By Yusuf Olukokun
A fresh oil spill from a pipeline of Shell Petroleum Development Company destroyed Bodo community in Gokana Local Government Area of Rivers State and also damaged farmlands on Thursday, July 4 2024.
According to reports, a similar case had happened in the last two months, at different locations in the area.
The affected residents have started clamouring for help from government, stating that majority of them are farmers and fishermen.
Eco Defence Alliance, a non-governmental organisation, has humanly called on Shell to find a permanent solution to the recurrent menace of oil spillage in the community.
Damian Gbogbara, Eco Defence Alliance Coordinator, said the latest spillage occurred on Thursday, July 4, 2024; around 12:45am in Bodo Community.
The Coordinator stated further that the oil spillage even occurred closer to the area it had earlier affected in the recent time.
He called on the Joint Investigation Visit (JIV) team to unravel the mystery behind the spillage from pipelines in order to avert any other crisis in due time.
In the statement he released, in a part, he said; “The JIV report will help to hold the companies to account and also served as evidence-based documents for possible litigation on the ecosystem destruction, and safe the fragile Bodo, Ogoni, and Niger Delta Environment, especially with the ongoing clean up exercise by the Bodo Mediation Initiative, beside the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project coordinated Clean Up gearing up to start in the area.”
However, he vibrantly called for transperency in the handling of oil spillage issues by JIV, purposefully to know or predict when such issue might spring up in the future.