The Nigerian Navy says it will continue to support the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) to curb the menace of oil spills in the country.
The Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ibas said this last week in Abuja when the Director -General of NOSDRA and some of his directors paid him a courtesy visit.
“We have been addressing the consequences of oil spill that we all know are deliberately caused by criminals and saboteurs.
“There is hardly a day that passes without the Navy shutting down illegal refineries as well as vandalised pipes and abandoned oil well.
“Because if these criminals do not have the means of getting the oil, it will slow down their effort at attempting to steal and refine the products.”
Ibas congratulated the agency for the wonderful job the staff had been doing.
“ The efforts you have carried out is noble, I want to assure you that when you need us, be rest assured that we will provide the needed support.
“The Navy has been partnering with your agency and we have been concerned with the devastation of oil spills in the country.
“The statistics and the records we have, showed that something serious needs to be done, therefore, we must come together to address the menace being done in the environment.”
The Navy Chief, however, solicited the support of all stakeholders in keeping the environment safe and secured.
“It’s a campaign that we are going to solicit the support of all stakeholders to be able to address the menace,’’ he said.
Earlier, the director-general of NOSDRA, Mr Idris Musa said that the agency had been embarking on consultations to sensitise the people of the communities on the dangers and implications of oil spills.
“We want to let the community people to understand what dangers there are in the case of oil spill and when oil spills, it goes into the rivers that they drink or use for domestic purposes.
“It also goes to farmland, to the creeks and to the fish, all of these places are endangered and we need them all the time to sustain our daily livelihood.
“It destroys the environment, endangers your life as a person and causes some social and economic dislocation to the community where you come from and Nigeria at large.”
He said that the agency would continue to consult and give details on the issues of impending disaster if people in communities do not stop or point fingers at those who engage in the criminal activities.
“We are going to be discussing with the Independent Marketers Association of Nigeria, Major Oil Marketers of Nigeria, and the Depot Marketers Association of Nigeria.
“We want to let them know our next line of action so that when we get to them it won’t be strange to them.
“We will sensitise them and get them to understand what role they should play to avoid polluting ground waters: because ground water remediation is very costly, more difficult and takes more time, we need to begin to sensitise them in these areas too.”
The NOSDRA boss, however solicited the support of the Navy, saying the agency had been having a lot of challenges, especially on the country’s water ways, the creeks in the Niger-Delta.
“We do not want to be having oil spills all the time because our vision is to have a zero tolerance to oil spill.
“It’s unfortunate that in spite of the efforts, we still see some of these criminals finding their ways into our water ways to puncture our pipe lines.
“The recent case is in April where the 24inch and the 28inch Trans-Niger pipelines were cut by some miscreants and another one in Ondo state, the fire is still burning as we speak.”
He therefore asked for more support from the Navy to have a very safe and conducive environment.
“ The way we now operate and most of our oil companies are moving off shore and land shore, we now see that the task of maintaining a very secure marine environment cannot be over emphasised.
“So we want to make sure that the custodians of the National Oil Spill Contingency plan are in touch with all our major stakeholders.”
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