A fresh oil spill has reportedly occurred in Bodo City, in Gokana Council (Ogoni) of Rivers State.

This is coming after multiple crude oil spills recently occurred in the area, as well as in two other communities in Aleto and Eteo, in Eleme Local Council of the state.

The latest spill, it was learnt, occurred on Friday, August 18, at the Sugi area of Bodo Community, close to where multiple oil spills were recorded in recent times on the trans-Niger Delta pipeline, operated by Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC) Ltd.

The Guardian gathered that two months after the Eteo oil spill occurred, the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) was yet to carry out the joint investigation on the cause of the spill.

Meanwhile, an environmentalist and Executive Director of Youths and Environmental Advocacy Centre (YEAC-Nigeria), Fyneface Dumnamene Fyneface, who confirmed the latest spill to journalists, in Port Harcourt, yesterday, said he would work with the community leadership and its people for Guinness World Records as the community with the highest number of crude oil spills in the world.

A statement signed by Fyneface noted that members of the organisation’s Youth Volunteers Network on Human Rights Defenders and Promoters in the Niger Delta and the Crude Oil Spill Alert System (COSAS) in the community said that the latest spill is allegedly caused by equipment failure.

The environmental advocacy organisation said it has lost count of oil spills from Bodo city alone, stressing that there is need to go beyond press statements that put these spills on record to seeking Guinness World Records for the community. The group also advocated naming and shaming those responsible for the spills to serve as deterrence to both indigenous and multinational oil companies operating in the region.

Fyneface said: “This will further help hold these companies to account on our ecosystem destruction and save fragile Bodo, Ogoni and Niger Delta communities, especially with the ongoing cleanup exercise by the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP).”

He, however, called on NOSDRA to immediately embark on a joint investigation visit (JIV) with Shell and other stakeholders to the spill site.

He emphasized that this should not be delayed, as the agency refused to carry out JIV on the June 18, 2023 oil spill in Eteo Community, in Eleme Council, till date. (The Guardian)

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