
Host Communities Youths in the Niger Delta Region under the auspices of the HOSTCOM Youth Council of Nigeria have said urgent steps must be taken to salvage the host communities of Buguma in Asare-Toru Local Government Area of Rivers State and its environs over the recent fire outbreak that occurred at an oil well head in the area.
The youths therefore blamed the NNPCL/SPDC Joint Venture (JV) owners of the oil wellhead 008 for abandoning the fire incident stating that the cause of the fire was due to the corrosive nature of the pipelines and oil infrastructures mostly situated in the salty swamp water.
The President of the HOSTCON YOUTH COUNCIL OF NIGERIA, Comrade Fiawei E. Pathfinder, in a statement issued on Saturday via electronic mail, blamed the NNPCL/SPDC Joint Venture (JV).
The group also blamed the reluctant and slow reaction of the NNPCL/SPDC Joint Venture (JV) to the incident which has led vandals to take advantage of the situation.
The statement reads: “The fire incident that has kept the entire Buguma and its environs in a terrible situation, could have been avoided had it been the NNPCL/SPDC JV had quarterly carried out checks on pipelines and oil infrastructures mostly situated in the salty swamp water where these pipelines and other facilities have been laid for decades.
“In our emergency and crucial meeting on the unfortunate devastating fire incident, the President of Host Communities Producing Oil Gas and Pipeline Impacted States Youth Council Of Nigeria with the entire national leadership and that of the Board of Trustee of the HOSTCON YOUTH COUNCIL OF NIGERIA totally and absolutely condemn the lackadaisical attitude and negligence by the SPDC/NNPCL JV who are the companies responsible for the OML 008 Oil wellhead in the Buguma host community.
“We express pain and deep lamentation over the devastating fire incident and commiserate with the people of the Buguma host community and environs who have been impacted by the fire.
“Since the life-threatening dangerous fire outbreak occurred in the Buguma community, SPDC/NNPCL has never paid attention nor did they quickly send in their emergency fire incident response team to be on the ground to ascertain the level of the devastation caused by the fire incident.
“The fire outbreak has caused the people of Buguma host community and its neighbouring host communities who cannot do their fishing business and continue with other means of livelihood to survive.
“We are pained that SPDC/NNPCL JV deliberately ignored the people of Buguma community and the entire Kalabari Kingdom who are major oil and gas producing communities and Kingdom that contribute a high figure of crude oil and cubic of gas on a daily basis to sustain the economy.
“The truth is that it is the decay of these oil infrastructures and their negligence because there are no proper structures that have been put in place to crosscheck and ascertain if they are in good shape or not.
“If there’s a timely checking of them maybe every four months or maybe thrice in a year to know their state, all these would not happen but the company doesn’t do it. Now, they are coming up to pick offence that the fire outbreak was caused by illegal bunkers who attempted to vandalize the wellhead.
“So, we must put the blame on the negligence and decay of the oil pipelines that are long overdue for maintenance which are operated by SPDC and NNPCL.
” We therefore demand that SPDC/NNPCL should immediately construct housing structures and health care facilities for the Buguma host community and its environs.
“We call on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu who is the substantive Minister of Petroleum Resources to set up a Panel of Inquiry drawn from the presidency, law enforcement officers and Federal Ministry of Justice to ascertain the cause of this devastating and life-threatening fire outbreak.
“Anybody found culpable should be punished adequately to serve as a deterrent to other IOCs and a proper remediation of the waterways and the entire environment must be carried out.
“We demand urgent maintenance and replacement of the decayed oil infrastructures. All the members of the host communities affected must be adequately compensated by NNPCL/SPDC JV and the Provision of pipe-borne water should be provided for the Buguma host community and others.
“At this juncture, we want to boldly state that if our demands are not met, we will take a drastic decision as Council after due consultation.”