuing with gas flaring, the government imposed fines, which have been increased over many years. But the fines, experts say, are soft. It was 2 Kobo per million thousand standard cubic feet (Mscf) in 1985 and was increased to 50 kobo in 1990.
Eight years later it was increased to N10 per Mscf and later $3.50 in 2011. The most recent regulation is Flare Gas (Prevention of Waste and Pollution) Regulations, 2018. This regulation which was issued by President Muhammadu Buhari as the Minister of Petroleum Resources, provides a legal framework for the protection of the environment against the effects of gas flaring, prevent waste of gas and the creation of social and economic benefits to Nigeria from gas flares.
The regulation prescribed a fee of $2.00 per 28.317 standard cubic metres (one thousand standard cubic feet) of gas flared, payable to the Federal Government for gas flaring by a Producer from any Oil Mining Lease area or Marginal Field that produces 10,000 barrels or more of oil per day. And a fee $0.05 per 28.317 standard cubic metres (one thousand standard cubic feet) of gas flared, payable to the Federal Government for gas flaring by a Producer from any Oil Mining Lease area or Marginal Field that produces less than 10,000 barrels of oil per day. With these in place, gas flaring has gone on, environmental pollution has not stopped and the residents have continued to bear the brunt.
Lazarus Anyaegbu was born in Mbgele more than seven decades ago. With only primary education, he decided to stay back in the community and make farming his trade. Few years after starting, he made some fortunes because of two factors: his youthfulness and the fertility of Mgbele land. The bountifulness of his harvests and fortunes made from sales of the products encouraged him to stick to farming, and he recalled not regretting his decision.
But the fortune from farming has taken a downward spiral. Crop yields have gone low and harvests are scanty. The current situation is driving poverty and hunger as most residents of the community are smallholder farmers who rely on nothing else for survival. “Before these oil company people came and destroyed our land, our crops used to be big. I survived in this community as a farmer with good harvests. We used to have barns of yam in every family and people were eating very well”, he said. “See our youths and women, they can’t even farm. Not that they are lazy but crops are not growing.”
Insistent sneezes and coughs, intermittently, stole some minutes of the conversation with Lazarus. And he would, on more than one occasion, quip, “this cough and sneezes are not because I am getting older; check even the young men; these oil company people are killing us.”
The research of A.O. Lawanson, A.M.A. lmevbore and V. O. Fanimokun of the Obafemi Awolowo Univeristy on the impacts of gas flare on the surrounding crops in the Niger Delta confirmed the complaint of Lazarus and other residents of Mgbele that growth of farm crops has been retarded by waste-gas flares.
The research found that such retardation of growth, measured as decreases in the dimensions of cassava tubers, correspond with decreases in the levels of certain nutrient constituents, such as starch and ascorbic acid (Vitamim C). “It is thus clear that, in addition to causing an overall retardation of the growth of plants. Waste-gas flares also reduced the nutritional quality of the crop harvest. Since the only physical environmental factor that was found to increase as the distance from the flares decreased is soil temperature, it is concluded that the gas flares exert their effects, at least in part, through their effect on the temperature of the surrounding”.
A similar research which studied the impact of gas flaring on cassava productivity by Morrison Atuma and Vincent Ojeh of Delta State Polytechnic also found that soils found in places close to gas flaring sites have high composition of soil temperature and are acidic. “The soil electrical conductivity, Phosphorous, Nitrogen, Potassium and Sodium were very low. Moreover, the yield of cassava increases with a corresponding increase in distances from flare site,” it said.
This is consistent with the analysis of Dr Sylvester Okwosi, senior lecturer of Petroleum Engineering at Federal University of Petroleum Resources. He explained to Nigerian Tribune that any community within 10 kilometres from a gas flaring site, which emits carbon (iv) oxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (NO2), water vapour and sulphur dioxide (SO2), stands the risk of severe environmental hazards and its residents would be prone to health challenges.
‘I have abandoned my fishing boat, net’
It was 5:47 pm when Nigerian Tribune got to the residence of Okechukwu Anyaegbu. Surprised as to what the visit held, he sat on a wooden chair, crossed his legs and watched with prying eyes filled with suspicion. After some minutes of introduction, what seemed like a grin appeared on his face, then disappeared. In a few minutes, Mr Anyaegbu took Nigerian Tribune on a ride to his new world of crushed dreams and expectations.
“I used to catch many fishes until we started seeing dead fishes on the river, every time”, he began. “See my net and boat, I have abandoned them because we don’t get anything anymore. Ask people in this village the kind of fish I used to catch. Every morning many people who are not even from Mgbele would come here to buy fish from me. But now you only see dead fishes every time and the little ones remaining don’t even come close again.” Okechukwu’s desolate boat reminds him of the good old past, his present helplessness and the bleakness of the future. Food comes scantily and the joy of living has been buried in sadness.
A community’s nightmare
His Royal Highness, Eze Abraham Odika is the traditional ruler of Mgbele. Having retired as a senior Police Officer, his experience in conflict management has on many occasions saved the community some serious confrontations. He recalled a time youths of the community geared up to confront the firm for exacerbating their sufferings and neglecting them but his ability to assure them of his intervention calmed frayed nerves.
“We no longer use rain water and our river for anything. When it rains, we see black particles (soot) and patches of oil on the water surface. Initially we were using it that way until we were warned. But the one we can’t run away from is the air we breathe. We are helpless”, Eze Odika cried out.
ChiemezieNwakire of Edinburgh Napier University, in 2014 published a research on the quality of air residents of Izombe and its neighbours, which Mgbele is one of, breathe. The result of the research revealed that there was high value of sulphur dioxide (SO2), Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and Carbon monoxide (CO) attributed to the constant flaring of natural gas in the area. Atmospheric Sulphur, Nitrogen and Carbon one force to combine with elemental Oxygen forming acidic oxides which dissolve in rain water to produce dilute Sulphuric, Nitrous/Nitric and Carbonic acids, the research discovered.
This pollution, Dr Okwosi said, leads to diverse health complications. “Breathing such air is like taking poison. Although it may not be immediate, issues like blurred vision and respiratory issues are commonplace.”
It could also lead to death, as MIT’s 2013 study on air pollution found. It established a line between early death and air pollution. “In the past five to 10 years, the evidence linking air-pollution exposure to risk of early death has really solidified and gained scientific and political traction”, it said.
On the other hand,a study by Professor Georgewill of the department of Pharmacology, University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital demonstrated that infertility can be triggered by hydrocarbon poisoning – a common byproduct of gas flaring. While specialist consultant surgeon, Dr Furo Green claims that lung cancer associated with gas flaring-driven air pollution could affect people close to gas flaring sites.
Addax Petroleum Development (Nigeria) Ltd operates the flow station in Izombe, Oguta LGA, Imo State, where the gas flare site, which reportedly affects the community is located.
Addax denies complicity
Reacting to the issues in an email to Nigerian Tribune, the company, through its Manager, External Affairs and Government Relations, Adeyemi Adeyinka, denied complicity in any form of environmental pollution but admits to having its pipelines in the community. It also denied that its gas flare has caused health complications to Mgbele residents.
According to Adeyinka, “Addax Petroleum does not have oil wells in Mgbele community, but we do have a pipeline within our Izombe /Ebocha Right of Way, a part of which is situated in the Mgbele community. Addax Petroleum emphatically refutes the allegations of health and environmental damage as these allegations cannot be scientifically sustained considering the location of the relevant pipeline.”
On allegations of neglect, the firm said it “provides annual scholarships to tertiary and post-primary students of Mgbele community.”
and then